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 SOUTH AFRICA OF TO-DAY
 
 SOUTH AFRICA OF 
 TO-DAY 
 
 BY 
 
 CAPTAIN FRANCIS YOUNGHUSBAND, C.I.E. 
 
 INDIAN STAFF CORPS 
 LATE SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT OF "THE TIMES " IN SOUTH AFRICA 
 
 GOLD MEDALLIST, ROYAL GEOGRAPHICAL SOCIETY 
 AUTHOR OF "THE HEART OF A CONTINENT" AND "THE RELIEF OF CHITRAL" 
 
 WITH ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 MACMILLAN AND CO., LIMITED 
 
 NEW YORK: THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 
 1898 
 
 A II rights reserved
 
 
 RICHARD CLAY AND SONS, LIMITED, 
 LONDON AND BUNGAY.
 
 PREFACE 
 
 I AM indebted to the management of The Times 
 for their permission to republish the letters and 
 telegrams addressed to them during my two 
 missions to South Africa ; and I would wish to 
 take this opportunity of recording my appreciation 
 of the support invariably afforded me in carrying 
 out the duty with which they had intrusted me. 
 
 V 
 
 F. E. YOUNGHUSBAND 
 October, 1897
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 PACE 
 
 INTRODUCTION . . I 
 
 CHAPTER II 
 
 RESOURCES OF THE TRANSVAAL 8 
 
 CHAPTER III 
 THE BOERS 19 
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 
 THE BOER SYSTEM OF GOVERNMENT 31 
 
 CHAPTER V 
 
 THE UITLANDERS 42 
 
 CHAPTER VI 
 
 THE RELATIONS BETWEEN BOERS AND UITLANDERS 52 
 
 CHAPTER VII 
 THE CRISIS IN JOHANNESBURG 60 
 
 CHAPTER VIII 
 
 THE REVOLT AND RAID 74
 
 CONTENTS vii 
 
 PAGE 
 
 CHAPTER IX 
 AFTER THE REVOLT 87 
 
 CHAPTER X 
 THE TRANSVAAL REVISITED JOO 
 
 CHAPTER XI 
 THE OUTLOOK IN THE TRANSVAAL Ill 
 
 CHAPTER XII 
 RHODESIA 121 
 
 CHAPTER XIII 
 
 THE OUTLOOK IN RHODESIA 139 
 
 CHAPTER XIV 
 INDIAN IMMIGRATION TO NATAL 153 
 
 CHAPTER XV 
 THE OUTLOOK IN SOUTH AFRICA 163 
 
 INDEX . . 175
 
 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 COMMISSIONER STREET, JOHANNESBURG Tofacep. 4 
 
 MEETING OF BOERS AT THE MONUMENT OF INDEPEND- 
 ENCE, KRUGERSDORF 25 
 
 DOORNFONTEIN AND JOHANNESBURG 75 
 
 PRETORIA 79 
 
 COLONEL RHODES'S HOUSE, JOHANNESBURG 95 
 
 WIVES WAITING OUTSIDE PRETORIA JAIL, MAY 29TH, 
 
 1896 97 
 
 CHURCH STREET, PRETORIA 107 
 
 VIEW NEAR MASSI KESSI 126 
 
 CAPE CART EN ROUTE TO SALISBURY 129 
 
 TREKKING IN MASHONALAND 140 
 
 HOTEL, MASHONALAND 142 
 
 CECIL J. RHODES 147
 
 SOUTH AFRICA OF TO-DAY 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 INTRODUCTION 
 
 AFTER more than twelve years of wandering in 
 India, China, and Central Asia, and after having 
 but very recently returned from the Chitral cam- 
 paign on the Indian frontier, I had expected to have 
 passed in England some little of the two years' leave 
 of absence to which I had for so long been looking 
 forward. But trouble was brewing in South Africa, 
 and when the Times asked me to go out to the Cape 
 in their interest, I could not resist the temptation of 
 accepting the invitation. 
 
 My only qualification for the work must have been 
 that I knew absolutely nothing about it My old 
 regiment, the King's Dragoon Guards, had taken part 
 in the Zulu war, and afterwards formed a portion of 
 the garrison of the Transvaal ; so, from conversation 
 at the mess table, I had gathered some hazy ideas of 
 places in it, and I had in my mind some crude and dis- 
 connected scraps of information regarding its recent 
 history the Boer war, the discovery of gold in the
 
 2 SOUTH AFRICA OF TO-DAY CHAP. 
 
 Transvaal, the rise of the Chartered Company, and 
 the Matabele campaign. But on all essential points 
 in the political situation, and even the geography, I 
 was as ignorant as South Africans would be of the 
 Indian frontier. I had only this advantage, that for 
 the last ten years almost my sole occupation in life 
 had been travelling an little known countries and 
 reporting what I saw and heard there. So as soon 
 as I had put the last remaining touches on my book 
 of travels then about to be published, I eagerly read 
 up the works on South African history and travel 
 which I had brought on board for the purpose 
 of forming in my mind a groundwork on which 
 to build. 
 
 On my arrival in Cape Town, in the beginning of 
 December, I found the situation in the Transvaal 
 was fast reaching a crisis. Mr. Lionel Phillips, the 
 President of the Chamber of Mines at Johannes- 
 burg, had but recently made a speech in which he 
 detailed the disabilities under which the huge gold- 
 mining industry laboured, and hinted in strong terms 
 that, were concessions of some sort not granted 
 by the Boer Government, the Uitlanders (or foreign 
 residents) might be compelled to resort to force to 
 gain their ends ; and everywhere people were saying 
 that trouble was pending. 
 
 But I stayed for a few days only in Cape Town, 
 and then hurried on to Johannesburg. A long 
 tedious railway journey of three nights and two 
 days brought me at last to this remarkable town, of
 
 I INTRODUCTION 3 
 
 which I found I had previously formed no accurate 
 conception. 
 
 For two days we had been passing over first the 
 weird and desolate KARROO, and then the limitless 
 prairies of the Orange Free State. Occasionally a 
 solitary farmhouse would be seen, but seldom any- 
 thing approaching in size to a village ; and only one 
 small town Bloemfontein was passed in the whole 
 distance from Cape Town to Johannesburg. At 
 last, on the morning of the third day, springing sud- 
 denly out of the same rolling prairies as before, we 
 saw tall iron chimneys, the lofty headgears and 
 corrugated iron buildings of mines ; and now we 
 were close upon the GOLDEN CITY. The train 
 crawled on, we rolled into a maze of corrugated iron 
 shanties of every shape and size and divided into 
 square blocks by long straight dusty roads, and 
 we had arrived in Johannesburg, the scene of the 
 revolution that was to be. 
 
 Those who are acquainted with the towns in the 
 Western States of America can probably form an 
 idea of what sort of place Johannesburg is. But 
 never having visited the United States or any 
 newly-formed colony, I was astonished at the ex- 
 tremes it presented in every particular except one. 
 There was squalor and luxury ; there was dirt 
 outside and cleanliness within ; there were funny 
 little shanties built of biscuit tins nailed together, 
 and there were palatial business offices and private 
 residences ; there were low dirty stores and shops 
 
 B 2
 
 4 SOUTH AFRICA OF TO-DAY CHAP. 
 
 which would not be out of place in Regent Street ; 
 there were black men and white ; eager busy men 
 and listless loafers. In everything else there was 
 contrast ; but there was no contrast to the new ; 
 there was no old not even old men. The whole 
 town had been in existence for less than a dozen 
 years, and whatever there was had been collected 
 and constructed in that time. Here it was, with a 
 population of 50,000 whites and 50,000 blacks all 
 keen, energetic, pushing except those few who had 
 already been crushed under in the struggle for 
 wealth. And this was the town I had come 6,000 
 miles by water and 1,000 miles by land to see, and 
 which was now on the brink of a revolution. 
 
 That with a pushing, enterprising population like 
 this at Johannesburg, yearly increasing in numbers 
 and yearly feeling more acutely the weight of the 
 heavy Boer Government on the top of them, a 
 revolution must some day take place if an outlet 
 were not given to their outflowing energy, had for 
 many years been recognised. 
 
 As far back as 1890, Sir Charles Dilke, in his 
 Problems of Greater Britain, ventured to foretell 
 that before half-a-dozen years should pass President 
 Kruger would either have to grant concessions or 
 face a revolution. 
 
 Nor is it any secret that successive British 
 Governments, Liberal as well as Conservative, had 
 felt it necessary to consider such an eventuality and 
 the steps it would necessitate to prevent a general
 
 I INTRODUCTION 5 
 
 disturbance to the peace of South Africa. Now, 
 therefore, when they were on the verge of a crisis, 
 I eagerly sought out those who could inform me 
 best upon the situation. 
 
 In Johannesburg there is considerable difficulty 
 in arriving at the truth upon any given point, but 
 there is no difficulty whatever in getting a man to 
 express the views which he individually holds for 
 the time being upon any question ; and by a process 
 of balancing one is enabled to arrive approximately 
 at the spot where the centre of gravity really stands. 
 Such men as Charles Leonard and Lionel Phillips 
 the one the chairman of the political organisation 
 known as the Transvaal National Union, and the 
 other the chairman of the Johannesburg Chamber 
 of Mines were of course at that time most pro- 
 nounced in their views upon the situation ; and if 
 opinions differed as to the means which should be 
 taken to secure a redress of the grievances which 
 the Uitlander population held against the Boer 
 Government there was a universal opinion that 
 legitimate grievances did exist. It was very gener- 
 ally felt that the ignorant, slow-moving Government 
 of the Boers was not precisely the one best adapted 
 for the guidance and control of an intelligent and 
 enterprising mining population, and that until the 
 Government could be made to move faster and 
 conform more fully to the spirit of the majority of 
 the population it controlled, the mining industry 
 could not prosper to the extent which might be
 
 SOUTH AFRICA OF TO-DAY CHAP. 
 
 expected from the richness of the country. And 
 these material resources of the Transvaal being the 
 basis upon which the whole fabric of its prosperity 
 rests, and upon which all calculation as to its future 
 development depends, I will first set forth, as 
 reliably as I was able to obtain them, the 
 details on it. It was the gold which attracted the 
 Uitlander population to the Transvaal. It is the 
 gold which they extract that furnishes yearly the 
 revenue of five millions to the former pauper 
 government of the Boers. And it is the gold and 
 other mineral resources which will keep the popula- 
 tion there and attract more men to the Transvaal. 
 If the gold is likely to "pinch, out," and if there 
 prove to be no other mineral resources in the 
 country, there would scarcely be sufficient reason to 
 resort to revolutions in order to improve the method 
 of government. But if, as will be shown, there te, 
 to a certainty, hundreds of millions of pounds 
 sterling of gold hidden in the Transvaal, and with 
 such facilities in regard to climate, water supply, and 
 labour as make the obtaining of that gold perfectly 
 feasible ; if besides the gold there prove to be vast 
 quantities of coal and iron in juxtaposition, besides 
 many and other lesser minerals ; and if, in addition, 
 there are fair agricultural possibilities ; then those 
 who are engaged in developing these vast resources 
 might be expected to demand that the government 
 of the country should treat their efforts with sym- 
 pathy and encouragement ; and European nations
 
 I INTRODUCTION 7 
 
 who have to look out now for suitable fields of 
 emigration for their surplus population must be 
 interested in seeing that one of the fairest still 
 remaining is not ruined and wasted through mal- 
 administration.
 
 CHAPTER II 
 
 RESOURCES OF THE TRANSVAAL 
 
 OF the suitability of the climate of the Transvaal 
 to European colonisation the experience of the 
 Boers gives ample proof. On the vast rolling 
 plains of the high veldt situated at an elevation of 
 from 4,000 to 5,000 feet above sea-level, the climate 
 is very similar to that of Southern Europe, though 
 neither quite so hot in summer nor so cold in 
 winter as the climate of Italy. The heat of 
 summer is tempered by rain, and the winter is dry 
 and sunny. That the climate is altogether so 
 productive of energy as that of Europe is, I 
 think, open to doubt. The rarity of the atmo- 
 sphere, due to the height above sea-level, the 
 extreme dryness, and the incessant staring sunshine, 
 may perhaps be found to conduce toward a certain 
 listlessness and laziness of character. Still, the 
 Boers, who have been born and bred here, and 
 who belong to families which have been settled in 
 South Africa for a couple of centuries, are as strong 
 and robust as the average European. It may
 
 CH. II RESOURCES OF THE TRANSVAAL 9 
 
 therefore be taken as an established fact that the 
 climate of the Transvaal, exclusive of the low- 
 lying districts, is well adapted to European 
 colonisation ; and on the highlands of the country 
 there is room for two or three millions of settlers. 
 
 In regard to the mineral resources of the country 
 the marvellous production of gold of which it is 
 capable is well known. Last year the Transvaal 
 produced gold to the value of eight and-a-half 
 millions about one-fifth of the total production 
 of gold in the world, and equalling the production 
 of the United States and Australia respectively. 
 Moreover, the amount of annual production in- 
 creases year by year. Since 1890 it has increased 
 at the rate of ,1,200,000 a year, and, with the 
 number of new stamps being put up, it has been 
 calculated that with good administration ^26,000,000 
 annually might be produced, and that within fifty 
 years ^700,000,000, of which ^"200,000,000 will 
 be clear profit, will have been taken from the Rand 
 mines alone. These are the calculations of ex- 
 perienced mining engineers, based on the results 
 actually obtained by mining companies. And even 
 these estimates are considered too low by so great 
 an authority as Mr. Hays Hammond, He points 
 out that in many instances the lives of mines 
 increase as exploitation proceeds ; that, as the 
 economic conditions of mining become more favour- 
 able, as the mines are worked upon a larger scale 
 and with better management, lower-grade ores may
 
 io SOUTH AFRICA OF TO-DAY CHAP. 
 
 be more profitably mined ; and that payable reefs 
 will almost certainly be found in outside districts. 
 In this unique country all the conditions favourable 
 to successful gold mining seem to be combined. 
 The remarkable regularity of the gold deposits 
 render possible the nicest calculations as to the 
 whereabouts and amount of the gold, so that there 
 is little speculation but a practical certainty as to 
 the profits. The existence of an inexhaustible 
 coal field directly in connection with the gold deposits 
 furnishes a plentiful, cheap, and easily-obtained 
 fuel supply. Water in sufficient quantity is ob- 
 tainable. The climate is good. Native labour 
 can be procured. And lastly, owing to the ore 
 deposits being in one continuous stretch, a con- 
 centration of energy in the development of the 
 mines is made possible, and considerable economy 
 is thereby effected. In these circumstances, the 
 gold-mining industry may be expected to flourish 
 for many years to come. For exactly how many 
 years it would not be possible to say, for the life 
 of a mine depends upon the cost of working it ; 
 upon the rapidity with which it is worked ; upon 
 the number of stamps employed ; upon new 
 methods which may make it possible to wash low- 
 grade ores ; and upon whether one or more levels are 
 worked at the same time. But it would probably 
 be a safe forecast to say that fifty years hence the 
 gold resources of the Transvaal will not have 
 been exhausted.
 
 II RESOURCES OF THE TRANSVAAL ir 
 
 But when, sixty, seventy, or a hundred years 
 hence, the gold has all been cleared out of the 
 country, is there no industry which may take the 
 place of the gold mining? Fortunately there is. 
 The existence of coal has already been alluded to, 
 and besides this there are vast quantities of iron 
 ore of a quality better than that obtained in 
 England, and immediately adjoining yet other coal 
 beds furnishing good coking coal ; and silver, 
 copper, lead, and other minerals are found in 
 various parts of the country. 
 
 To deal with the coal first. In one colliery, not 
 half-a-dozen miles from the gold mines, I have 
 seen a seam of coal 7oft. in thickness. This coal, 
 though of low quality, suffices for the purposes of 
 the gold mines, and there is a sufficient quantity 
 of it to outlast far the lives of all the gold mines. 
 
 Besides these coal deposits near the gold fields 
 and those others by the Vaal river, which furnish 
 coal for the railway system far down into the 
 Cape Colony, there are literally hundreds, perhaps 
 even a thousand square miles of coal in the 
 Middelberg and Ermelo districts lying between 
 Pretoria and Delagoa Bay. In the midst of these 
 coal beds is the outcrop of iron ore. And running 
 through them is the lately-constructed railway to 
 Delagoa Bay. With these vast coal fields close to 
 a first-rate port on the Indian Ocean, the prospects 
 of the coal-mining industry seem brilliant. The 
 great fleets of ocean-going steamers which run to-
 
 12 SOUTH AFRICA OF TO-DAY CHAP. 
 
 India, Australia, and China, and to South and 
 East Africa, at present draw their coal supplies for 
 the most part from England. But if the Transvaal 
 coal proved suitable in quality they would draw 
 much of their coal from this country. More than 
 one of the great steamship lines have already sent 
 representatives to the Transvaal to make inquiries 
 and inspect. And it is with a view to supplying 
 this great market that the mineral rights on the 
 land have been acquired by syndicates of the 
 various great financial houses in the Transvaal, 
 and mining operations pushed rapidly forward. I 
 have visited mine after mine along the line of 
 railway. Few of these are more than a year old, 
 while most have only been started for a few 
 months. And besides these already existing mines, 
 others are being planned out at the most advan- 
 tageous positions by the railway. 
 
 While there is thus an amount of coal which the 
 State mining engineer, in his last annual report, de- 
 scribes as "inexhaustible for an indefinite period," 
 and the quantity is assured, the quality has yet to be 
 practically proved ; and it is upon the quality that 
 depends the question whether the fast steamship lines 
 and men-of-war will use it or not. First-class vessels, 
 with their delicately-adjusted boiler and furnace 
 arrangements, and with limited carrying space, can- 
 not afford to use any but the best coal, and Trans- 
 vaal coal may not suit them. The best coal has not 
 yet been put on the market. The industry is only
 
 II RESOURCES OF THE TRANSVAAL 13 
 
 in its infancy. Most of the mines are outcrop mines, 
 and outcropping coal is seldom so good as that found 
 further in. The best analysis I have seen an 
 analysis showing a percentage of ash of only 5 -4 
 was of coal from a spot six miles from the railway, 
 and this coal will not be worked till a siding from the 
 railway is made. Again, in the Ermelo district 
 there is said to be coal little inferior to Cardiff coal, 
 but this cannot be put on the market till the pro- 
 jected branch line from that district is completed. 
 Until, therefore, the mining companies have ex- 
 ploited their best coal, until branch lines and sidings 
 have been constructed to enable their best coal to be 
 put on the market, and until this coal has been 
 practically tested on the steamers, no estimate as to 
 the extent to which it will be used can be formed. 
 But that faith is placed in the future of this coal 
 industry is shown by the fact that every leading 
 financial house without, I think, an exception has 
 lately acquired coal properties. Even if the coal 
 does not prove good enough for use on the fastest- 
 steaming men-of-war and ocean liners, it may be 
 used by minor steamship lines and cargo vessels, 
 many of which already use it. And in view of the 
 development in railway communication and the con- 
 sequent reduction in rates, and to the improvement 
 which may be expected in the present rough methods 
 of handling the coal at the pit's mouth, on the rail- 
 way, and at Delagoa Bay, and the resulting cheapen- 
 ing of the cost of delivery, the prediction of a well-
 
 14 SOUTH AFRICA OF TO-DAY CHAP. 
 
 known pioneer of South African enterprise, that in 
 ten years time not a ton of English coal will come 
 to South Africa, may not improbably prove true. 
 
 Nor is it only on gold mines, steamship lines and 
 railways that the coal will be used. There are also 
 prospects of a great iron industry arising which would 
 require supplies of the good coking coal which has 
 recently been discovered and tested. Why, when 
 the existence of a reef of magnetite from 20 to 40 
 feet wide, extending for several miles close alongside 
 the coal, and of such quality as to yield 70 per cent, 
 of metallic iron, was well known, no proper attempt 
 has yet been made to start an iron industry will seem 
 strange. The reasons are that till two years ago 
 there was no railway through the iron district, that 
 good coking coal had not been discovered, that the 
 expense of importing coke from England was almost 
 prohibitive, and that the cost of both white and 
 coloured labour has hitherto been excessive. The 
 existence of one of those curses of this country, a 
 concession, set a still further bar upon enterprise in 
 this direction. Now, however, that the railway has 
 been made, that coking coal has been found close to 
 the iron, that wages of the natives are in process of 
 reduction, and white labour has become plentiful, 
 efforts are being made to start an iron industry. And 
 if the prophecy of a Durham engineer, that the time 
 would come when even the railway engines would be 
 made in this country from materials obtained on the 
 spot, may be held as applying to too distant a period
 
 II RESOURCES OF THE TRANSVAAL 15 
 
 for present consideration, yet no one who has been 
 round the great stores of mining requirements in 
 Johannesburg and seen the quantities of pig iron, 
 bar iron, sheet iron, light rails, &c., kept there, and 
 has learned that iron which costs from 40^. to 455. in 
 England costs 12 out here, can help thinking that 
 at any rate these simple necessaries of the mines 
 might be furnished from the country itself, or that all 
 such ironwork as only requires casting, such as the 
 great supports for machinery and iron trucks used on 
 the mines, might with advantage be made here, 
 instead of being imported. A glance from the rail- 
 way train shows a variety of objects which might 
 well be made of iron obtained in the country. The 
 great headgears of the mines, now made of timber, 
 costing 45. 6d. to 55. per cubic foot, and imported 
 from such distant countries as British Columbia, 
 would be made of iron if iron were available. 
 Johannesburg is, one might almost say, built of 
 corrugated iron, and among all the thousands of 
 houses there I have seen only one which had not a 
 corrugated iron roof. Even the houses of the Boers 
 are now being roofed with this material instead of 
 thatch. Might not all the corrugated iron required 
 in the little townships now everywhere springing up 
 in the vicinity of the coal and gold mines be manu- 
 factured here ? Might not iron sleepers, rails, iron 
 telegraph posts, lamp posts, and many other things 
 of simple manufacture and requiring little less than 
 casting or rolling, be turned out in this country ?
 
 16 SOUTH AFRICA OF TO-DAY CHAP. 
 
 Men of practical experience believe that they may. 
 The gold mining has so far absorbed all the interest, 
 but it can scarcely be doubted that an iron industry 
 will soon be started. Iron may be exported to India, 
 Australia, and even America. And long after the 
 gold mines have been made as empty as the craters 
 of the moon the iron industry will be flourishing in 
 the Transvaal. 
 
 Of the other minerals obtained in the Transvaal 
 little need be said, and it only remains to consider 
 the agricultural resources. On first looking at the 
 plentiful foliage in Johannesburg seven-year-old 
 trees often 40 feet in height and on seeing evidences 
 of the rapidity of growth of varied kinds of vegetable 
 produce, one is tempted to believe that the agricul- 
 tural prospects of the country may be as brilliant as 
 the mineral. But the experiences of those who have 
 tried farming have not hitherto been very encourag- 
 ing. Trees certainly grow well, because there is 
 plenty of water under the soil, and because their roots 
 can readily penetrate to a great depth. But the soil 
 where these surprising results in tree-growing have 
 been obtained is not really rich, and has little stay- 
 ing power unless manure be applied. And agricul- 
 ture has many natural obstacles to contend with. 
 Hailstorms of unexampled severity occur every three 
 years or so, beating down the crops and destroying 
 the fruit. Last year locusts ate up the crops and the 
 leaves of the fruit trees. It is said that wheat cannot 
 be grown in summer because the rain falls in that
 
 17 
 
 season and causes rust, and in winter there is all sun 
 and no rain, so that to grow wheat irrigation must 
 be resorted to. Again, the cost of labour is almost 
 prohibitive, for the mines give very high wages. 
 With all these drawbacks agriculture cannot be said 
 now to flourish in the Transvaal. Still much may 
 be done in timber growing, and by selecting rust- 
 proof varieties of wheat which could grow in summer, 
 by choosing thick-skinned fruits which could resist 
 the hail, especially if they are left on the tree only 
 to the stage when they may be plucked to ripen 
 indoors. And, again, by the introduction of every 
 kind of labour-saving machinery on the farms, and 
 by the construction of irrigation works, agriculturists 
 hope to make agriculture successful. When many 
 of the hotels still give tinned butter on the table, 
 when condensed tinned milk is half the price of 
 fresh milk, and when nearly the whole of the wheat 
 is imported from Australia and other countries, it 
 will easily be recognised that there is scope for agri- 
 cultural development in this country. On the great 
 expanse of grass-covered veldt vast numbers of 
 cattle and sheep might find support, and such neces- 
 saries of life as meat and milk and butter be pro- 
 vided. In the variety of soil and climate which is 
 found in this country place may yet be found where 
 either tea, or coffee, or sugar may be grown as suc- 
 cessfully as tobacco now is. Few, I think, will 
 imagine that this country will ever export wool, or 
 wheat, or coffee, or any other agricultural product. 
 
 c
 
 i8 SOUTH AFRICA OF TO-DAY CH. H 
 
 But there is every reason to believe that all the 
 ordinary food necessaries may be grown in the 
 country in sufficient abundance to supply the needs 
 of its population. 
 
 From all that has been said about the climate 
 and the mineral and agricultural resources of the 
 country we may, I think, draw the following con- 
 clusions : 
 
 (1) That immigration into the Transvaal will 
 steadily increase. 
 
 (2) That the greater portion of the incoming 
 population is likely to remain permanently. 
 
 (3) That this population will be a wealthy 
 population. 
 
 The importance of these fundamental factors in 
 the consideration of the future of the country will 
 be evident when we come to discuss the character 
 and relative positions of the various groups of 
 which the population is composed.
 
 CHAPTER III 
 
 THE BOERS 
 
 THIS country of the Transvaal, which is approxi- 
 mately the same size as Great Britain and Ireland, 
 somewhat larger than Italy, and but little smaller 
 than Prussia, and which is, as we have just seen, 
 admirably adapted for colonisation, abounding in 
 gold and in addition possessing a practically in- 
 exhaustible supply of coal and all the possibilities 
 of a great iron industry, is at present inhabited by 
 a black population of about three-quarters of a 
 million (the approximate population of Calcutta) 
 and by a white population of a quarter of a million 
 (about the same as that of Bristol). Yet it is 
 actually governed by a small minority of even the 
 white inhabitants ; and the President of the South 
 African Republic has at his back to support him in 
 controlling and developing the country a number 
 of subjects which would be exceeded by such 
 provincial towns as York or small counties as 
 Westmorland. The Boers of the Transvaal num- 
 ber no more than 70,000 or 80,000 ; yet they 
 
 c 2
 
 20 SOUTH AFRICA OF TO-DAY CHAP. 
 
 rule twice that number of white aliens, and ten times 
 that number of black inhabitants : and, as the 
 future of the country must in a large degree depend 
 upon the character of the people who rule it, I will 
 devote this chapter to a consideration of the leading 
 characteristics of these Boer rulers of the Transvaal. 
 
 The story of how some in the pure colonising 
 spirit and some to avoid religious persecution a 
 party of several hundred of Dutchmen and French 
 Huguenots came to settle at the Cape of Good 
 Hope with their wives and families is now well 
 known. These men were of the same blood as 
 those who had withstood the great power of Philip 
 of Spain, and were prepared to risk life itself rather 
 than forgo any portion of their liberty. Arriving 
 at the Cape towards the end of the seventeenth cen- 
 tury, the two nationalities of which the emigrant 
 band was composed quickly mingled together through 
 inter-marriage and the cruel suppression of the 
 French language, and they further mixed with a set 
 of rough adventurers already planted there under 
 the Dutch East India Company then governing the 
 colony. 
 
 At this starting point of their South African his- 
 tory, the Boers may be said to have possessed three 
 leading characteristics courage, a profound love of 
 independence, and strong religious convictions. 
 They were men of hard resolute natures, who 
 sought in the new world a refuge from the restraints 
 of the old. From that starting point we have to
 
 ni THE BOERS 21 
 
 watch the influence of their new surroundings acting 
 on their character, strengthening it in one direction, 
 and sapping into it in another. We have to note 
 their struggles with men, developing their courage 
 and military qualities, and increasing, if possible, 
 their resolution to be independent ; and to mark 
 how the lavishness of nature in these favoured 
 southern lands inclined them to indolence and ease ; 
 while through all we shall see how their religion 
 has supported them in their trials, and preserved 
 them from that rapid degradation of character 
 which has befallen other peoples in similar circum- 
 stances. 
 
 Two centuries ago, when the original emigrants 
 landed at the Cape, the fear of attacks from natives 
 was so great and the country was so overrun with 
 lions and other wild animals, that no white man 
 lived further than forty-five miles from the castle at 
 Cape Town. To guard against attack every man 
 was made liable to military service, and all were re- 
 quired to meet for drill and practice in the use of 
 arms. So from the first the Boer acquired a train- 
 ing in military duties ; and became accustomed to 
 the idea of, in his own person, defending his liberty. 
 And this habit was confirmed as he gradually began 
 to feel his feet and set off on long wanderings into 
 the interior of Africa. 
 
 At first the colonists had contented themselves 
 with simply cultivating the land near Cape Town 
 and leading a purely agricultural existence ; but
 
 22 SOUTH AFRICA OF TO-DAY CHAP. 
 
 partly through a need of cattle, partly from a spirit 
 of adventure, and partly because of the oppressive 
 conduct of the Dutch officials at Cape Town, num- 
 bers of them were led to seek, on the uplands of the 
 interior, pasture-land where cattle might be bred 
 and where they themselves might be free from the 
 irksome restraints and petty tyrannies of the settled 
 districts. The peasant farmer laboriously tilling his 
 fields from year to year was now transformed into 
 the roving, dreamy herdsman. The agricultural 
 was given up for the pastoral life, the cottage for 
 the waggon, civilisation for nature, and the Boer 
 might wander whither he would. The only direct 
 tax he had to pay was at the rate of id. a year for 
 five acres. He had slaves to tend his cattle and do 
 his hard work for him. And his career would have 
 been smooth and easy but for one consideration 
 he had to carry on incessant struggle with his fellow 
 men. The land was not to be had for the asking. 
 There were native tribes who had claims over it, 
 and these had to be fought. The Boer had much 
 to thank Nature for. She had made it possible for 
 him to live with the minimum of exertion ; and he 
 thoroughly appreciated her consideration in that re- 
 spect, and exerted himself as little as need be. He 
 never troubled himself about education. He made 
 no efforts to enrich himself by industry or care, and 
 no ambitions were allowed to consume his soul. 
 He simply partook of the ample food which nature 
 so easily provided, and lived on day by day and
 
 ill THE BOERS 23 
 
 year by year in unvarying monotony. But man 
 was ever against him. The Boer was never free 
 from the attacks of the stealthy Bushman. He 
 could never feel safe from the raids of the Kafirs. 
 And so, while on the one hand all was tending to 
 a peaceful, easy existence, on the other a strenuous 
 life of constant watchfulness was required. 
 
 A century rolled away while the Boers spread 
 themselves over the interior of the colony, and then 
 the rule passed from the hands of the Dutch into 
 the hands of the English, and the Boers became 
 British subjects. They had not found government 
 even by their own countrymen at the Cape congenial 
 to them, and had twice revolted against even the 
 Dutch government. So, as they gradually became 
 aware that there were rich pasture lands away to 
 the north beyond the limits of Cape Colony, it is 
 not surprising that they wandered away in search of 
 this new country, and to free themselves from the 
 control of their new rulers. In 1836, thousands of 
 them joined in the " Great Trek," and with their 
 wives and their families, their flocks and their herds, 
 crossed the Orange river and made their way to the 
 Transvaal and Natal. It was the commencement 
 of that hardest struggle of all in their history, which 
 has lasted up to the present year, and left such 
 marks that of the twenty-four members of the pre- 
 sent Volksraad, seventeen bear bullet wounds, while 
 there is hardly a Boer family in which some female 
 relative has not been either wounded in action or
 
 24 SOUTH AFRICA OF TO-DAY CHAP. 
 
 murdered by natives. After suffering horrible mas- 
 sacres at the hands of the Zulus, and after most 
 bloody battles, in which even their women took 
 part, they defeated the great Zulu chief Dingan ; 
 they cleared the Free State and the Transvaal, and 
 set up a Republic of their own. 
 
 At last they were free. They were far away from 
 all civilisation, and possessed of a country where 
 each one might have his thousands of acres of graz- 
 ing land, and could set up his home without any 
 risk of seeing even the smoke of a single other 
 house from his doorstep. What more could the 
 Boers wish for ? Yet now was the time when the 
 weaknesses of their character became most apparent. 
 In adversity the Boers have always been strong ; in 
 prosperity weak. They loved independence, but 
 they hated taxation ; and now that they had to tax 
 themselves in order to carry on their own govern- 
 ment, revenue was not forthcoming sufficient for the 
 purpose. Nor could the Boers find adequately 
 educated men to fill the public offices, and Govern- 
 ment posts were held by men who could hardly 
 write an ordinary letter. Disorder naturally fol- 
 lowed. At one time there were four separate 
 Republics in the Transvaal, and there were even 
 fights between the rival factions. A man of educa- 
 tion was imported from the Cape Colony to preside 
 over them, and for a time matters improved ; but 
 gradually the whole administrative machinery broke 
 down, till there was no money left in the exchequer,
 
 ill THE BOERS 25 
 
 a native rebellion threatened the country ; and, to 
 save the peace of South Africa, the British Govern- 
 ment stepped in and assumed the control of affairs. 
 
 But as soon as their independence was threatened 
 back the Boers came together again. Once more 
 their old spirit flamed up ; and four years later, in 
 1880, on the anniversary of their victory over the 
 great Dingan, they declared their independence, 
 each man as he threw a stone on the cairn at 
 Krugersdorp swearing that, if necessary, he would 
 sacrifice his life to attain freedom for his people. 
 Their efforts were successful, and their liberty was 
 restored to them. Subsequently gold was dis- 
 covered in the country ; and now, no longer depend- 
 ent on themselves alone to provide the revenue 
 necessary for government, they were enabled to 
 hire educated men from Europe to carry on the 
 routine of the public offices ; and the country 
 flourished, till again, at the beginning of last year, 
 their independence was threatened, and once more 
 as of old they combine to resist the danger. 
 
 Now, what do we gather from this history in 
 regard to the character of the Boers? When in 
 face of such odds they have fought for, obtained, 
 and kept their independence, may we not call them 
 a courageous people ? Grant that their form of 
 courage is not such that they would seek out fight- 
 ing for fighting's sake ; grant that they have no 
 special liking for advancing into the open in a battle 
 and exposing themselves to every kind of danger,
 
 26 SOUTH AFRICA OF TO-DAY CHAP. 
 
 and yet they may still be a brave people ; for here 
 we see them to-day, a nation of farmer soldiers, who 
 have never been paid to fight, but who, for two 
 centuries in South Africa, against black man and 
 against white, have carried on the struggle ; and 
 their courage and military capacity must surely be 
 acknowledged and their love of independence and 
 sturdy self-reliance established. 
 
 And what effect have the natural surroundings of 
 South Africa had upon them ? For two hundred 
 years the Boer has lived upon the unbounded 
 plains of South Africa till his nature has opened 
 out like them. On his solitary farm, with the vast 
 plain before him unbroken by a single tree or 
 human habitation, the bright unclouded sky above, 
 the blue hazy hills in the distance, and a soft 
 dreamy atmosphere overshrouding all, the nature of 
 the Boer must expand itself to the surroundings, 
 grow more and more intolerant of restraint and 
 less inclined to effort. There must be something 
 peculiarly fascinating to the Boer in being able to 
 live a perpetual out-of-door existence ; to have at 
 hand natives who in return for his allowing them a 
 few acres to cultivate for themselves will till enough 
 ground to supply him with all his wants, and to 
 have no one by to vex him with competition all 
 this must have to the Boer a peculiar charm, and 
 the man who lives under such conditions must often 
 look with contempt upon him who sits in an office 
 and frets himself on the expenditure of every six-
 
 ill THE BOERS 27 
 
 pence in his fever to gain money. But such a life, 
 with all its enjoyment, inevitably tends to laziness. 
 And so we find the present-day Boer with these 
 ruling characteristics of indolence and impatience 
 of control indubitably marked upon him. 
 
 And, besides the natural surroundings and the 
 struggle with man, there has been the influence of 
 religion always working strongly on him. The 
 strictly family life which the Boers have always led 
 has been one great cause of their preserving this 
 influence, and they have retained much of the 
 Puritanism of Cromwell's time. They set out on 
 the march, and they went into battle with no songs 
 or jests, but in all seriousness, saying their prayers 
 and singing hymns, with the absolute faith of Israel 
 of old that the Lord was with them. And so 
 deeply do their religious convictions affect their 
 practical, every-day life that even to the present 
 time they think it impious to take preventive 
 measures against such plagues as locusts, consider- 
 ing them as a punishment sent by God. But while 
 they fear to do anything against what they believe 
 to be the will of God, they refuse to take credit for 
 anything praiseworthy that they themselves ac- 
 complish. The victory over the Zulu Dingan, their 
 successes in 1881 and last year, were ascribed to 
 God, and not to their own prowess. The hardy 
 Boer farmer rode from his home to defend the 
 independence of his country with the firm conviction 
 that God was on his side ; and he returned from
 
 28 SOUTH AFRICA OF TO-DAY CHAP. 
 
 victory with no undue exaltation, but with that con- 
 viction more surely fixed upon him than ever. 
 
 Yet, with all this religious feeling which has 
 preserved much of their character to them, the 
 Boers have certainly defects which most men do 
 not expect to find in so religious a people. It may 
 have been due to their daily contact as children 
 with Kafir children upon their farms, and to their 
 continual intercourse with none but barbarous races ; 
 but it cannot be denied that much of the truth- 
 fulness and openness of character of their ancestors 
 has been lost, and neither veracity nor honesty can 
 be reckoned among the virtues of the Boers. 
 
 In his domestic life the Boer is generally moral, 
 and he is strong in his family affections. Wher- 
 ever he has gone he has taken his family with him. 
 He marries early, and his wife has much to say in 
 the husband's affairs. It is said to have been a 
 woman who inspired the attack upon Majuba Hill. 
 The parents are fond of their children, and the 
 children of their parents. They are genial in their 
 intercourse, hospitable, and fond of visiting one 
 another. And this domestic life has done much to 
 soften their natures. In so slow-moving a people 
 there must be some remnants of the cruel natures 
 of seventeenth-century men, and isolated cases of 
 cruelty occur even now. Nor do the Boers ever 
 forget an injury. But they are not intemperate in 
 their vindictiveness. As a people they may be 
 considered mild-natured, and they petitioned for
 
 in THE BOERS 29 
 
 mercy to be shown directly they heard of the death 
 sentences passed upon the Reform leaders, even 
 though they believed these leaders to have plotted 
 against their cherished independence. 
 
 One characteristic alone remains to be noted. 
 In their South African history they have had to 
 wage incessant warfare with natives ; and it may 
 generally be noted that those who have had the 
 actual carrying on of warlike operations against 
 barbarous tribes among whom they dwell are 
 least inclined to treat these tribes with liberality. 
 If the present settlers in Matabeleland, for in- 
 stance, had the ordering of their affairs it would 
 be many long years before they would think of 
 granting the natives the franchise. 
 
 Similarly the Boers, who time after time have 
 had to fight the natives as Rhodesian settlers are 
 now fighting the Matabele, and often to see their 
 women and children massacred, are unable to 
 understand people like the English, who treat 
 natives as free men. To the Boer the black man 
 is the hewer of wood and drawer of water. And 
 in his attitude towards the native races of South 
 Africa the Boer is rigidly severe, and, according to 
 English ideas, oppressive. 
 
 Summing up, then, the characteristics of the 
 Boers, we may call them excellent pioneers, with 
 marvellous powers of physical endurance ; a brave, 
 self-reliant people, with high military aptitude ; 
 peace loving, yet ever ready to defend their in-
 
 30 SOUTH AFRICA OF TO-DAY CH. ill 
 
 dependence ; slow to move, but bitter and obstinate 
 when roused ; suspicious, but credulous, and sensi- 
 tive to ridicule and criticism ; genial, hospitable, 
 and affectionate in their family relationships ; a 
 large-hearted people, and, as a result of their stern 
 life, possessed of a broad common sense not always 
 .attained by more highly-educated nations ; yet at 
 the same time a people who, from their tendency 
 to shirk the competition of modern life and from 
 the effect of their surroundings, have become 
 indolent and devoid of any ambition beyond in- 
 dependence, deficient in honesty and veracity, 
 ignorant, unprogressive, and in most important 
 respects two centuries behind other European 
 nations. 
 
 Such are the people who control the destinies of 
 the most promising new country in the world.
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 
 THE BOER SYSTEM OF GOVERNMENT 
 
 THIS leading characteristic of the Boers being de- 
 termined, and the nature of their surroundings being 
 known, it is possible to form some conception of the 
 State into which they have formed themselves. 
 
 One of the chief features in the Boer character, 
 we saw, was their impatience of control ; and a pas- 
 toral and nomadic people of such a character, sparsely 
 distributed over an open country, with no natural 
 barriers, as seas or mountains, to prevent their 
 escape to other countries near by, would naturally 
 tend to split up ; they would have little cohesion, 
 and would gradually separate into a number of small 
 communities with but slight connection among them. 
 This is, in fact, what was actually taking place 
 among the Boers before the British annexation 
 twenty years ago ; and the treks to Bechuanaland, 
 Mashonaland, and Portuguese territory ever since 
 then give evidence of the same tendency. But what 
 more than anything else has united the Boers as they 
 are to-day has been war. Divided and scattered in
 
 32 SOUTH AFRICA OF TO-DAY CHAP. 
 
 peace time, they have united whenever their inde- 
 pendence has been threatened ; and pressure from 
 outside has thus been the chief cause of their present 
 union. 
 
 And, besides this external influence, there are 
 certain internal influences which work towards the 
 same end. The Boers are few in numbers, they 
 are nearly all related to one another, and they are 
 strong in their family affections, and generally dis- 
 posed to preserve family ties ; while the openness 
 of the country, which might in certain circumstances 
 tend to disintegration, under present conditions, by 
 the facilities it affords for intercommunication, like- 
 wise assists in bringing about a union of the people. 
 
 In the struggle for existence among the States of 
 South Africa the Boers have survived, then, mainly 
 because of their capacity for military co-operation ; 
 because every man among them fought members 
 of their Parliament, judges of their law courts, 
 everybody and because the women who could not 
 fight helped the men who could. The Boers thus 
 became a nation of soldiers. The army was the 
 whole people, and the whole people were an army. 
 And whereas many of the most important acts in 
 their history have been the results of assemblies for 
 warlike purposes (their very Constitution having 
 been framed at a war council by men with arms in 
 their hands), it has come about that military and 
 political authority have often been combined. The 
 military gathering has been the political gathering,
 
 IV THE BOER SYSTEM OF GOVERNMENT 33 
 
 and the successful military leader the head of the 
 State. The first President was a man who had led 
 the people in many a fight. And the present chief 
 of the State was formerly Commandant-General, and 
 was also one of the triumvirate who conducted the 
 War of Independence of 1880. He has been Presi- 
 dent ever since then, and his nearly successful 
 opponent at the last elections was the present 
 Commandant-General, who had also been one of 
 the triumvirate in 1880. 
 
 The influence of the Church, appealing so strongly 
 as it does among the Boers to obedience to the 
 commands of God, strengthened the principle of 
 subordination. And this subordination, brought 
 about partly by religious influence, but chiefly by 
 constant calls to arms, has been the principal factor 
 in checking an undue amount of individual inde- 
 pendence which the nature of the people and the 
 character of their surroundings might have pro- 
 duced. 
 
 What, then, has been the resulting form of govern- 
 ment ? It might have been expected that the 
 chronic state of war would have produced a des- 
 potism, with the people subordinated to a chief as an 
 army to its general. And from the nature of the 
 Boer society with its family groupings there might 
 also be expected a tendency to despotism in the 
 patriarchal form. President Kruger is, indeed, very 
 fond of treating the people, and especially aliens, as 
 children, and his language to the latter is particularly 
 
 D
 
 34 SOUTH AFRICA OF TO-DAY CHAP. 
 
 paternal. But these tendencies to despotism in the 
 military or patriarchal form have not been suffi- 
 ciently potent to override that other feature in the 
 Boer character of which notice has been taken his 
 passion for individual freedom. While war has kept 
 the Boers in subordination, when war ceases the 
 tendency is to relax this subordination. Many in- 
 stances might be quoted in which Boers have 
 declared themselves opposed to the Government ; 
 but, on hearing that their country was attacked, 
 have sunk their opposition and subordinated them- 
 selves strictly to the orders of their chosen leader. 
 Yet the history of the Boers shows that during peace 
 they demand great freedom of action, and the less 
 frequently they are summoned to war the less they 
 submit to the despotic control necessary in war time. 
 As the country became more quiet the first Presi- 
 dent, a military leader, was replaced by a clergy- 
 man ; and even now not only the Commandant- 
 General but every commandant under him is elected 
 by the people. These democratic tendencies are 
 given further play because neither has there been 
 time, nor is the temper of the people suited, for the 
 formation of any distinct social classes. The Boers 
 have had in their time to do much fighting ; but not 
 being really warlike, but on the contrary peace- 
 loving, they have had no inclination to form a class 
 of hereditary nobles or military leaders. They have 
 all alike been exposed to the same influences. Not 
 a part of them only but all of them have had to fight.
 
 IV THE BOER SYSTEM OF GOVERNMENT 35 
 
 They have all alike up till now led the same semi- 
 agricultural, semi-pastoral existence. None have 
 taken to mining, nor is there any trading instinct in 
 them. And as there is no sea-coast there is no 
 temptation for any to adopt a seafaring life. The 
 consequence is that the Boers have remained a homo- 
 geneous people, with no distinction of classes among 
 them. There is little accumulation of wealth, and no 
 inclination to form a separate class on account of 
 wealth. There are no families distinctly above the 
 rest, and no tendency to form an hereditary leader- 
 ship. Every man has, therefore, an equal chance of 
 coming to the front. And the rigidity of social 
 structure which might have followed, and which 
 religious influences foster, has so far been avoided, 
 and, in this respect, at any rate, the Boer people do 
 not present an obstacle to progress. 
 
 The resulting Constitution, as might have been 
 expected, is one partially despotic and partially de- 
 mocratic a republic in name, but a republic in 
 which race, colour, and religion are the grounds of 
 very arbitrary distinctions. The President is still 
 an autocrat in many ways, and retains much of the 
 habit of command necessary in a military leader. 
 Lately, for example, he autocratically appointed 
 a member of the Executive Council without con- 
 sulting the Raad, though this appointment is 
 laid down in the Grondwet, or Constitution, as the 
 prerogative of the Raad. But the President's influ- 
 ence over the Raad and over the people, always great 
 
 D 2
 
 36 SOUTH AFRICA OF TO-DAY CHAP. 
 
 when danger threatens the State and when the 
 people rally to him as to a military leader, tends to 
 diminish in peaceful times. During the recent 
 disturbances President Kruger's influence was para- 
 mount, and in any measures to preserve the inde- 
 pendence of the country he had practically carte 
 blanche to do what he liked. Yet even this year in 
 domestic matters he has not been able to carry out 
 his wishes. He himself was opposed to the Bill for 
 the total prohibition of liquor to natives, notwith- 
 standing which the measure was passed by the Raad. 
 He has, too, in practice to conform very largely to 
 the will of the people, and his influence is really due 
 to the knowledge of their character and the closeness 
 of his contact with them which enable him justly to 
 appreciate what that will is. Any Boer may come 
 up and have his talk with the President ; and the 
 absence of social distinctions and the smallness of 
 the population the Boer population of the Trans- 
 vaal, as I have said, only being equal to that of a 
 small county like Westmoreland render personal 
 contact between President and people all the more 
 possible. 
 
 In spite, then, of the tendency to despotism which 
 constant war and the accompanying subordination of 
 the whole people might have produced, and which 
 actually is shown in the attitude of the Boers towards 
 aliens and natives, the opposite inherent tendency of 
 the Boers to individual freedom has resulted in the 
 formation of a representative agency, called the
 
 IV THE BOER SYSTEM OF GOVERNMENT 37 
 
 Volksraad, for the expression of the will of the 
 people ; and this popular assembly is gaining an 
 increasing control over the chief of the State. Mr. 
 Kruger, on account of the exceptional history of the 
 State, has become a sort of permanent President, 
 having been in power now for fifteen years. He 
 has, therefore, a special influence over the Raad 
 which ,no future President is likely to possess. But 
 there is no tendency to make the Presidentship here- 
 ditary ; and, while a certain amount of stability is 
 thus sacrificed, for there may be risks of contests for 
 the Presidency after the manner of South American 
 Republics, yet efficiency is obtained, for on the 
 whole the best man is elected to be head of the 
 State, and the people preserve their voice in the 
 matter. 
 
 For the election of members of the Raad every 
 male citizen of the State over sixteen years of age 
 is entitled to vote, and in practice the voice of the 
 people is very strongly felt. Members are paid, and 
 are regarded by their constituents very much as 
 delegates who must vote on any particular measure 
 strictly according to the wishes of their constitu- 
 encies. Government must publish any Bills they 
 wish to introduce three months before the com- 
 mencement of the Session ; so that the people may 
 have a chance of discussing them. And both before 
 and after the Session members have to meet their 
 constituents to discuss such Bills with them, to 
 ascertain their wishes before the Session commences,
 
 38 SOUTH AFRICA OF TO-DAY CHAP. 
 
 and render an account of their stewardship after it 
 has closed. The people can also make themselves 
 heard by means of petitions addressed to the Volks- 
 raad. Several hundreds of such petitions, some 
 signed by only a dozen or so of men, some signed 
 by large numbers, and varying in importance from a 
 request to have an obnoxious minor official removed 
 from a particular locality to a demand that no new- 
 comer under any pretext or pretence whatever should 
 be allowed to have a share in the control of the 
 country with the chosen people of God, have to be 
 considered and reported on, and, if necessary, acted 
 on by the Raad. 
 
 The people then, through the Raad, have a con- 
 siderable voice in the conduct of affairs ; and the 
 Raad, by a vote of censure, can remove a Presi- 
 dent ; as they did Pretorius in 1871. But the exact 
 functions of the Raad, notwithstanding the clearness 
 with which they are laid down in the Grondwet, are 
 still very vaguely understood. In the old days 
 forty years ago, for that is old in South Africa the 
 Raad was also the highest executive authority, and 
 there is still an inclination in the Raad to perform 
 administrative duties in addition to their proper 
 legislative work. The Executive, on the other 
 hand, with an autocratically inclined President at 
 their head, who frequently comes down to the Raad 
 and storms at the members as if they were military 
 subordinates, resent the legitimate control of the 
 Raad.
 
 IV THE BOER SYSTEM OF GOVERNMENT 39 
 
 Again, in regard to the distinction between judi- 
 cial functions on the one hand and legislative or 
 executive functions on the other, the line is still 
 very roughly drawn in this Republic. The Raad is 
 frequently interfering with the Grondwet. By, per- 
 haps, only the casting vote of the Chairman the 
 Raad will pass a resolution which they consider 
 should have all the force of law. Many of these 
 resolutions are contrary to the articles of the Consti- 
 tution ; and the Courts of Justice have then to 
 decide whether, in cases which are brought before 
 them, they are to abide by the hasty resolutions of 
 the Raad or to follow the articles of the Constitution. 
 If they choose the latter they are brought into direct 
 opposition with the popular Assembly, and a contest 
 between the two may at any time arise over a case 
 now before the Courts. The action of the Court, 
 too, is sometimes, though not frequently, interfered 
 with by the Executive, who have on one or two 
 occasions practically annulled the sentence of the 
 Court by payment of the fine inflicted or by other 
 means. Boer legislators and rulers find difficulty in 
 recognising the absolute independence of Courts of 
 law, and in ridding themselves of the idea that the 
 Courts ought to be subject to them. 
 
 These, then, are the main principles upon which 
 the State is governed. The practical administra- 
 tion, both in the judicial and executive branches, is 
 in the hands of salaried foreigners or non-burghers. 
 Not one of the Judges, and very few even of the
 
 40 SOUTH AFRICA OF TO-DAY CHAP. 
 
 holders of minor judicial posts, are Transvaal Boers. 
 And though in the Executive Council only one mem- 
 ber the State Secretary is a foreigner, nearly the 
 whole of the administrative staff is composed of Hol- 
 landers or Cape-Colonial born Dutch Africanders. 
 There are so few Transvaal Boers of sufficient edu- 
 cation to serve in a Government office that it has 
 been found necessary to hire foreigners to carry on 
 the detailed work of the public offices ; and many 
 of the departments are under the Hollander State 
 Secretary, to whom are also intrusted the foreign 
 relations of the State, subject, it is commonly reported, 
 to but slight control by the President and Executive 
 Council, and to practically none by the Raad, except 
 in that treaties have to be ratified by this latter 
 body. 
 
 As regards the general efficiency of the Adminis- 
 tration, opinions must differ according to the point 
 of view. The Boers certainly have no reason to 
 complain of it in so far as regards its effects on them- 
 selves ; for it has proved itself capable of carrying 
 them through a serious crisis, and as Government 
 interferes but little with their liberties in peace times 
 and taxes them very lightly, they are satisfied. But if 
 the Government is strong because at its head are 
 men of common sense, with much experience in troub- 
 lous times, it is also (as I will show when I come to 
 consider the position of the alien portion of the 
 population) very slow in its movements and irre- 
 sponsive to the calls of a young and rising country.
 
 IV THE BOER SYSTEM OF GOVERNMENT 41 
 
 There are nowhere the signs of businesslike admin- 
 istration which Europeans expect, and the whole is 
 subject to one very serious defect the want of 
 proper financial control, due to the fact that the 
 finances are not controlled by the people who furnish 
 the money. Quite nine-tenths of the revenue is de- 
 rived from the industry of aliens. The Boers, there- 
 fore, feel no direct responsibility, and the necessity 
 for economy is never brought home to them. They 
 can spend large sums of money in secret service ; 
 they can purchase guns, rifles, and ammunition ; they 
 can hire trained foreigners to fill their public offices, 
 to educate their children, and superintend the scien- 
 tific branches of their army ; they can build palatial 
 government offices, courts of justice, national schools, 
 forts, and barracks, even in a year when they have 
 had to disburse ,300,000 in precautionary measures 
 against rinderpest ; and can be as extravagant as 
 they please, without any direct consequences in the 
 form of additional taxes falling upon themselves. 
 And apart from the debilitating effect such conduct 
 must have on the national character, it is evident 
 that the members of the Raad have no proper incen- 
 tive to adequate control of the finances of the country, 
 and the results of any particular policy can never be 
 clearly appreciated by the mass of the people. This 
 is a radical defect, which is bound to eat into the 
 vitals of the people, and be a greater danger to their 
 independence than any open attack which has yet 
 been made upon them.
 
 CHAPTER V 
 
 THE UITLANDERS 
 
 So far the Boer portion only of the white popula- 
 tion of the Transvaal has been considered, but the 
 Boers are only a minority of the white inhabitants, 
 and, in addition to the 70,000 or 80,000 Boers, there 
 are 130,000 or 140,000 white men of other nation- 
 alities resident in the country, though allowed no 
 share in its government. With the discoveries of 
 gold thousands of immigrants began streaming into 
 the country, till they outnumbered the original Boer 
 inhabitants ; and it is these Uitlanders the popula- 
 tion, numerically stronger than the European popu- 
 lation of India, yet treated as aliens by the Boers, 
 who arrived in the country a few years previously 
 whose characteristics, work, and organisation I would 
 now describe. 
 
 The idea of a Uitlander which possessed the mind 
 of the British public, at any rate up to last year, and 
 which is perhaps not yet entirely removed, was that 
 of a swashbuckler in his shirt sleeves, with heavy 
 riding boots, a large-brimmed hat turned up at one
 
 CH. v THE UITLANDERS 43 
 
 side like a lady's, and wearing a revolver at his belt. 
 This is the Uitlander of the stage and of cartoons in 
 Punch. Types of the different classes of the real 
 Uitlander may be seen any day on the London 
 Stock Exchange, in City banking and commercial 
 offices, in Midland mining centres, around drinking 
 bars, and in the audiences of London music-halls. 
 The Uitlanders of the Transvaal are not the rough 
 diggers of old Californian days familiar to readers of 
 Bret Harte ; nor are they bushmen of the Australian 
 type ; they are the ordinary or perhaps the least 
 successful speculators, business men, clerks, and 
 miners of any European country suddenly removed 
 from Europe to make money more rapidly in South 
 Africa. 
 
 If the chief object of the Boers in coming to the 
 Transvaal was to obtain independence, the principal 
 object that the Uitlanders have come for is this of 
 making money. The Boers wanted independence 
 first and money afterwards ; the Uitlanders money 
 first and independence if they could get it as well. 
 Both have gained their main object the Boers their 
 independence and the Uitlanders their money and 
 by the same means, by strong persistent effort and 
 marvellous perseverance. Gold in the Transvaal 
 has not been found lying about waiting to be picked 
 up. A small proportion was found in the form of 
 nuggets, but even that was only discovered after long 
 search and many hardships ; and the vastly larger 
 proportion is scattered in the finest grains among
 
 44 SOUTH AFRICA OF TO-DAY CHAP. 
 
 the rocks hundreds of feet below the surface of the 
 ground. The minute grains of gold in the ordinary 
 " reefs " are scarcely visible to the eye, and would 
 never be noticed by a casual observer. Yet it is 
 these hardly-perceptible grains which form the 
 wealth of the Rand. Millions of tons of rock are 
 brought up every year from the bowels of the earth 
 and then crushed and sifted and chemically treated 
 on the surface, till out of every ton of rock some 
 two-and-a-half sovereigns or so are obtained ; and 
 the visitor who, looking at the open, grassy downs 
 on which these gold mines are sunk, and passing 
 from these innocent-looking steppes, on which the 
 Boers could discover nothjng else than fodder for 
 their cattle, descends the shaft of a mine for a thou- 
 sand or more feet till he is shown a faint streak of a 
 particular rock in which he pretends to believe he 
 can see gold ; and who then watches tons of this 
 gold-bearing rock, and the vastly larger quantity of 
 barren rock which has also to be excavated to get 
 at the good rock, being hauled to the surface, and 
 then, ascending, looks at the powerful machinery 
 and great stamps employed in crushing the rock to 
 powder, the arrangement for roughly sifting the few 
 golden grains from the mass of useless powder, and 
 the refined chemical processes for extracting just 
 another grain or two from the tons of seemingly 
 valueless powder thrown aside by the sifter the 
 visitor who marks all this marvels at the energy and 
 enterprise and scientific skill required to produce the
 
 v THE UITLANDERS 45 
 
 magnificent results which the industry furnishes. 
 And he wonders still more when he reflects that 
 this industry was started before ever the railway 
 had reached the Transvaal ; when all the heavy ma- 
 chinery, the timber, the corrugated iron with which 
 the works and men's houses are constructed, and 
 nearly every requirement of work and of life had to 
 be brought for over 300 miles upon ox- waggons, the 
 country itself supplying scarcely a thing, and even 
 to this day wheat being brought from Australia. 
 
 Yet now, where a dozen years ago there was 
 nothing but bare veldt, hundreds of mines are at 
 work, turning out more than eight millions sterling 
 of gold and over a million tons of coal annually. 
 On these mines one-and-a-half million pounds a 
 year are spent in wages to Europeans and a similar 
 amount to natives ; half a million is expended in 
 coal ; half a million in explosives, &c. ; and half a 
 million in stores. Railways have been constructed 
 from the coast in three different directions. A 
 town with a population of 51,000 whites and 51,000 
 blacks has sprung up to furnish residences for and 
 supply the needs of the mining community. And 
 if the streets of this town are as bad as they well 
 could be ; if even now there are nearly a thousand 
 houseless men who have to seek shelter where they 
 can at night ; and if the greater number of the 
 houses are mere tin shanties, there are also public 
 buildings, such as the Hospital, the Stock Exchange, 
 the Chamber of Mines, the Rand Club, and there
 
 46 SOUTH AFRICA OF TO-DAY CHAP. 
 
 are houses of the larger companies and private 
 residences fully on a par with the buildings of a 
 European town. And besides the great stores of 
 mining material and ironmongery there are clothing 
 and millinery shops not much smaller than those of 
 Regent Street, large grocery establishments, and 
 even furniture shops from Bond Street and dress- 
 making and sweet shops from Paris. Ladies of the 
 richer class drive out in the best English carriages 
 with their liveried English coachmen, and their 
 drawing rooms are as comfortably and luxuriously 
 furnished as the residences of any English town. 
 
 If, then, the Uitlanders are characterised by a 
 gambling spirit which makes them nervous and 
 excitable in comparison with their more stolid 
 neighbours, and which shows itself not only in the 
 share speculation of the richer, but among all classes 
 and in nearly every branch of life ; and if from 
 having had to fight their way through the mass of 
 unprincipled men who flock to a gold field, and 
 from leading a life free from the restraints of social 
 opinion usually exercised in more settled countries, 
 few among them can be put down as either honest 
 or truthful ; their wonderful enterprise and initiative 
 must be admitted, and not many could be found 
 who have not had to work hard, risk much, anc 1 . 
 often undergo privation to gain their money. 
 Industry is as characteristic of the Uitlander as indol- 
 ence is of the Boer. Great houses like those of 
 Wernher, Beit, Barnato, or J. B. Robinson have de-
 
 v THE UITLANDERS 47 
 
 pended upon keen hard work and clear-sighted, far- 
 seeing speculation for their success. And leading 
 men like Mr. Samuel Marks or Mr. George Farrar 
 have not gained their present wealth and influence 
 by simple luck, but by sheer energy and pluck. 
 They have had failure to encounter as well as success, 
 but they have never sat still under failure. And a 
 characteristic of the Uitlanders, which has as much 
 significance as their excitability and impatience at 
 not gaining political ends as rapidly as they gain 
 their money, is their determined persistence. If 
 they do not achieve their object one way they try 
 another. But, one way or other, in the long run 
 they gain what they are aiming at. 
 
 The Uitlanders are held together by few of the 
 influences that serve to unite the Boers. They 
 are not of one nationality, but about half are 
 British, and there are large numbers of Germans, 
 Americans, and Hollanders, and besides these 
 Frenchmen, Italians, and Poles in lesser proportion. 
 The Jewish element is, too, very prominent, the 
 leading men especially being as much Jewish as 
 British, German, or French, and giving a clearly 
 Jewish tendency to both financial and political 
 transactions. So the Uitlander population is 
 thoroughly cosmopolitan, and, as I shall have 
 occasion to emphasise later on, as thoroughly 
 republican also, with no desire to remain under the 
 government of their respective countries the 
 English under Downing-street, or the Germans
 
 48 SOUTH AFRICA OF TO-DAY CHAP. 
 
 under their Emperor. They have no religion 
 nor strong family ties or family feeling to unite 
 them, as we have seen these influences tend to unite 
 the Boers ; for practically the only religion of the 
 Uitlander is the religion of work, and the greater 
 proportion are unmarried or have left their wives 
 behind. Nor have the Uitlanders had experience 
 of that military co-operation which has been the 
 main cause of union among the Boers. 
 
 But though they feel none of these influences 
 which keep the Boers together, they have brought 
 with them from Europe the business principles of 
 modern countries, and they know the value of 
 voluntary co-operation in the midst of competition. 
 They possess, therefore, the faculty of which the 
 Boers know nothing of voluntary combination ; 
 and as a result from this they have individuality 
 and initiative. Among the Boers there is not a 
 single free combination for either commercial, 
 philanthropic, religious, social, or scientific purposes. 
 The Boers only know combination forced on them 
 by external pressure. With the Uitlanders co- 
 operation is as noticeable as their jealousies and 
 keenness of rivalry ; and the tendency is to 
 continually greater combinations, as the great 
 Gold Fields Company and the Barnato Amal- 
 gamation show. There are the Chambers of 
 Mines and of Commerce, the Mercantile Associa- 
 tion, the Association of Mine Managers, Free- 
 masonry Lodges, Geological and Chemical Societies,
 
 V THE UITLANDERS 49 
 
 and so on. And though at the beginning of last 
 year there was a split in the Chamber of Mines, 
 due probably to the racial feeling between Germans 
 and English then prevalent, this has not prevented 
 a general and remarkably successful combination 
 among the mining companies to reduce the rate of 
 native wages. Everywhere there are evidences of 
 capacity for organisation. The rapid success of 
 the mining operations sufficiently shows this ; and 
 the contrast in the capacity for organisation 
 between the Boer Government and the Uitlanders 
 was particularly striking on the occasion of the 
 great dynamite explosion. The explosion occurred 
 on trucks of the Dutch Railway Company, and the 
 victims were nearly all Dutch. But though the 
 Dutch Government officials were most anxious and 
 willing to afford relief, while they were slowly 
 revolving in their minds what to do, the Uitlander 
 population had called a meeting, and, three hours 
 after the accident, had subscribed ^40,000 and 
 organised a temporary hospital, medical staff, and 
 relief parties. 
 
 And here parenthetically I may notice the 
 generosity and hospitality of the Uitlanders. Men 
 who make money quickly are proverbially free in 
 parting with it, and the Uitlanders are especially 
 liberal in that respect. I personally have much to 
 thank them for in the great hospitality shown me 
 a hospitality which I gratefully acknowledge, but 
 which will, I hope, not influence me in truthfully 
 
 E
 
 So SOUTH AFRICA OF TO-DAY CHAP, 
 
 depicting the situation in this country. Their 
 business is carried on less by letter than by word of 
 mouth. They therefore know each other well, and 
 are always genial in their social intercourse. 
 
 In so far, then, as the Uitlanders, not being 
 formed into a separate State, possess organisation, 
 that organisation has many elements of efficiency. 
 The leaders are usually the best men among them, 
 or, if some are not, their places are easily filled by 
 those who are. There has not been sufficient time 
 for the formation of strong vested interests, and 
 there are no antiquated institutions standing in the 
 way of useful development. As a body, Uitlanders 
 lack the steadying effect which old-established 
 institutions and tradition give, but they have the 
 advantage of being able readily to adapt themselves 
 to new requirements. Even the same companies 
 and same individuals take up gold mining, coal 
 mining, fruit growing, or tree planting with equal 
 readiness. And this adaptability to the needs of 
 the occasion is as likely to show itself in political 
 life as it has already in industrial. 
 
 The Uitlanders have not either that military or 
 political experience which the Boers have gained 
 during the last half century of strenuous national 
 life. They have been too much engrossed in 
 business, and too little in touch with public life 
 apart from business, to furnish good public men. 
 But just as hard as the Boers have fought for the 
 independence of the Transvaal the Uitlanders are
 
 v THE UITLANDERS 51 
 
 now working for its material development. Work 
 is combining the Uitlanders as war has combined 
 the Boers. And the future prosperity of the 
 country depends upon whether those who have 
 worked and those who have fought for it may be 
 welded together in one united community. 
 
 E 2
 
 CHAPTER VI 
 
 THE RELATIONS BETWEEN BOERS AND UITLANDERS 
 
 THE characteristics of the country and of the 
 two sections of the white population have been 
 described, and it now remains to give some account 
 of the relations which exist between these two 
 sections. Most people are aware that the enter- 
 prising Uitlander population, who have made the 
 bare prairies of the Transvaal bring forth millions 
 of gold and lifted the original Boer population from 
 a state of abject poverty to one of easy affluence, 
 are treated by these same Boers strictly as aliens ; 
 but few, probably, have realised that these skilled 
 and educated Europeans, accustomed to the most 
 advanced forms of political freedom, are treated 
 with considerably less liberality than are the natives 
 of India by the British Government. Yet such is 
 the case, and a comparison between the degree of 
 liberty enjoyed by the Uitlanders in the Transvaal 
 and the degree of liberty accorded to the natives 
 of India will help to illustrate the precise position 
 of the former. In India on the Legislative Councils
 
 CH. VI BOERS AND UITLANDERS 53 
 
 of the Viceroy and of the Governors of provinces 
 there is always a proportion of native members ; 
 and native members of Council have lately been 
 accorded the right of questioning the financial 
 expenditure of the Government. There are native 
 Judges even in the High Courts ; there are native 
 members of the Administration ; and there are 
 more than 700 municipalities in Indian towns. In 
 the Transvaal municipal rights have not yet been 
 granted to a single town; 130,000 or so of Uit- 
 landers will this year contribute about five millions 
 to the revenue of the country, yet, far from being 
 accorded any control over the expenditure of this 
 large sum of money, they have not even an official 
 means of expressing an opinion upon it nay, more, 
 by the new Press Law they may be prevented 
 from expressing disapproval even in newspapers, 
 and these very lines may be forbidden re-entrance 
 to this country. And the mining industry is not 
 represented in the Government even by a Dutch 
 official'; for though there is a Dutch Minister of 
 Mines he is not given a seat on the Executive 
 Council the Commandant-General and the Super- 
 intendent of Natives receiving a seat before him. 
 Even Kaffirs in Cape Colony and negroes in 
 America have greater freedom than the Uitlanders 
 in the Transvaal ; and the single way in which 
 the Uitlanders may be represented is in the second 
 Volksraad. After expressly renouncing his former 
 country, after becoming liable to military service,
 
 54 SOUTH AFRICA OF TO-DAY CHAP. 
 
 the Uitlander may obtain the single privilege of 
 membership in a body which has no control over 
 the finances of the country, and whose resolutions 
 upon other points are liable to veto by the first 
 Volksraad. 
 
 The attitude of the Boer rulers to the alien 
 population is therefore thoroughly consonant with 
 the military tendencies of their form of government. 
 It is absolutely despotic. The Boer is to be the 
 ruler, the Uitlander the worker, and each is to be 
 separate from the other. This is not the attitude 
 which the Boers have always taken up towards 
 the newcomers, for time was when any one who 
 had lived for a year in the country might enjoy 
 all the privileges of the first Boer arrivals. Up 
 to 1885 residents of five years' standing were 
 granted similar privileges. But since the rush 
 of immigrants to the gold fields commenced the 
 laws have gradually been increased in stringency, 
 till now an almost impassable barrier has been 
 set up between the new comer and the old. The 
 Boers have feared that if every one who came 
 to the country received full political privileges as 
 easily as had formerly been possible, they would 
 very soon be swamped out by the incoming tide ; 
 and they believe even now (for the President 
 insisted on the point to me) that the Uitlanders 
 only come here for a short time to make money 
 as rapidly as they can and leave the country ; and 
 the Boers argue that, if they were allowed any
 
 VI BOERS AND UITLANDERS 55 
 
 share in its government, they would seek to 
 introduce measures, not for the real future good 
 of the country, but to enable them to make money 
 still more rapidly than they make it at present 
 and return all the sooner to Europe. This, too, 
 is the view, not only of the extreme Conservatives, 
 but also of the most progressive members of the 
 Raad. Again, the President, on both my visits, 
 laid stress on the fact that when a few years ago 
 Uitlanders were asked to join in a campaign 
 against the native chief Maloboch they nearly all 
 refused. Mr. Kruger does not accept as an ex- 
 planation of this refusal that at the time they were 
 asked to fight for the country they had no assurance 
 that they would be allowed the privileges of 
 citizenship in it. So much of his life having been 
 spent in fighting for this country he seems to 
 consider that fighting for it is the only method 
 of skewing loyalty, and that those who have 
 worked industrially for its welfare have no claim 
 upon it. He says, too, that it is impossible to 
 trust the miscellaneous assortment of humanity 
 which flocks to the gold fields, and points to the 
 many evidences of hostility to the Boer Govern- 
 ment which the mining population have shown, 
 the result of which has been to imbue the Boer 
 mind with profound suspicion of the newcomers. 
 
 The Boers, then, sit over in Pretoria and legis- 
 late, and the Uitlanders mass together round 
 Johannesburg and work, but the two remain
 
 56 SOUTH AFRICA OF TO-DAY CHAP. 
 
 completely separate ; and, while the attitude of the 
 Boers towards the newcomers is one of deep 
 suspicion, the attitude of the Uitlanders is still one 
 of sullen discontent towards their unprogressive 
 rulers. There are still in the Transvaal many 
 British subjects who fought against the Boers in 
 1880, and who preserve much of the bitterness 
 of feeling which war engenders ; and there are 
 numbers in the country who would gladly seize 
 any opportunity of wiping out certain memories 
 which gall upon them. At times when the market 
 is low, and when there are large numbers out of 
 employment, as there will be with the present 
 rush of immigration if the market remains low 
 and so causes business to slacken, serious trouble 
 might very easily arise from this section of the 
 community. But besides this inflammable portion 
 of the Uitlander population there are numbers 
 of Germans, French, and Americans who have no 
 such reasons for race animosity, and who, as they 
 are at present obtaining favours from the Boers 
 because these latter are anxious to alienate them 
 from the British section, have no wish to disturb 
 the present regime. And even among the British 
 portion there are many who would prefer things as 
 they are, rather than risk the chance of further 
 troubles such as occurred a short time ago. 
 
 There are, then, tendencies which, fortunately, 
 keep in check the antagonism between the races 
 which undoubtedly exists ; and another influence of
 
 VI BOERS AND UITLANDERS 57 
 
 the same description comes from the fact that, while 
 the Boer Government has shown during recent years 
 an inclination towards increased political separation 
 between themselves and the Uitlanders, the ten- 
 dency has not been towards increased obstruction 
 to the mining industry on its economic side. There 
 is no actual encouragement of the mining industry, 
 and the most that the Boer Government does is to 
 sanction a few of the many proposals which the 
 Uitlanders make to them for the development of 
 the industry ; they have, for instance, condescended 
 to allow the mining companies to make a metalled 
 road along the Rand at their own expense. Still 
 the Gold Law is liberal, and has been improved 
 from year to year, Government have helped rather 
 than obstructed the mines in the procuring and 
 regulation of native labour ; and, while nervous 
 lest the mining industry should outgrow their 
 capacity to control it, they have no deliberate policy 
 of strangling it, as they have not yet entirely for- 
 gotten what the revenue of the country was before 
 the opening of the mines', and have no wish to see 
 it again drop from ,5,000,000 to ,75,000. 
 
 At one time there were several indications 
 of what might be considered an exactly opposite 
 intention on the part of Government, and more 
 genuine discontent was caused among the Uitlanders 
 than I think at any previous time. The pegging-out 
 by Government officials of claims on property 
 which mining companies have possessed for years ;
 
 5 8 SOUTH AFRICA OF TO-DAY CHAP. 
 
 and the declaration of intention to enforce certain 
 provisions of the Sunday Law which have hitherto 
 been held in abeyance, coming immediately after 
 oppressive political measures like the Press Law 
 and the Expulsion of Aliens Bill, have caused 
 many to think that a deliberate set is being made 
 to ruin or curtail the industry. Yet in spite of 
 these harassing measures, which have done much 
 to shake confidence in the Government, I think 
 that the chief charges which the mining industry, 
 as an industry, might justly bring against the 
 Government are of indifference and ignorance, 
 rather than of deliberate and intentional obstruc- 
 tion. 
 
 Reviewing the situation, we have then a strong 
 but slow-moving and unprogressive section of the 
 population controlling another section double them 
 in numbers, and energetic, enterprising, and im- 
 patient. The indolent section believes it only 
 wishes to be let alone, but does not object to 
 sucking what sweets the presence of the working 
 section affords ; and this working section believes 
 it wants political power, but in reality only wants 
 to be allowed to work without hindrance. The 
 Boers are suspicious of the Uitlanders aiming to 
 get the government in their hands, and the rough 
 farmers shudder at the idea of being controlled by 
 stock-jobbers from Europe ; while the money- 
 seeking Uitlanders, realising the enormous possi- 
 bilities of wealth which the country affords were the
 
 VI BOERS AND UITLANDERS 59 
 
 Government but intelligent and progressive, chafe 
 at the obstacles to development which the Boers 
 place in their way or refuse to remove. The Boers 
 consider that they have fought for the country and 
 that it is theirs by right ; and when it is remembered 
 that only a few years ago the very men who sit in 
 the Rand at Pretoria and legislate for the Uitlanders 
 were out on commando with rifles in their hands 
 fighting for their independence, it is easy to imagine 
 how determined they would be to keep the govern- 
 ment in their hands. The Uitlanders are at perfect 
 liberty to come and make money and furnish the 
 Boers with funds, but they must expect no share in 
 the government of the country. 
 
 The resulting condition of affairs is not satis- 
 factory, and might cause serious anxiety were the 
 Boers hot-headed and irascible. But, after all, their 
 chief defect is only unprogressiveness, and we have 
 the experience of the Cape Colony, Natal, and the 
 Free State that Boers and British can work har- 
 moniously together. I hope, therefore, to be able 
 to show that there are lines of possible develop- 
 ment which do not necessarily involve the violent 
 uprisings which I have now to describe, and which 
 took place soon after my arrival in Johannesburg.
 
 CHAPTER VII 
 
 THE CRISIS IN JOHANNESBURG 
 
 THE foregoing chapter will have given an idea of 
 the general position of affairs in the Transvaal ; and 
 when I arrived in Johannesburg in the middle of 
 December, 1895, tne antagonism between the two 
 races British and Dutch between enterprise and 
 stolidity was fast approaching a climax. Every- 
 where, in the train, in the hotel, in the club, the 
 same story was told me. The pushing, energetic 
 Uitlander was fretting under the restrictions placed 
 upon his enterprise by the stolid Boer rulers of the 
 country ; and chafing under their hopeless immo- 
 bility and inability to provide the proper adminis- 
 tration for a great mining and business centre. 
 The newspapers representing the forward section 
 daily published articles silently attacking the Boer 
 Government. And the vague apprehension that 
 trouble was brewing quickly increased in vividness 
 till men began to send their wives and children 
 away from the town, and the crisis came nearer and 
 nearer.
 
 CH. vii THE CRISIS IN JOHANNESBURG 61 
 
 On December 26th, Charles Leonard, as Chair- 
 man of the Transvaal National Union, issued a 
 Manifesto in which he stated that in view of the 
 momentous issue to be faced, a review of the 
 position prior to the holding of a general meeting 
 on January 6th was necessary. The Manifesto 
 pointed out that the objects of the Union were the 
 maintenance of the independence of the Republic, 
 the securing of equal rights, and the redress of 
 grievances. It stated that the Uitlanders were the 
 majority in the State ; owned more than half the 
 land and at least nine-tenths of the property ; yet 
 in all matters affecting their lives, their liberties, 
 and their properties they had absolutely no voice. 
 
 The Manifesto concludes : " We desire an in- 
 dependent Republic which shall be a true Republic, 
 in which every man who takes the oath of allegiance 
 to the State shall have equal rights, and in which 
 our children shall be brought up side by side as 
 united members of a strong commonwealth. We 
 are animated by no race hatred. We desire to 
 deprive no man, be his nationality what it may, 
 of any right. We want : 
 
 1. The establishment of the Republic as a 
 true Republic. 
 
 2. A Grondwet or Constitution, which shall be 
 framed by competent persons selected by repre- 
 sentatives of the whole people, and framed on lines 
 laid down by them a Constitution which shall be 
 safeguarded against hasty alterations.
 
 62 SOUTH AFRICA OF TO-DAY CHAP. 
 
 3. An equitable franchise, law, and fair 
 representation. 
 
 4. Equality of the Dutch and English languages. 
 
 5. Responsibility to the Legislature of the 
 heads of the great departments. 
 
 6. The removal of religious disabilities. 
 
 7. The independence of the Court of Justice, 
 with adequate and secured remuneration for the 
 Judges. 
 
 8. Liberal and comprehensive education. 
 
 9. An efficient Civil Service, with adequate 
 provision for pay and pensions. 
 
 10. Free trade in South African products. 
 What the situation in Johannesburg was at 
 
 the time of the publication of the Manifesto 
 will best be made clear by an extract from a letter 
 I wrote to the Times (published January 25th, 
 1896), dated December 28th, and actually 
 despatched from Johannesburg on the very day 
 that Jameson crossed the border. This extract 
 will, I think, show, the viewjf which Sir Hercules 
 Robinson had expressed to me at Cape Town, 
 that Johannesburg would not of itself resort to 
 arms ^ was a correct one. After first giving a 
 summary of the Manifesto and its claim, and 
 quoting Mr. Leonard's concluding appeal that as 
 to how these claims were to be obtained he ex- 
 pected an answer in plain terms to be given at 
 the great mass meeting to be held on January 6th, 
 I wrote :
 
 vii THE CRISIS IN JOHANNESBURG 63 
 
 " It is just this question of ' How ? ' that is 
 producing so much difference of opinion in 
 Johannesburg at the present time. That the 
 Manifesto contains a fair summary of grievances 
 every one is agreed. The position here is indeed 
 intolerable to men accustomed, as the greater part 
 of the Uitlander community have been, to live 
 under highly organised Governments, free in- 
 stitutions, and amid civilisation generally of the 
 most advanced type. From the first moment of 
 entering the country a suppressed feeling of irrita- 
 tion is felt at the dilatoriness and slovenliness on 
 the railway, the signs of municipal neglect in the 
 town, the vexatious state of affairs at the post 
 office and telegraph office. And the settler in 
 the country finds this feeling of irritation increase 
 as he struggles on against the gross mismanage- 
 ment and deadly hostility to his interests which 
 prevail ; as he finds even necessaries of life taxed 
 till prices have become almost prohibitive ; as he 
 sees restrictions imposed on labour which cramp 
 his mining enterprises, and the prices of necessities 
 for his work doubled through monopolies. There 
 is not a Uitlander in the place who does not feel 
 some irritation at the existing condition of things, 
 some annoyance at the evident mismanagement, 
 some longing to have matters put more straight. 
 On this point all are agreed, all feel that there are 
 legitimate causes of complaint, and that the Union 
 Manifesto is a true statement of the grievances.
 
 64 SOUTH AFRICA OF TO-DAY CHAP. 
 
 It is only upon the question as to how the claims 
 for the redress of these grievances are to be put 
 forward that opinions differ so widely at present. 
 "It is everywhere stated that large quantities 
 of arms have been imported into Johannesburg, 
 that Maxim guns have been brought in amongst 
 machinery, and that one party intend to have 
 recourse to force to effect their ends. This active 
 policy evidently, however, does not meet with 
 the approval of the majority of the inhabitants of 
 Johannesburg. They have too much at stake. 
 They have their wives and children to look after. 
 They have immense properties here. The closing 
 down of the mines, the stagnation of trade, a 
 rich town at the mercy of the mob and of the 
 thousands of natives who would be let loose, and 
 who, breaking into the liquor shops, might cause 
 unspeakable trouble all these are evils which the 
 majority of the Uitlanders say they will not face. 
 They say they would rather bear the ills they 
 have than fly to others that they know not of. 
 Some even go further and say that if any section 
 of the community does raise a revolt they will 
 themselves try to stop it by the use of arms. 
 The old saying that Englishmen are never so 
 peacefully employed as when they are engaged in 
 making money is fully borne out here at the 
 present time. The inhabitants of Johannesburg 
 are not a seditious, rebellious, quarrelsome set of 
 men. They are money-makers. Rebellion and
 
 vii THE CRISIS IN JOHANNESBURG 65 
 
 money-making do not go together. So the feeling 
 now is certainly against rebellion ; and unless the 
 Boer is either more clever or more intensely stupid 
 than he is given credit for, he will never goad 
 the Uitlander to take up arms against him. 
 
 " But it must not be imagined from this that 
 the Uitlander will not press his claims. The 
 same argument which applies against his having 
 recourse to force applies equally in favour of his 
 persisting by every other means to gain his objects. 
 Money is not to be made so plentifully, business 
 cannot be carried on so surely, under a Govern- 
 ment like the present. Men whose whole training 
 consists in seeing that money spent brings in its 
 proper return cannot remain impassive under a 
 system by which money taken from them is spent, 
 without any sort of control, in the most reckless 
 and unprofitable way. So they must, and they 
 will, go on agitating for reform. They none of 
 them want to see the British flag hoisted here. 
 They none of them want to see the present 
 Republic done away with. There is not a sign 
 among the Uitlanders of the Transvaal of any 
 agitation in that direction. There is no wish to 
 turn out the Boers, and, with all that is said 
 against Boer government, for the Boers as a 
 people much respect and sympathy are felt. In 
 spite of their faults as rulers they are looked 
 upon as a brave and hardy people, and their 
 rights as the first pioneers in this country are 
 
 F
 
 66 SOUTH AFRICA OF TO-DAY CHAP. 
 
 recognised. There is no wish, then, on the part 
 of the Uitlanders to break down the Republic and 
 make a British colony of the Transvaal. But 
 they want to have a true Republic governed by 
 the people who live in it ; to make the Boers 
 realise that, though they were the first arrivals, 
 they must not hold the country exclusively to 
 themselves against the thousands, and it will soon 
 be hundreds of thousands, who are following after ; 
 to have the Transvaal for Boer and Uitlander 
 alike, till the term ' Uitlander ' outsider is done 
 away with, and the present oligarchy gives place 
 to a Republic in the true sense of the term. 
 
 "If there were any assurance or hope that 
 patience would effect their ends, the Uitlanders 
 would resort to it. But they have no such hope. 
 They know well that they have to deal with no 
 pliable ' give-and-take ' description of people, but 
 with a hard, unyielding race blessed, like many 
 of the British race also, with the virtue of ' pig- 
 headedness,' and led by an autocratic President, in 
 whom the virtues and the faults of the race are 
 combined in a superlative degree. Against this 
 race the Uitlanders have no real animosity. They 
 know the Boers have not all the beautiful traits 
 of character with which those who only know 
 them from a distance credit them. They know 
 that with all their religiousness they are notoriously 
 untruthful, that with their love of independence 
 there is mixed an indolent shrinking from the
 
 vii THE CRISIS IN JOHANNESBURG 67 
 
 competition of life among civilised nations, and 
 that the spirit of enterprise and progress in civil 
 life has in consequence dried up in them. Still 
 they see in the Boers qualities which everywhere 
 command admiration. They see a people who, 
 rather than submit to the exactions imposed upon 
 them nearly three centuries ago, were willing to 
 leave their homes and friends in Europe to spend 
 their lives in lands immeasurably more distant 
 and infinitely less known than South Africa is at 
 the present day a people who again left their 
 new homes to wander far into the interior, and 
 amongst hostile tribes, to seek a country where 
 they might be free, and who in this land have 
 maintained their freedom against both the savages 
 and a powerful civilised nation. The Uitlanders 
 recognise that these Boers must be a brave and 
 hardy people ; and though there is at present a 
 feeling of exasperation which soon may grow 
 into animosity, there is as yet no such animosity 
 among the Uitlanders. 
 
 " But the Uitlanders feel that to gain their 
 rights they must be as obstinate as the Boers 
 themselves, that they must go on urging and 
 pressing their claims ; and before the energy and 
 perseverance which exist in the characters of 
 the British, the Americans, the Germans, and 
 the French who make up the 130,000 Uitlanders 
 the 40,000 Boers must in the end give way." 
 
 Meanwhile the excitement and uneasiness in the 
 
 F 2
 
 68 SOUTH AFRICA OF TO-DAY CHAP. 
 
 town increased. Notices that arms were being im- 
 ported into the town appeared daily in the papers, 
 and allusions even appeared to the presence of 
 Jameson and his men on the frontier. They were 
 there for something, and the arms were being im- 
 ported with some hidden object. The sense of the 
 town was against fighting ; but fighting might 
 evidently come, and so many thought it desirable to 
 clear out while they still might. The trains down 
 country were crammed many hours before the time 
 of starting. Even goods trucks were filled with 
 people. And something like a panic was setting in 
 when on Monday, December 3Oth, the evening 
 newspaper, the Star, announced that Dr. Jameson 
 had crossed the border and was marching into the 
 Transvaal. 
 
 I well remember the looks of utter dumbfounded- 
 ness with which the news was received. It simply 
 took men's breath away : the audacity of the move, 
 and the awful consequences which it might involve. 
 And upon none did it produce a greater sense of 
 consternation than on the leaders of the political 
 agitation, who knew that Jameson was on the border 
 ready, if need be, to help them, but who for weeks 
 past had been making every possible effort to 
 prevent his marching before they themselves were 
 ready. They had indeed, more than a month 
 previous to this, written him and delivered into his 
 hands when he was himself at Johannesburg in the 
 middle of November, a provisional letter to be
 
 vii THE CRISIS IN JOHANNESBURG 69 
 
 acted on in case of a necessity. This letter was the 
 famous "women and children" letter. It called 
 upon him to come to the aid of Johannesburg should 
 disturbance arise. But the disturbance had not so 
 far arisen. Moreover, Johannesburg was not yet 
 ready, even if it were willing, to take up arms and 
 strike a blow for liberty^ because those arms had not 
 yet arrived. A few hundreds of stands of arms had 
 indeed reached the town, but the bulk was still 
 delayed on account of the block in the railway, and 
 the three Maxims did not arrive till two days after 
 Dr. Jameson had actually started. 
 
 The position of the Johannesburg leaders at this 
 time was one of extraordinary perplexity. They 
 themselves no doubt felt acutely the obstructiveness 
 of the Boers. They were responsible for the profit- 
 able working of large enterprises. They saw that 
 those enterprises were not paying anything like the 
 dividends which they might pay under a proper 
 Government ; and as the Government had shown no 
 signs during the last year of making any concessions, 
 the agitators for reform had eagerly caught up the 
 idea of resorting to arms in order to put pressure 
 on Government, and when outside assistance was 
 proffered they were not slow to accept it. 
 
 But the great mass of the people were not at that 
 time discontented, though most have since become 
 so. The ordinary miner, the business employe and 
 the clerks were all getting very high wages, which 
 might very possibly be reduced if large numbers of
 
 70 SOUTH AFRICA OF TO-DAY CHAP. 
 
 men were attracted to the country by good govern- 
 ment. There were certainly then no open signs of 
 seething sedition among what would have to form 
 the rank and file if revolution there was to be. And 
 it was difficult for the leaders to approach the men 
 to ascertain their views about taking up arms with- 
 out divulging too much of their plans. Certain it is 
 that on the Monday morning on which Jameson was 
 crossing into the Transvaal, in the teeth of the 
 remonstrances of the Johannesburg leaders, and 
 without having given them any warning of his 
 intentions, the leaders on comparing notes found 
 they had only three or four hundred men on whom 
 they could depend, and they knew all the time that 
 the Boer Government was aware of their intentions. 
 But while there were immense risks in resorting 
 to arms there were evident signs of the Transvaal 
 Government yielding to a certain extent and of the 
 Uitlanders being able to obtain, without actual 
 fighting, a great part of what they wanted. There 
 was gradually growing among a section of the Boers 
 a feeling that President Kruger was persisting too 
 steadfastly in his rigid policy of exclusiveness. 
 Dutchmen of the Orange Free State, the Cape 
 Colony and Natal even, accounted Uitlanders the 
 same as any new arrival from England or America. 
 And these Dutchmen were beginning to make their 
 influence felt upon their confreres in the Transvaal 
 till many of these latter were saying that Govern- 
 ment ought to relax a little. Moreover the
 
 vii THE CRISIS IN JOHANNESBURG 71 
 
 exaggerated accounts of the number of rifles, Maxims 
 and guns which were being imported into Johannes- 
 burg were having their effect upon Government, who 
 began to see that they had been too unyielding, and 
 might be on the verge of more serious trouble than 
 they were able to cope with. Nor could Govern- 
 ment have then counted on the support of the 
 whole Boer population in suppressing any spon- 
 taneous rising in Johannesburg, for many were 
 openly saying that if the President was obstinate 
 enough to set the fire alight he might himself put it 
 out. Indeed, when the orders were sent to the 
 district to mobilise, one district, not having heard 
 that it was in order to resist an outside invasion, 
 but thinking it was merely to suppress an outbreak 
 in Johannesburg, flatly refused to obey the summons. 
 It was only when they were informed that the object 
 was to defend their country from a foreign invasion 
 that they obeyed. 
 
 On the eve, then, of the Jameson raid, the 
 Government, recognising the symptoms of coming 
 trouble, showed signs of bending before the storm. 
 President Kruger issued a proclamation removing 
 duties on food stuffs, and he promised to submit to 
 the Volksraad proposals to grant equal subsidies to 
 the English and Dutch schools and full franchise to 
 all who declared for the Government in the crisis. 
 This was not much. It was mostly promises, and 
 President Kruger's promises are not much relied on 
 by the people of Johannesburg. But the Johannes-
 
 72 SOUTH AFRICA OF TO-DAY CHAP, 
 
 burg leaders had little confidence that they would be 
 able to effect anything better by a premature revolu- 
 tion. The only chance of success that there had 
 ever been lay in a surprise and a sudden night 
 attack upon the undefended arsenal at Pretoria and 
 the drawing of the teeth of the Boers by the capture 
 of the artillery in the arsenal. 
 
 Now that the Government were on the alert this 
 was out of the question, and the Boers being better 
 armed and organised than the Johannesburgers the 
 latter would have no chance of success in a conflict, 
 and their best hope lay in making the utmost of the 
 fear which the known presence of arms in Johannes- 
 burg must produce. The Government would be 
 able to gather from the fact that arms had been 
 collected, that the Uitlanders meant business, and 
 that there was cause to be careful about offending 
 them further. 
 
 When, then, the Johannesburg leaders received 
 about midday on Monday an obscure private tele- 
 gram from Mafeking, announcing that the " vete- 
 rinary doctor " had started and might be backed for 
 " seven hundred " pounds, they were utterly dis- 
 mayed. Now "the fat was in the fire," and they 
 were not surprised when they shortly after inter- 
 cepted an official telegram from Pretoria addressed to 
 one of the Boer commandants, and ordering him to 
 ride through Johannesburg and shoot right and left 
 indiscriminately, to crush down the anticipated revo- 
 lution before it had time to break out.
 
 VII THE CRISIS IN JOHANNESBURG 73 
 
 On the Tuesday my report was, " The news of 
 the advance of an armed party from Bechuanaland 
 is not very favourably received. There is no general 
 wish in the community to resort to arms except in 
 defence, and equally little wish to destroy the inde- 
 pendence of the Republic." 
 
 Even the Johannesburg Star, the inspired organ 
 of extreme agitationists, and the editor of which was 
 a member of the Reform Committee, "joined with 
 the morning journals in deploring the action of the 
 Bechuanaland force in entering the Transvaal, and 
 the letter of appeal to Dr. Jameson and the well- 
 nigh hopeless construction which would be placed 
 upon it." The Star " hoped that a tumult would be 
 avoided and a national compromise adjusted." 
 
 What happened subsequently may be best told by 
 quoting a long telegram 1 I sent from Pretoria on 
 January 4th, recapitulating the daily telegrams I had 
 been sending, and which I had reason to believe 
 were being delayed. This telegram I do not 
 hesitate to reproduce in extenso, as, written on the 
 spot, it accurately records the state of feeling at the 
 
 time. 
 
 1 Times, January loth, 1896.
 
 CHAPTER VIII 
 
 THE REVOLT AND RAID 
 
 " ON the morning of December 3Oth news was 
 received in an obscure private telegram that Dr. 
 Jameson's force had crossed the border into Trans- 
 vaal territory. 
 
 " This was at first considered such an utterly 
 impossible proceeding that no notice was taken of 
 it ; but when in the afternoon a local evening paper, 
 the Star, issued a special edition with the news 
 telegraphed from Pretoria, there was no longer any 
 doubt about it. For that evening men simply 
 stood aghast at the boldness of the move. Next 
 morning shops and banks were open as usual, and 
 at first it seemed as if there would be no more 
 stir in Johannesburg than in any other town in 
 South Africa over this startling news ; but towards 
 midday men were seen collecting round the office 
 of the Reform Committee, and it became known 
 that arms were to be served out to men who would 
 enrol under the order of the Committee. At the 
 same time the flag of the Transvaal Republic was
 
 CH. vill THE REVOLT AND RAID 75 
 
 hoisted over the building as a sign that arms were 
 to be taken up, not with the object of doing away 
 with the present Republic and turning it into a 
 British colony, but with the fixed intention of 
 keeping it as a Republic. 
 
 " This is the keynote of the present agitation, 
 which is for internal reform, and not for the over- 
 throw of the Republic. 
 
 " The town now began to be agitated. There 
 were no signs of real excitement, for, though crowds 
 collected, there was no noise, no hurried move- 
 ments of men ; but every one felt we were on the 
 brink of some great action, the result of which it 
 was impossible to foretell. The nerves of the town 
 became more and more highly strung as armed men 
 were formed up into parties and marched through 
 the streets away to the heights on the north. It 
 seemed as if the slightest spark would set the 
 whole town alight, and that a bloody conflict would 
 take place between the Uitlanders and the Dutch 
 still in the town. A shot was heard, and close by 
 where the sound came from three or four policemen 
 were seen. A crowd rapidly collected, and it was 
 thought that some tragic affair had taken place, but 
 all that had happened was that a horse had tumbled 
 down and been shot. Another shot was heard, but 
 this time it was only a recruit letting off his rifle by 
 mistake. On each occasion, however, there was a 
 quiver of excitement, as it was feared that it might 
 be the first shot in the conflict.
 
 76 SOUTH AFRICA OF TO-DAY CHAP. 
 
 " Yet nothing was more remarkable than the 
 quiet and orderly manner in which the whole move- 
 ment, by which the control of the town passed, in a 
 few hours, from the hands of the Government into 
 the hands of the Reform Committee, was carried out. 
 Probably men of no other two nationalities in the 
 world could have carried out such a movement so 
 quietly. Englishmen quietly armed themselves and 
 marched stolidly off to their appointed places ; 
 Dutchmen noiselessly withdrew their police and 
 concentrated at the goal ; and from that day to this 
 there has not been even a single brawl in the town. 
 It was an astonishing sight to look from the windows 
 and see the orderly crowds of men on that eventful 
 night, when each one expected that before morning 
 there must be a deadly struggle. 
 
 " Throughout the town, during the afternoon, 
 people not only closed their shop doors, but boarded 
 up their windows, and by the evening numbers of 
 men came marching in from outlying mines, and 
 were cheered as they passed through the streets. 
 All through the afternoon mounted corps were 
 being organised, men being served out with horses, 
 brand new saddlery, and rifles, and then riding 
 away to patrol round the outskirts of the town. 
 Yet there was not the slightest sign of over- 
 excitement in the streets ; and the first, and there- 
 fore most critical, night passed by without a shot 
 being fired in anger. 
 
 " On the following day, Tuesday, the organising
 
 VIII THE REVOLT AND RAID 77 
 
 and drilling of newly-enrolled men was steadily pro- 
 ceeded with, and by this time a marked change of 
 feeling had come over the town. 
 
 " Up to now it may be said with certainty that 
 the majority had not wished to fight ; they re- 
 cognised that they had much to lose by it, and, 
 being almost unarmed, how could they expect to 
 effect anything by fighting against an organised 
 Government ? But when they saw rifles, and even 
 Maxims, being served out, and an efficient organisa- 
 tion being formed, and when they heard that a 
 strong body of highly-equipped troops, under daring 
 leaders, had come across the border to aid them, 
 then those who had before held aloof joined the 
 organisation ; they felt that they had now a chance, 
 and, moreover, that if fighting should take place, as 
 was now almost inevitable, it would be almost im- 
 possible to stand neutral. 
 
 " Until one actually sees it, it is hard to realise 
 how strong is the tendency among a mass of men 
 to fall together in circumstances such as these. 
 For weeks past, and especially after the issue of 
 the Manifesto, letters had been written to the news- 
 papers denouncing in the strongest terms the folly 
 of attempting to take up arms against the Govern- 
 ment. Some had gone so far as to say that if any 
 should attempt to do so they would forcibly oppose 
 them. Organisations even had been formed for 
 this express purpose ; yet when the move was made, 
 when arms actually were taken up, every one, with
 
 78 SOUTH AFRICA OF TO-DAY CHAP. 
 
 hardly an exception, joined in. Americans, and 
 even Germans, who had formerly been so opposed 
 to it, declared themselves ready to support it. The 
 reason for this was evidently that men realised that 
 they must be either on one side or the other in the 
 struggle, and that they were safer with a rifle in 
 their hands than without one. 
 
 " Finding evidently, therefore, that the organisa- 
 tion of the Reform Committee was a strong one, 
 and that the Government, by allowing the control 
 of the town to pass out of their hands, were 
 apparently weak, they naturally clustered round the 
 former, and far more men than they had need 
 for came to the offices of the Committee asking 
 to be enrolled. In this way the movement 
 grew till practically the whole town was absorbed 
 in it. 
 
 "On the evening of Tuesday, the 3ist, a deputa- 
 tion was sent by the Government from Pretoria 
 asking that a similar deputation might be sent to 
 Pretoria to meet General Joubert and talk matters 
 over with him, to see whether arrangements might 
 not be come to ; and it was agreed on both sides 
 that neither should meanwhile take any action 
 against the other, that Johannesburg should retain 
 its defensive attitude, and that Pretoria would not 
 attack it or invest it. There was, however, no 
 agreement that action should not be taken against 
 Dr. Jameson. 
 
 ... . D\ 
 
 "A deputation, consisting of Mr. Lione Phillips,
 
 Vlll THE REVOLT AND RAID 79 
 
 Mr. Abe Bailey, and Mr. Auret, accordingly went 
 to Pretoria early in the morning of January i. 
 
 " Shortly before they left a telegram was re- 
 ceived by the Committee from Sir Jacobus de Wet, 
 the British Agent in Pretoria, repeating the sub- 
 stance of a proclamation by the High Commissioner 
 repudiating Dr. Jameson's action, and calling upon 
 all British subjects in the Transvaal to render him 
 no assistance. 
 
 "After considering this communication, the Com- 
 mittee telegraphed to their representatives in Pre- 
 toria, -authorising them to inform the Government 
 that if they would allow Dr. Jameson to come 
 into Johannesburg without opposing him they would 
 guarantee with their lives to send him back. This 
 was communicated to the Government. Nothing, 
 however, was effected by the deputation, as in 
 the meantime it had been arranged that the High 
 Commissioner should come to Pretoria to effect a 
 settlement ; but the Reform Committee despatched 
 a member to meet Dr. Jameson to hand him the 
 High Commissioner's proclamation and to induce 
 him to stop. 
 
 " On the afternoon of this day a rumour began 
 to spread that Dr. Jameson's force was fighting the 
 Boers near Krugersdorp, a small mining township 
 twenty miles west of Johannesburg. Little doubt 
 was felt that he must be successful, if not in 
 forcing his way through the Boers, at any rate 
 in getting round them, for he had with him a
 
 8o SOUTH AFRICA OF TO-DAY CHAP. 
 
 highly-equipped, magnificently-armed, and well- 
 mounted corps, and the Boers had been taken com- 
 pletely by surprise, and had had no opportunity of 
 collecting their men together. 
 
 " Every one in Johannesburg expected, there- 
 fore, that on the following day Dr. Jameson and 
 his force would march triumphantly into the town ; 
 and so vividly had his daring appealed to the people 
 that they would have given him an unparalleled 
 ovation, accepted him as their future leader, and 
 followed him unquestioningly through anything. 
 
 " On Thursday "morning, the 2nd, a vague 
 rumour came in that matters had not gone alto- 
 gether so satisfactorily with him as had been at 
 first reported ; still, he was known to have now 
 passed Krugersdorp, and crowds flocked out of 
 the town to meet him. 
 
 " Riding along the road to Krugersdorp to reach 
 the spot where fighting was said to be taking place, 
 I found the road blocked by the Boer outposts, 
 who were now occupying each village, but riding 
 round them and then following at a distance a 
 strong Boer patrol who were evidently making 
 towards their main body, my companion (Mr. 
 Heygate) and myself, on cresting the ridge, 
 suddenly saw beneath us, near the hamlet of 
 Vlakfontein, two bodies of men whom we thought 
 were on the point of attacking each other, but as 
 we stood there one party turned round and slowly 
 marched back toward Krugersdorp.
 
 VIII THE REVOLT AND RAID Si 
 
 " By the regularity of its movements we knew 
 it could only be Dr. Jameson's force, yet even then 
 we never thought that it could have surrendered, 
 and it was only when we rode up to the Boer leader 
 that we heard what had actually occurred. 
 
 "We were allowed to ride up to the retiring 
 column, but not to converse with the officers and 
 men, who were riding along in their shirt sleeves 
 unarmed between escorts of Boers. 
 
 " They looked terribly tired, but were as hard 
 and determined looking a lot as could be brought 
 together, and the bravery which they had displayed 
 earned the unstinted admiration of the Boers. 
 What must have gone far to causing them to 
 surrender was the fact that they were utterly ex- 
 hausted ; it was now ninety hours since they had 
 started on their daring ride, and as in that time 
 they had covered more than 160 miles of ground, 
 had been engaged in hard scouting work, and for 
 the last twenty-four hours had fought almost con- 
 stantly, they had had but few hours' sleep and no 
 time to spare for cooking, and consequently had to 
 fight their last battle completely knocked up. 
 
 " They found the Boers posted behind ridges of 
 rock, with long open slopes in front of them. It 
 was impossible to get at them. They tried to pass 
 by to the right, but were stopped, so they gradu- 
 ally got drawn into the shallow hollow. They 
 could not force their way out, and they had to 
 surrender.
 
 82 SOUTH AFRICA OF TO-DAY CHAP. 
 
 " When the news of this surrender reached 
 Johannesburg it caused the utmost depression. 
 Dr. Jameson was known personally to numbers 
 in the town ; his popularity is remarkable, and, 
 above all, it was felt that when he had started 
 on this adventure to relieve the town, and had got 
 to within thirteen miles of it, some effort ought to 
 have been made to help him. A Scotch party of 
 nearly 1,000 men wanted to go out there and then, 
 to rescue him ; they said they would rather die 
 than suffer the disgrace of leaving him, and they 
 desisted only when consideration showed them that 
 an heroic effort of that sort was hardly likely to 
 be successful, and would only, if unsuccessful, make 
 matters worse for Dr. Jameson and his officers, 
 and possibly also cause the Boers to bombard 
 Johannesburg. 
 
 " But that night an angry mob gathered round 
 the offices of the Reform Committee, and roundly 
 abused them for not sending out help, whether 
 they had sufficient or not. The Military Com- 
 mittee especially were censured ; but the whole 
 movement being a political movement, they were 
 in the hands of the main Reform Committee, the 
 members of which had very good reasons for not 
 acting. In the first place, they had not asked Dr. 
 Jameson to come in when he did, and he em- 
 barrassed them greatly by doing so ; in the second 
 place, they had no idea that he stood so urgently 
 in need of assistance ; and, lastly, they were under
 
 vill THE REVOLT AND RAID 83 
 
 the terms of an armistice pending the arrival of the 
 High Commissioner. Nor is it altogether certain 
 that any help they could send would have been 
 effectual. 
 
 "It is probable that on the morning of the last 
 fight, when considerable reinforcements had arrived 
 from Pretoria, the Boers could have placed just 
 as many men against the Johannesburg contingent 
 as they did against Dr. Jameson. The Johannes- 
 burgers were merely a rabble with arms in their 
 hands, and could have afforded little real assistance. 
 Still, so great was Dr. Jameson's popularity, and 
 so deep-felt the admiration for his daring, that, in 
 spite of this, if it had been at all realised what 
 straits he was in, thousands would have been ready 
 to go out and succour him at any cost. 
 
 " Many people have said that the Boers have 
 degenerated, and that the young Boer is not of 
 the same stamp as those who have gone before. 
 This may be so, but there are still many thousands 
 of the old class left ; all those I saw at Vlakfontein 
 were of the rugged old stock, strong, hard-looking 
 men, who went about their business in a cool, 
 deliberate, one might almost say cold-blooded, way, 
 as if they were born and bred to it. There were 
 hundreds of these same men riding about Pretoria 
 in their wideawake hats, ordinary coats and trousers, 
 like any civilian, but with their rifles hung over 
 their shoulders, cartridge belt round them, and small 
 bag of provisions, which showed them ready to- 
 
 G 2
 
 84 SOUTH AFRICA OF TO-DAY CHAP. 
 
 go off to fight at any moment. The rapidity with 
 which these men collect, and the skill which 
 they show in the choice of their positions, in 
 their marksmanship, and in all operations of guerilla 
 warfare, is marvellous. 
 
 "All these men are in the highest degree in- 
 censed against Dr. Jameson. They admire his 
 bravery, but to attack without a quarrel they think 
 unpardonable. 
 
 " Still more incensed are the Boers against the 
 men who asked Dr. Jameson to come in ; for on the 
 person of one of the captured officers was a letter, 
 signed by five of the leading men in Johannesburg, 
 asking him to come. 
 
 " The surrender of these men is demanded. The 
 more hot-headed of the Boers demand also the 
 unconditional surrender of Johannesburg, the giving 
 up of the arms in the hands of the mob, the hand- 
 ing over of the leaders, and the tearing up of the 
 London Convention. 
 
 " These are among the conditions which the Boers 
 will probably ask for, and they are massing men and 
 guns up to Johannesburg to enforce them. 
 
 " There has probably never been a more difficult 
 situation in South Africa ; but one thing is certain 
 that the origin of the trouble is due to the Republican 
 Government. However incensed they may be at 
 much that has happened, they must acknowledge 
 that, if they had ruled the country during the fifteen 
 years of their existence in a manner in which it is
 
 VIII THE REVOLT AND RAID 85 
 
 expected that a civilised country should be ruled, the 
 wealthy capitalists, who have so much to lose by 
 disturbances such as have occurred, would never have 
 been driven to adopt the course which they have 
 adopted. Agitation for reform has been carried on 
 in the most open manner possible. It is six weeks 
 now since Mr. Lionel Phillips, in his outspoken de- 
 liverance, gave the first note of warning to the 
 Government that resort to force might be made if 
 some justice were not shown. In the Leonard 
 Manifesto the Government had another significant 
 warning, but it was not till December 3Oth that 
 Johannesburg actually took up arms ; and though it 
 is now nearly a week since this was done, not one 
 single act of hostility has been committed by the 
 men of Johannesburg. They took up arms to show 
 they were in earnest, and because they had been 
 taught to realise that by nothing short of this could 
 they obtain their just rights, the equal rights shown 
 to every citizen of a civilised country. But by their 
 very first act of hoisting the flag of this Republic 
 they showed that they meant no disloyalty to the 
 State, and by the control and the moderation which 
 they have displayed since arming and by the readi- 
 ness with which they met the proposals of the 
 Government to discuss matters in Pretoria, they 
 have given evidence of a determination to proceed 
 as temperately as possible. It may be said that the 
 existence of the letter calling in Dr. Jameson does 
 not agree with all this show of moderation ; but it is
 
 86 SOUTH AFRICA OF TO-DAY CH. vill 
 
 certain that though Dr. Jameson had a general letter 
 asking him to help them in case of disturbance, the 
 Committee had no wish for him to come in when he 
 did ; and as evidence that this was the case it has 
 only to be borne in mind that they did all they could 
 to induce him to go back, and offered to guarantee 
 with their lives that he should do so. 
 
 " President Kruger will, no doubt, have great 
 difficulty in controlling the angry men who have now 
 risen to arms all over the country ; but he has 
 throughout this crisis distinguished himself by his 
 moderation ; and if now, by a further display of 
 moderation, and by conceding something to the 
 Uitlanders, he can avert the crisis, he will have 
 saved a war which may begin with disaster, but 
 which could not end there."
 
 CHAPTER IX 
 
 AFTER THE REVOLT 
 
 THE reference in the last sentence of the previous 
 chapter is to a possible bombardment of Johannes- 
 burg. There are some who think that there was 
 little likelihood of any disaster befalling the town, 
 and that if the High Commissioner had taken up a 
 high tone and "bluffed" the matter out, the Boers 
 would have given in. These think that the Boers 
 would never have dared to attack a great town like 
 Johannesburg, in which they believed there were 
 quite 20,000 rifles and Maxims and guns ; that they 
 would merely have surrounded the place, and mean- 
 while help could have come to the town from outside, 
 and forced the Boers to grant reasonable concessions 
 to the Uitlanders. Those who reason so are, I 
 think, scarcely aware of the temper of the Boers at 
 that time. The Boer is a very difficult gentleman 
 to move under ordinary circumstances. He is as 
 stubborn and stolid as the most bigoted country 
 farmer at home. But once let the question of his 
 independence be raised and he is all fire and
 
 88 SOUTH AFRICA OF TO-DAY CHAP. 
 
 vehemence in an instant. The Boers were now 
 thoroughly convinced that their independence was 
 at stake, and they were moreover highly elated at 
 their victory over Jameson and the capture of all 
 his war material. Whoever therefore thinks that 
 the three thousand armed miners of Johannesburg, 
 with no artillery to reply to the artillery fire which 
 the Boers could have poured upon the town, 
 could have held their own against the eight or ten 
 thousand Boers who surrounded the town, seems to 
 me to under-estimate the real position as grossly as 
 Dr. Jameson himself did when he thought that he 
 could successfully invade the Transvaal with less 
 than 500 men at his back. 
 
 The line which Sir Hercules Robinson took was 
 to persuade the Johannesburgers to lay down their 
 arms. The British Agent, Sir Jacobus de Wet, was 
 accordingly sent to Johannesburg on the morning of 
 January 7th to inform the people that if they would 
 lay down their arms the High Commissioner would 
 consider that they were acting honourably ; but that 
 if they refused to comply with this request they 
 would forfeit the sympathy of the British Govern- 
 ment and of British subjects throughout the world, 
 as the lives of Dr. Jameson and his men were practi- 
 cally in their hands. This is, indeed, what was gene- 
 rally considered to be the case. The common rumour 
 was that if Johannesburg continued the fighting 
 which had begun, the Boers already highly incensed 
 and with difficulty kept within reasonable bounds by
 
 IX AFTER THE REVOLT 89 
 
 their strong President, would carry out the decision 
 at which the Commandant had already arrived, and 
 simply shoot Dr. Jameson and his officers. And 
 there was a high probability that such might now 
 happen if the Johannesburg leaders chose to be 
 obdurate. 
 
 Fortunately these latter thoroughly realised the 
 gravity of the situation. They saw the impossibility 
 of continuing a struggle which had been forced 
 upon them, and for which they had in no way been 
 prepared. The difficulty of bringing about a sur- 
 render of the arms lay not with the leaders but with 
 the men who held the arms. It is often difficult to 
 kindle a fire, but it is still more difficult to put it out 
 once it is kindled. The Johannesburg leaders had 
 had much trouble at first in firing the mob with any 
 enthusiasm for revolt ; now their principal anxiety 
 was how to ,damp down the enthusiasm that had 
 been kindled. Mobs are not given to thinking, and 
 these thousands of men now roving listlessly about 
 Johannesburg, two or three thousand of them with 
 arms in their hands, and scarcely one of them aware 
 in the smallest degree of the strength of the Boer 
 forces which surrounded the town, could see no 
 possible reason why they should throw down their 
 arms. They naturally felt capable of anything, and 
 the only possible way of carrying disarmament into 
 effect was to appeal to their feeling of devotion to 
 Dr. Jameson, and make clear to them the danger in 
 which he would lie if they were obdurate.
 
 90 SOUTH AFRICA OF TO-DAY CHAP. 
 
 In the forenoon of January the yth a huge mob 
 assembled outside the Club to be addressed by Sir 
 Jacobus de Wet. I stood on the verandah close 
 beside the British Agent, and as I looked down 
 upon the sea of faces beneath, and saw the effects 
 of the speech upon the people, I could realise the 
 gravity of the crisis, and how easily trouble might 
 come on. Sir Jacobus tried to explain to them in 
 how defenceless a state the town was, and in what 
 danger the women and children would lie if the 
 men refused to give up their arms, and the Boers 
 in consequence attacked the town. But such an 
 appeal only served to irritate the mob. They 
 thought themselves quite equal to dealing with any 
 number of Boers, and they did not care for the 
 appearance of surrendering their arms from motives 
 of fear. The appeal on that ground tended rather 
 to increase than diminish their determination to 
 retain them. 
 
 A far more successful appeal was made in the 
 speech of Sir Sidney Shippard, who told them that, 
 rom regard for themselves alone, he knew that they 
 would not think of laying down their arms : but 
 that others than themselves had to be considered, 
 and the fate of brave men were in their hands ; if 
 they persisted in a determination to retain their 
 arms, then Dr. Jameson and his brother officers 
 would almost certainly be killed ; if, on the contrary, 
 they listened to the request of the High Com- 
 missioner, their case would be considered by him.
 
 IX AFTER THE REVOLT 91 
 
 The mob responded more readily to this appeal ; 
 they surlily consented to lay down their arms ; by 
 the following morning most of them had been 
 collected. 
 
 The disarmament of Johannesburg was thus 
 completed without mishap. Arms were collected 
 and handed over to the Government Commissioner, 
 Government police patrolled the town, and the 
 crisis was passed. The news gave instant relief. 
 Both in Johannesburg and in Pretoria it had been 
 felt that the country was on the brink of a bloody 
 struggle ; but this had, happily, been averted by the 
 coolness and moderation of the Republican Govern- 
 ment, and the timely and well-considered action of 
 the High Commissioner. 
 
 So, after lasting eight days, ended an absolutely 
 unique revolution. Two thousand men had been 
 in arms in what is nothing but a huge mining 
 camp and mining camps are not usually remark- 
 able for good order yet not even a policeman had 
 been knocked on the head, and not a single act of 
 violence had been committed. One week the 
 Government, recognising that in the town of 
 Johannesburg they were unable to cope with the 
 armed forces which had suddenly sprung into 
 existence, discreetly withdrew their men. The 
 next week Johannesburg, finding the Government 
 stronger than it thought, with similar discretion 
 lays down its arms. The Government had not 
 fired one shot at a Johannesburg man, and
 
 92 SOUTH AFRICA OF TO-DAY CHAP. 
 
 Johannesburg had not fired one shot against the 
 Government. President Kruger and the Execu- 
 tive exhibited throughout remarkable coolness, and 
 the stability of the Government was unmistakably 
 displayed. 
 
 What was very noticeable was the absence of 
 excitement in the capital, danger and victory being 
 regarded with like equanimity by the hardy Boers. 
 But, though the crisis was over, deep feelings on 
 both sides had been excited which will not be 
 allayed for years. The Boers' distrust of the Uit- 
 landers was increased tenfold, and the sense of 
 failure is rankling with the Uitlanders. Both alike 
 have a deep-rooted desire in common for the 
 existence of the State as a Republic. The simple, 
 pastoral Boer recoils at the thought of being 
 governed by the schemes of Uitlander speculators, 
 and the pushing Uitlander capitalist frets at the 
 obstacles put in the way of his enterprises by the un- 
 trained Boers. Yet both have come to the country 
 to remain in it, and both want the government of 
 it to be republican and free from outside control. 
 
 The arms had been taken from the men of 
 Johannesburg, and quiet had been restored ; but 
 the leaders of the movement the Reform 
 Committee were still in grave anxiety as to what 
 action the Transvaal Government might take 
 against them. The Boers had at first been in- 
 tensely angry with Jameson for having without 
 warning or apparent justification invaded their
 
 IX AFTER THE REVOLT 93 
 
 country. But now amongst the baggage which 
 they had captured they had found a letter signed 
 by the five Johannesburg leaders, calling Jameson 
 in. The Boers of course knew nothing of the 
 secret history of that letter that it had only 
 been given to Jameson to be used under certain 
 eventualities which had never actually transpired. 
 The Boers had simply the fact before them that 
 here was a letter calling in Jameson, and all the 
 time the Johannesburg leaders had been saying 
 that they did not want him ! No wonder the 
 Boers became furious with the five leaders who 
 had signed the letter. I was at that time going 
 backwards and forwards between Johannesburg 
 and Pretoria, and in an hotel at the latter place 
 I heard a number of the Boer commandants pro- 
 testing, in that lusty emphatic way these rough 
 men have when roused, that each one of those 
 five ought to have " a hole drilled through him." 
 When I returned again to Johannesburg Colonel 
 Frank Rhodes and George Farrar asked me 
 what was the state of feeling in Pretoria in regard 
 to them, and I had to say that the rumours of the 
 Boer indignation against them were perfectly 
 true, and that they ran every chance of being 
 shot if they remained in the country. Somebody 
 present suggested that in that case, and as they 
 were free and could easily leave the country in 
 disguise, the most prudent course to adopt would 
 be to bolt at once before they were arrested.
 
 94 SOUTH AFRICA OF TO-DAY CHAP. 
 
 Apparently certain death, or at least a long 
 imprisonment, awaited them on the one hand, and 
 on the other they might quietly withdraw, and 
 in a few hours be out of all danger. But the 
 two never flinched for a moment. Frank Rhodes, 
 with that toss of his body so characteristic of 
 him, and throwing out his legs, said that as he had 
 gone in for the thing he was going to see it 
 through at whatever cost. And George Farrar, 
 with his usual tug at his moustache, similarly said 
 that he for one was not going to run away now 
 they were in a tight place. The other two who 
 signed the letter Lionel Phillips and John Hays 
 Hammond also determined to stay on and face 
 the consequences, whatever they might be. 
 
 What these were very soon appeared : for 
 suddenly, on the evening of January Qth and on 
 the next morning, the whole of the Reform Com- 
 mittee were arrested and taken to Pretoria gaol. 
 Theh the four leaders in particular and the whole 
 number were treated at first with extreme rough- 
 ness. The four leaders were locked into a small 
 cell, with only the smallest opening for a window, 
 and from which, though one of the number was 
 very unwell the whole night through, there was 
 no means of retiring. The rest were huddled 
 into small rooms, where there was barely sufficient 
 space to lie down packed alongside each other. 
 
 Dr. Jameson and five of his officers were in 
 the same gaol, and I had an opportunity now of
 
 IX AFTER THE REVOLT 95 
 
 visiting them for the first time. Of the whole 
 number Dr. Jameson himself appeared then the 
 weakest. He seemed utterly broken and crushed, 
 and all the officers at that time were labouring 
 under a sense of having been deserted by the 
 Johannesburgers. How the misapprehension 
 can possibly have arisen in face of the repeated 
 messages which the Johannesburg leaders de- 
 spatched to Jameson urging him not to start, it 
 is hard to say. But officers and men seem to 
 have made perfectly certain that men were to 
 come out from Johannesburg to help them in. 
 Certainly while I was in the town I never heard 
 any mention of such an intention. The whole 
 idea of the plan, as far as I understood it from the 
 leaders, was not that Johannesburg should help 
 Jameson's force to come in, but that Jameson 
 was to help Johannesburg in case of trouble 
 arising ; and in discussing the situation with the 
 leaders after Jameson had actually started, the 
 assumption always made was that his force would 
 be able to get in without difficulty and without 
 assistance. So certain indeed was I made of this 
 and so confident had I become that any serious 
 fighting which might occur would be much more 
 likely to take place round the town than on the 
 line of Jameson's march, that I stayed in Johan- 
 nesburg till the latest moment, and even then only 
 rode out to witness, as I thought it would be, 
 the triumphant entry of Jameson into the town.
 
 96 SOUTH AFRICA OF TO-DAY CHAP. 
 
 The invading force had been on the frontier for 
 weeks and months, and its leaders knew that its 
 possible destination might be the Transvaal. 
 They had arranged depots of supplies along the 
 route to Johannesburg, and had even laid out 
 changes of horses. They were well armed with 
 repeating rifles, Maxims and field guns. And it 
 was presumed that when they started in the 
 teeth of the warnings from Johannesburg they would 
 at least be provided with guides and be independent 
 of assistance from the town. Yet for months 
 the raiders were proclaimed as heroes, and the 
 Johannesburgers denounced as curs. Blundering 
 there was on both sides, but certainly there was 
 neither heroism nor cowardice nor disloyalty 
 on either. If men like Colonel Rhodes, George 
 Farrar, Lionel Phillips and John Hays Hammond 
 ever had made agreement to go out and meet 
 Jameson with a force to assist him in, they would 
 have done it. But all they seem to have under- 
 stood that they should do was to have a certain 
 number of men to meet Jameson not to assist 
 him in a military way, but to make a political 
 demonstration of welcoming him in. They were 
 also to send him men for the purpose of showing 
 him the way to the precise spot where his men 
 should encamp near Johannesburg. In all the 
 confusion occasioned by Jameson's premature 
 advance they were unable to carry out the first 
 intention, and they had on the contrary to send
 
 IX AFTER THE REVOLT 97 
 
 one of their number, Mr. Lace, to beg him to 
 return instead of coming in. As Dr. Jameson 
 was already engaged in fighting the Boers he 
 r was no longer able to withdraw. And so, through 
 too great impetuosity, and fatal miscalculation of 
 possible consequences on the one side, and through 
 weakness in allowing themselves to be drawn 
 into an enterprise for which they were not pre- 
 pared on the other, that complete combination by 
 which alone success could be achieved was missed, 
 and the resulting collapse was as disastrous as 
 the brilliancy of the success upon which all had 
 so confidently counted. 
 
 It would weary my readers to recount the dreary 
 course of events after the " Reformers " had been 
 placed in prison. How first a few of them were let 
 out on bail, then all except the leaders, then the 
 leaders. How after a long investigation the actual 
 trial took place. How all South Africa and all 
 England was astounded at the appalling severity of 
 the death sentence passed on the Johannesburg 
 leaders ; and how those four Lionel Phillips, 
 Colonel Frank Rhodes, George Farrar, and John 
 Hays Hammond bore that terrible and utterly un- 
 expected sentence with a fortitude which convinced 
 every one who saw them that they in no way de- 
 served the term of reproach which Englishmen had 
 been so ready to hurl upon them at first. But I 
 may dwell for a moment on one pathetic figure, for 
 whom no one can be so hard as not to feel some 
 
 H
 
 98 SOUTH AFRICA OF TO-DAY CHAP. 
 
 sympathy. It is that of the man who as a boy 
 gained his cricketing colours on the playing-fields 
 of Eton ; who for years served in one of the finest 
 cavalry regiments of the British army ; who gained 
 the Distinguished Service Order for his gallantry on 
 Herbert Stewart's hard desert march to the relief of 
 Gordon at Khartoum ; who is the solitary survivor 
 of Sir Gerald Portal's arduous mission to Uganda ; 
 and who, through loyalty to his younger brother, 
 had engaged in an ill-fated scheme in which he had 
 absolutely no personal interest, and which had now 
 brought him, a colonel in the British army, to the 
 prisoner's dock, to be sentenced to death in a foreign 
 country. Even his enemies, with all their roughness, 
 were able to speak with admiration of the dignity 
 with which he carried himself on this awful occasion, 
 and to say that they understood now what was 
 meant by the term "an English gentleman." And 
 among his own countrymen in the Transvaal who 
 knew him at that hard time he is spoken of with a 
 warmth of affection which but few can inspire. But 
 what he must feel even harder than his death sen- 
 tence, or the imprisonment in Pretoria gaol, or the 
 fine of ;2 5,000 imposed upon him, or the enforced 
 resignation of his commission in the army and the 
 consequent blighting of his whole career, is the per- 
 sistency with which so many of his countrymen still 
 believe that he and the other leaders were guilty of 
 disloyalty to Dr. Jameson in not going out to meet 
 him.
 
 IX AFTER THE REVOLT 99 
 
 May these leaders now expect that, as the true 
 facts of the case are known, and that it has been 
 made clear that however much miscalculation and 
 misunderstanding there may have been, there was 
 no disloyalty, that deepest reproach of all upon the 
 character of a man may be erased for ever ? 
 
 II 2
 
 CHAPTER X 
 
 THE TRANSVAAL REVISITED 
 
 BEFORE the trial took place I had returned to 
 England. But the state of South Africa still being 
 unsatisfactory, the Times asked me to go back 
 and visit every part of it, so as to be able to report 
 completely on the whole situation. Reports had 
 reached England that the Boers were arming very 
 extensively ; and on my arrival in the Transvaal I 
 found that their report was in no way exaggerated. 
 The Boers had very nearly been caught napping at 
 the beginning of the year, and now that they had 
 received a start they were running to the opposite 
 extreme, and were making warlike preparations out 
 of all proportion to any possible need. Fortunately 
 for them the Boers have no necessity to count the 
 cost of any warlike measures they may take. The 
 cry of the overburdened taxpayer groaning under 
 the weight of military expenditure is never heard 
 among them; for they have the bloated Uitlander 
 close by, whom they can always bleed for whatever 
 amount they may require. So at the same time that
 
 CH. x THE TRANSVAAL REVISITED 101 
 
 these quondam farmers, who, before the advent of the 
 Uitlander, scarcely had two pennies to jingle to- 
 gether, were building themselves public offices such 
 as I saw in no other town in South Africa, and were 
 spending hundreds of thousands of pounds on pre- 
 ventive measures against rinderpest, orders for bat- 
 teries of field guns, quick-firing guns and Maxims, 
 and for sufficient rifles to arm every single Dutch- 
 man in South Africa, were being sent to Europe ; 
 European drill instructors and artillerymen were 
 being imported, and forts were being constructed 
 round Pretoria on the most approved designs. One 
 attempt had been made to take their country from 
 them ; they were thoroughly convinced that the at- 
 tempt would be renewed at some future date : so 
 the Boers were determined to be thoroughly on the 
 guard the second time. 
 
 Naturally all these elaborate preparations gave 
 ground to the opinions entertained by many that the 
 Boers intended something more than mere defence : 
 and President Kruger was credited with ambitions 
 as great as those of Cecil Rhodes. If Cecil Rhodes 
 entertained the idea of a United South Africa under 
 the British flag, President Kruger was supposed to 
 be equally ambitious to unite it under the Dutch ; and 
 many believed that the Boers were planning a descent 
 upon British territory, or at the very least that they 
 meant to repudiate the London Convention and tear 
 aside the last shred of dependence upon Great Britain. 
 
 I accordingly sought interviews with President
 
 102 SOUTH AFRICA OF TO-DAY CHAP. 
 
 Kruger, General Joubert, Chief Justice Kotze and 
 other leading men ; and certainly the impression they 
 gave me, that defence and not offence was intended, 
 has proved a true one. My interview with Mr. 
 Kruger was especially interesting, for he is an alto- 
 gether unique individuality. In the old Puritan days 
 there may have been men similar to him ; but cer- 
 tainly at the present day no one like him exists, and 
 perhaps no one of his peculiar stamp will ever appear 
 again. I had already on my previous visit had a 
 lengthy interview with him, when the Chief Justice 
 had very kindly acted as interpreter. But on the 
 present occasion I was more thoroughly grounded in 
 the factors of the situation, and our conversation was 
 more free and informal. Undoubtedly the principal 
 impression given me was the rugged strength of the 
 man. Here was one who had as a boy left the Cape 
 Colony in the Great Trek of 1836, and spent his 
 whole life in a struggle for independence. Person- 
 ally brave and with a force of character which has 
 bent the people who made him their leader to do his 
 will, he has first made his country and then kept it 
 intact from aggression. Uneducated in all else save 
 the knowledge of human nature, he has skilfully 
 guided his people through dangers which would have 
 overcome most others. And if his constant refer- 
 ence to Biblical texts give a stranger an impression 
 of sanctimoniousness of the Stiggins type, this may 
 be explained by the fact that the Bible is probably 
 the only book he has ever read, and as he reads it
 
 x THE TRANSVAAL REVISITED 103 
 
 constantly and seeks to guide his conduct by it, 
 quotations from it naturally come to his lips. 
 
 President Kruger cannot be numbered among the 
 most enlightened and progressive rulers of the earth, 
 and he has never shown indications of any feverish 
 ambition to push his country higher up in the scale 
 of civilisation : but he is astute, strong and firm ; he 
 has one or two fixed ideas in his mind which he 
 never departs from, and one of these being that, 
 whether his country is to be progressive or not, it is 
 at any rate to be independent, his line of conduct is 
 plain and simple. On the present occasion I told 
 him that I had seen and heard of the preparations 
 which were being made, and I asked him what 
 assurances he could give me on the subject. Sitting 
 there in his well-known attitude in an upright arm- 
 chair, smoking a huge pipe and expectorating pro- 
 fusely, he thumped upon the table at his side and 
 bellowed back his answer, that as long as his country 
 was not attacked he would attack no one. He said 
 his people were farmers scattered all over the country, 
 and had no desire to undertake all the hardships of 
 military service. If their country was invaded they 
 willingly assembled for its defence, but they were in 
 no way aggressively inclined. President Kruger 
 acknowledged that his government was making con- 
 siderable military preparations, but said that the 
 Transvaal had been wantonly invaded once, and he 
 must guard against its being similarly invaded a 
 second time.
 
 104 SOUTH AFRICA OF TO-DAY CHAP. 
 
 At the close of my interview, and as he rose to 
 say good-bye, he again repeated to me most em- 
 phatically that I might tell people in England that 
 unless we attacked him he would never attack us. 
 
 I am not sure that all the Boers are with their 
 President on this point. Raids into British terri- 
 tory have, before now, been made by the Boers ; and 
 many of the younger men, ignorant of the real 
 strength of England, and elated at their success 
 against Jameson, would have liked, on any con- 
 venient pretext, to make an attack upon Natal or 
 Kimberley. But I sincerely believe President 
 Kruger to be too astute to countenance any move- 
 ment so absurd ; and his policy is evidently to dog- 
 gedly persevere in strengthening his country, and, 
 while making all the use he can of the new-comers, 
 to keep them well at arm's-length all the time. 
 
 This was apparent from the second part of our 
 conversation, when I asked him if he could hold out 
 any hopes of granting the Uitlanders the franchise. 
 He would give the franchise to all whom he could 
 consider loyal to the State, he said. But when I 
 asked him what he considered to be the test of 
 loyalty to the State, he said that taking up arms in 
 its defence must be the qualification. All those 
 who had fought against the native chiefs and those 
 who had joined with the burghers in opposing 
 Jameson, would be granted the full rights of citi- 
 zenship. But of the ordinary Uitlanders, and especi- 
 ally of the men of Johannesburg, Mr. Kruger was
 
 x THE TRANSVAAL REVISITED 105 
 
 highly suspicious. They had on one occasion torn 
 down the Transvaal flag, and even hooted him, he 
 said : and a man of Kruger's stamp, with good 
 wholesome prejudices, is not likely ever to forget 
 that ; conciliation is not a line which he would be 
 inclined to act on, rather would it be dogged op- 
 position and isolation. But when I referred to the 
 fact that the members of the community who fur- 
 nished about five millions sterling out of the five 
 and a quarter millions which the revenue of the 
 country produced, were allowed not one single word 
 in regard to its expenditure, he simply said that 
 they were, at any rate, free to make as much money 
 as they pleased, and he asked me to name any 
 people who were less heavily taxed than they were. 
 When I showed him that the Uitlanders of the 
 Transvaal paid about ten times as much as the 
 people of Great Britain, he merely said that he had 
 not heard it before ; but did not make any hint, 
 either that taxation should be lessened, or that the 
 Uitlanders would be given any voice in the control 
 of the expenditure of revenue raised from them. 
 
 While, therefore, we can admire the indomitable 
 courage, the astuteness and the inflexible persever- 
 ance which President Kruger has displayed one 
 can realise, at the same time, how exasperating to 
 progressive enterprising men his stolid prejudiced 
 unyielding nature must be. 
 
 But President Kruger is not the whole State. 
 He has much influence, and is autocratic in many
 
 106 SOUTH AFRICA OF TO-DAY CHAP. 
 
 ways ; but his will is not absolute law. He has to 
 reckon with the Volksraad, and conform to the will 
 of the people to some extent ; so that the very 
 prevalent idea that whatever he may wish will be 
 done is not, in reality, a true one. President 
 Kruger attends the sittings of the Volksraad, and 
 takes his seat alongside the Chairman of the 
 Raad, and from there delivers his speech like any 
 ordinary member. Several of these sittings of 
 the Raad I was able to attend ; and though unable 
 to understand the language in which the debates 
 were carried on, I was able, by means of rdsumtf 
 translations given me by a friend, and by watching 
 the movements and gestures of the members, to 
 gather the spirit of the scene. 
 
 Seated in concentric, semicircular rows round the 
 raised dais upon which sat the Chairman and Pre- 
 sident Kruger, the latter dressed in an old frock 
 coat with a broad vivid green sash bound over his 
 shoulder, were some forty or fifty rough-bearded 
 men, sombrely dressed in black, and of very much 
 the same type as one would see at a country vestry 
 meeting at home, One after another would get up 
 and speak very volubly and excitedly for five or 
 ten minutes, each stating his opinion of the matter 
 under debate, with great vehemence and much 
 gesticulation and thumping of the table, but with 
 little attempt at reasoning. At frequent intervals 
 during the debate the Chairman himself would join 
 in and speak equally excitedly, and still more fre-
 
 x THE TRANSVAAL REVISITED 107 
 
 quently would President Kruger do so. On the 
 first occasion upon which I visited the Raad I saw 
 Mr. Kruger, almost before the original speaker 
 had finished, rise and roar in his deep big voice 
 at the meeting, and almost break the table with 
 his violent thumps upon it. I thought that some- 
 thing very important must be under debate, but 
 was told that they were merely debating whether 
 some minor official's salary should be cut down or 
 increased ! Mr. Kruger is always emphatic upon 
 whatever subject he speaks. But when he wishes 
 to really enforce a point he comes round to his 
 great stock argument that the independence of the 
 country would be endangered if what he wishes is 
 not agreed to. This is unfailing, but must surely 
 now be getting a little threadbare. 
 
 The principal debate I heard in the Pretoria 
 Volksraad was on the question of the total prohi- 
 bition of liquor to natives. A Bill was to be brought 
 in enacting that no intoxicating liquor of any kind 
 was ever to be sold to natives in the Transvaal. 
 This was a sufficiently sweeping measure to adopt, 
 involving as it did the powerful interests of the 
 liquor trade, and meaning ruin to many men who 
 had invested sums of money in manufactories of 
 liquor and in establishments for the sale of it. But 
 the Boer legislators tackled it in a light-hearted 
 manner, and passed the Bill in a few hours. They 
 assembled after their mid-day dinner, debated vehe-
 
 io8 SOUTH AFRICA OF TO-DAY CHAP. 
 
 mently for an hour and a half, then adjourned as 
 usual for a smoke, and when they re-assembled the 
 Chairman rose and said he did not suppose anybody 
 had anything further to say about the matter, and 
 they might as well proceed to vote. And so in a 
 single afternoon was passed a measure fortunately 
 in this case a beneficial one which in other coun- 
 tries could not have been brought through without 
 months of discussion. 
 
 A few weeks later, the Raad with similar haste 
 passed measures as detrimental as the above-men- 
 tioned was beneficial. Immediately following the 
 trial of Dr. Jameson in England and his sentence to 
 imprisonment, there had been a marked improve- 
 ment in the feeling of the Boers towards the British. 
 Whereas they had formerly believed that by some 
 kind of underhand means he would be allowed to go 
 free, the Boers now saw that the British courts of 
 law acted fairly and justly. But the favourable 
 turn of feeling was only temporary, and the Raad in 
 a single day passed two of the most retrogressive 
 and irritating measures a Press Law and an Alien 
 Expulsion Law to be followed later by the Aliens 
 Immigration Law. By these the President was em- 
 powered to suppress any newspaper which might 
 be considered to contain matter dangerous to the 
 peace of the Republic ; to expel, without appeal to 
 a court of law, any foreigner who might by act or 
 word take any step dangerous to the public peace ;
 
 x THE TRANSVAAL REVISITED 109 
 
 and lastly, to prohibit any person entering the 
 country who could not be proved to be able to 
 support himself. 
 
 These laws were certainly opposed to the Con- 
 vention of London, by which it was provided that 
 all persons other than natives conforming themselves 
 to the laws of the Republic should have full liberty to 
 enter, travel, and reside in any part of the Transvaal. 
 
 And while these irksome measures were being 
 passed, no sign was made of bringing in any mea- 
 sures which would increase the freedom or lighten 
 the burden of the Uitlanders. Even the much- 
 talked -of Municipality for Johannesburg Bill was 
 never put through. All that was done was to pro- 
 pose a form of municipality which would have left 
 no power at all in the hands of the townspeople. It 
 is true that an Industrial Commission was appointed 
 this year to inquire into the needs of the mining 
 industry, but there is as yet no indication that the 
 suggestions of this Commission are to be adopted 
 by the Government. 
 
 The situation in the Transvaal was rendered still 
 more sombre by the dispute which arose early in the 
 year between the High Court on the one side and 
 the Executive and Volksraad on the other. Neither 
 of the two latter bodies are able to understand the 
 true independence of a court of law; and when the 
 High Court declared they could not recognise as 
 binding certain resolutions of the Volksraad, Presi- 
 dent Kruger bluffly intimated to the Judges that he
 
 i io SOUTH AFRICA OF TO-DAY CH. x 
 
 would turn them out and find other Judges who 
 would. Some sort of a compromise was effected 
 for the time being, the Judges urging a revision of 
 the Constitution, and the President apparently agree- 
 ing to it. But no settlement has yet been arrived at, 
 and uncertainty still prevails. 
 
 The present situation in the Transvaal is there- 
 fore not satisfactory by any means. Where there 
 is not obstruction there is incapacity or ignorance. 
 And on either side there is want of confidence. 
 What the future outlook is I will discuss in the 
 concluding chapter.
 
 CHAPTER XI 
 
 THE OUTLOOK IN THE TRANSVAAL 
 
 POLITICAL forecasts are always difficult, but in the 
 case of a new country like the Transvaal it is espe- 
 cially necessary to make some attempt to forecast 
 the future. Could the British have seen even ten 
 years in advance, they would never have thrown so 
 completely aside the rights which the expenditure of 
 blood and money in the subjugation of native races 
 in the Transvaal had given them, nor would they 
 have been so indifferent about their influence at 
 Delagoa Bay. These and other instances in South 
 African history show only too clearly the loss which 
 has followed from having no clear prevision of pos- 
 sible future developments ; and it was in order to 
 have the means of making an approximate forecast 
 that I have in my preceding chapters dealt in some 
 detail with the ground factors of the question. 
 
 The material conditions of the country were first 
 enquired into, for upon those conditions depends the 
 whole future of the country ; and here fortunately 
 there is little room for miscalculation. The gold
 
 ii2 SOUTH AFRICA OF TO-DAY CHAP. 
 
 may be extracted faster or slower, more cheaply or 
 dearly, according to the political conditions which 
 prevail. But about the presence of the gold in im- 
 mense quantities there is no doubt whatever. It is 
 known to a certainty that 700 millions of gold lie 
 hidden in the Transvaal, and still more gold deposits 
 are being discovered every month in the Lydenburg, 
 Zoutpansberg, and Barberton districts. Nor is there 
 any doubt as to the existence of coal and iron in 
 almost inexhaustible quantities, besides silver, lead, 
 copper, and other baser minerals. It cannot yet be 
 said with certainty either that the coal is of suffi- 
 ciently good quality for use on the fastest ocean- 
 going steamers, or that an iron industry could be 
 profitably established within the next year or two. 
 But there is coal good enough for use on railways 
 and in iron foundries, and, with cheapened rates and 
 improvements on the railway and at the wharves, 
 the price of coal may be reduced to a rate at which 
 Transvaal coal might compete advantageously with 
 Welsh, as far up as Aden, for use on the number of 
 freight steamers trading in the Indian Ocean, even 
 if the great passenger lines will not take it. And 
 there is every prospect of an iron industry arising to 
 take the place of the gold long before the latter is 
 exhausted. Without the gold to give the first im- 
 petus, the Transvaal might never have been opened 
 up. But the gold has brought population and capital 
 into the country, and has caused the construction of 
 railways throughout the Transvaal. Every other
 
 XI THE OUTLOOK IN THE TRANSVAAL 113 
 
 industry will therefore start with these initial advan- 
 tages in its favour. The value of hens' eggs annually 
 produced in the United States is greater than the 
 value of the gold output. And with the many other 
 natural resources besides gold which the Transvaal 
 possesses, with its healthy climate and good soil, it 
 should be obvious that prosperity will not forsake it 
 when the gold is gone. A large permanent popula- 
 tion, which in ten years time may be expected to 
 reach half a million, and eventually amount to three 
 or four millions, will settle in the country, which will 
 become the most populous State in South Africa. 
 
 This seemingly obvious fact the Boers do not 
 recognise. They contend that the Uitlanders only 
 come to make money and go back to Europe, and 
 that when the gold is all worked out there will be no 
 Uitlanders left. Uitlanders do come to the Trans- 
 vaal to make money, and few of them with any 
 other object; but of the money they earn the greater 
 part is kept invested in the country, and it is to the 
 interest of every money-maker in the Transvaal 
 that the country should be properly developed and 
 its Government sound and strong. The Boers, then, 
 do not realise the future that lies before the country ; 
 and their history and character show that, while they 
 are strong and capable as rough pioneers, they have 
 not the peculiar genius, the energy, and the imagina- 
 tion required for the development of so inordinately 
 rich a country as the Transvaal. While I was much 
 impressed with the coolness, the quiet strength, and
 
 ii4 SOUTH AFRICA OF TO-DAY CHAP. 
 
 large-heartedness of the Boers during the troublous 
 times at the beginning of last year, I have been 
 equally impressed during the present year with their 
 present incapacity for dealing with a young and 
 rising State. I think, therefore, that the Uitlanders 
 for some years yet need not hope to see in the 
 Transvaal the kind of government which they as 
 men of the nineteenth century have a right to expect, 
 and which so magnificent a country deserves. They 
 will have to anticipate constant friction and disap- 
 pointment not, I would repeat, from any deliberate 
 intention on the part of the Boers to crush the min- 
 ing industry, but from their ignorance of what rough 
 handling of so delicate an organism means. The 
 class of Boer, who now sit in the Volksraad have no 
 idea of what the effect of measures they so hastily 
 pass really will be ; they do not understand that the 
 hint of such a measure as the stopping of the auto- 
 matically-running stamps on Sundays has much the 
 same effect on the industry as the touch of the hand 
 on the sensitive plant. And if both Boers and Uit- 
 landers were always to remain the same as they are 
 to-day, a revival of the troubles of the beginning of 
 last year might certainly be expected. 
 
 The hope, however, that this will not be the case 
 arises from the reflection that the stolid Boer cha- 
 racter is slowly changing in the new surroundings 
 of the people and under the constant pressure now 
 bearing on them. The old isolation so hardly sought 
 after is no longer possible. The Boers are hemmed
 
 XI THE OUTLOOK IN THE TRANSVAAL 115 
 
 in, and the flood of civilisation is upon them. The 
 young Boer has not the same prejudice as his father 
 for living all his life on a solitary farm ; he likes to 
 come in at times and see something of life in towns. 
 More significant still, the young Boer girls do what 
 they can to improve their education, and are always 
 glad to marry Englishmen. Railways now traverse 
 the country in every direction. The Boers are 
 seeing more of the world, and those who have come 
 most in contact with other Europeans most realise 
 the necessities for progress. Such progress is more 
 possible among the Boers than at first appears likely, 
 because they are few in numbers, and because they 
 are not an ancient people who have lived for centu- 
 ries in the same country, building institutions and 
 traditions, and forming classes in a rigid, unadaptable 
 society. Their character is stiff, but not so stiff as 
 that of the typical Scotchman, whom in many ways 
 they resemble ; and as their Constitution is not half 
 a century old, and they have no hereditary ruler or 
 privileged classes with vested interests to retard pro- 
 gress, they may, under the immense pressure bearing 
 upon them from every side, be carried along faster 
 than is generally anticipated. President Kruger is 
 the chief obstacle to progress at present, and it is 
 natural that a man with a history like his, who was 
 among the original fore-trekkers who left the Cape 
 Colony sixty years ago, and who through all his life 
 from that time to the present year has been engaged 
 in a struggle for independence, should at the close of 
 
 I 2
 
 Ii6 SOUTH AFRICA OF TO-DAY CHAP. 
 
 his career strive to avoid a change from the system he 
 has been so long accustomed to. But Mr. Kruger 
 cannot remain in power for more than a few years 
 longer, and his influence in any case wanes when 
 there is no pressure from outside to bind the people 
 together under him as a military leader. At the end 
 of 1895 there was a feeling even among the Boers 
 of the Transvaal that he was not acting either fairly 
 or prudently towards the Uitlanders, but was driving 
 them to rebellion ; and the Dutch of Cape Colony 
 and the Free States were incensed against him be- 
 cause of the heavy duties he imposed upon colonial 
 produce, and because he employed Hollanders in 
 the Government offices instead of Dutchmen trained 
 in the colony. The events of the beginning of last 
 year for the time alienated all this sympathy ; but of 
 the two most likely successors to the Presidency one 
 has said to me that he looked to the time when all 
 South African States would meet together for the 
 settlement of matters of mutual interest ; and the 
 other told me that, having regard to the increasing 
 number of the Uitlanders who were coming into the 
 country, he saw that the present block system could 
 not long continue, and that a beginning must be 
 made towards letting Uitlanders acquire the rights 
 of citizenship in the country of their adoption. 
 
 At the same time the Uitlanders are certain, as 
 the ill-feeling raised by the raid subsides, to gain an 
 increased influence in the State. The first feverish 
 rush to the gold fields is over, and a better class of
 
 XI THE OUTLOOK IN THE TRANSVAAL 117 
 
 men will come to the country, while men of stand- 
 ing and influence will be sent out from England to 
 represent the great financial houses. And the 
 parties into which the Boers must divide will find 
 that, both in their own interest and in that of their 
 country, it will be necessary to have the support of 
 these men. The rinderpest, again, may prove a 
 very efficient cause of increasing Uitlander influence. 
 The disease is bound to spread through the whole 
 country. Already over 60,000 head of cattle have 
 been carried off, and half the Boers are absolutely 
 dependent on cattle for their livelihood. An amount 
 of money four times as great as the total revenue of 
 the country before the Uitlanders came has already 
 been budgeted for rinderpest expenses ; and the 
 Boers will now be placed in the position of either 
 having to go to the Uitlanders for a far larger sum 
 as compensation for the cattle losses or of setting 
 really to work. 
 
 By waiting on their opportunity the Uitlanders 
 will gradually gain their end. Their lot is not a 
 desperate one. They run no immediate risk of 
 being exterminated like Armenians ; and instead of 
 hastily resorting to arms and reviving racial feeling, 
 which impedes progress, they can well afford to 
 wait a few years time till the Boers, not bound 
 together in opposition as they are now through 
 being attacked, have spread themselves out, and 
 left interstices between them by means of which the 
 process of a new amalgamation may be carried out.
 
 ii8 SOUTH AFRICA OF TO-DAY CHAP. 
 
 A curious anomaly in the situation is that the 
 British subjects in the Transvaal consider they may 
 justly demand assistance from the British Govern- 
 ment to enable them to become independent Repub- 
 licans. But, if this may be considered a too ex- 
 cessive demand, they have, at any rate, the right to 
 expect that England will see that the Boers will 
 faithfully carry out their treaty engagements. The 
 Boers for years have shown an inclination to whittle 
 away the London Convention the present Conven- 
 tion, it will be remembered, having already been 
 largely modified from the original. And England 
 has a special right to insist that her subjects, while 
 they remain her subjects, should be treated with 
 common fairness, if she cannot expect for them the 
 liberality with which she treats the subjects of other 
 countries in her own colonies. The Boers will not 
 allow that they owe England any debt of gratitude 
 for saving them from total disintegration twenty 
 years ago, when they had only 125. 6d. left in their 
 treasury, because England so mismanaged them 
 afterwards when she took over the country. But 
 they must admit that while they themselves have 
 borne, perhaps, the greater share in clearing the 
 country and rendering it secure for settlement, the 
 British also have taken no small part, for it was a 
 British army which defeated Sikukuni, and it was 
 a British army which broke the power of the Zulus. 
 Gratitude is not to be expected between nations, 
 but each has to see that it is used with justice by
 
 XI THE OUTLOOK IN THE TRANSVAAL 119 
 
 the other. When England restored the Transvaal 
 to the Boers she stipulated for fair treatment of her 
 subjects. That stipulation has barely been fulfilled 
 in the letter, much less in the spirit ; and there are 
 further very good grounds for believing that attempts 
 to secure an alliance with Germany as a counter- 
 poise to British influence have been made, while it 
 is certain that for many years past Germany has 
 been endeavouring to establish a footing and spread 
 her influence in South Africa. England, as the 
 Power responsible for the peace of by far the greater 
 portion of South Africa of countries populated by 
 as many Dutchmen as Englishmen cannot afford 
 to see her subjects in the Transvaal treated in such 
 a manner as would cause disaffection likely to 
 spread in racial strife throughout South Africa. 
 Still less can she afford to see another European 
 Power settling as a rival there. Neither, therefore, 
 could the Transvaal be allowed to extend its terri- 
 tories towards the coast beyond the limits carefully 
 defined in the Convention which restored the country 
 to the Boers ; nor could the Germans be permitted 
 to gain the footing they are believed to be seeking 
 in Delagoa Bay. This much England in her own 
 interests has need to look after. She must keep at 
 a distance all rivals to the supremacy she has fought 
 and worked for in South Africa, and she must see 
 so far as is possible that no favour is shown to others 
 over her own subjects. 
 
 Provided she does this provided she sees her
 
 120 SOUTH AFRICA OF TO-DAY CH. XI 
 
 subjects have fair play the Uitlanders in the Trans- 
 vaal may well be left to work out their own salva- 
 tion in their own way. The British portion need 
 expect no encouragement from the Boers, and they 
 may indeed expect that the Government, in any 
 quiet way it can, will favour Germans, French, and 
 Hollanders with the object of lessening the prepon- 
 derance of British influence and of driving away 
 British capital, to see it replaced by German and 
 French. But British investors, manufacturers, and 
 settlers will always remember the immense future 
 possibilities of the country, and persevere in their 
 work of developing its wonderful resources. And 
 every European nation equally with England should 
 be interested in seeing that no unnecessary hin- 
 drance is placed in the way of its development, and 
 should bring all the force of public opinion to bear 
 upon the Boers to make them realise that at this 
 stage of the world's history a mere handful of men 
 cannot be permitted to obstruct the progress of a 
 country so valuable to overcrowded Europe as is 
 the Transvaal. 
 
 The eventual product of this development is likely 
 to be a State the majority of whose inhabitants will 
 be British by birth, but Republican in their ideas 
 and inclinations. Whether this, the most rich and 
 populous of the South African States of the future, 
 will preponderate over the rest will depend upon 
 whether the Transvaal or Great Britain controls 
 the outlet to the sea.
 
 CHAPTER XII 
 
 RHODESIA 
 
 FROM the Transvaal, in company with Mr. Harry 
 Cust, I proceeded to Rhodesia, and after travelling 
 through Mashonaland reached Bulawayo just as the 
 Matabele campaign had been brought to a con- 
 clusion. 
 
 Even to a greater degree than the remainder of 
 South Africa, Rhodesia is a country of surprises, 
 contrasts, and rapid changes. Three years ago the 
 site of Bulawayo was the headquarters of a bar- 
 barian king. Now, the traveller rides through 
 streets of English shops, business offices, and 
 residential chambers to an hotel where all ordinary 
 European luxuries can be obtained. He finds a 
 tidy, well-kept club, with English newspapers 
 scarcely a month old, and local papers containing 
 telegraphic news from England of the previous 
 day. A few short months before my visit the town 
 was surrounded by thousands of wolfish savages 
 thirsting for the blood of their European conquerors, 
 and reeking with that of hundreds of their defence-
 
 122 SOUTH AFRICA OF TO-DAY CHAP. 
 
 less victims cruelly murdered on their solitary farms 
 and wayside stores ; while, in the town itself, the 
 streets were thronged with Englishmen hastily 
 armed and organised to defend their new-found 
 homes, and sternly resolved to exact a terrible 
 revenge on those who had murdered their wives 
 and children, their brothers, and their friends. 
 Now these self-same streets were filled with crowds 
 of starving natives, seeking and obtaining food from 
 the very men they had attempted to exterminate. 
 In the hall of the Stock Exchange eighty-five of 
 these uncouth barbarian chiefs of the country were 
 squatting on the floor discussing with Captain 
 Lawley, the company's representative, the bound- 
 aries of the districts in future to be allotted to them, 
 while the white men, discarding their arms again, 
 had returned to their business offices. The leader 
 in one of the most successful fights was engaged in 
 ordering up armchairs and fresh consignments of 
 champagne and cigars for the club. Another 
 equally successful leader was organising parties to 
 prospect for further gold, and ordering machinery 
 for the mines already started before the outbreak. 
 Everywhere was change, everything was new, and 
 even the very natives of the country have no old 
 history, no old traditions nothing to fix them down 
 for more than half a century. Neither in Europe 
 nor Asia, nor even, perhaps, in America, could a 
 similar country be found. A single photograph of 
 such a country is therefore of but little use. To
 
 xii RHODESIA 123 
 
 appreciate its aspects at all we must employ the 
 Edisonian system of moving pictures, in order that 
 the living, throbbing scene may produce a true 
 impression on the mind. 
 
 It would be necessary that the series of pictures, 
 which, thrown on the screen in rapid succession, 
 would form one living whole, should commence at 
 the time when all Rhodesia was inhabited by con- 
 glomerates of savage tribes living in constant fear 
 of one another, but leading on the whole a careless, 
 easy existence, the men compelling their women 
 folk to do all the labour, to scratch up the soil in 
 little patches round their kraals on which to grow 
 corn sufficient for their meagre needs. Such a 
 picture would show a country of rolling grassy 
 downs, and hill and dale, of meadow land and 
 forests with richly-tinted trees of every graceful 
 form, and the greater part of this rich land would 
 be seen left to the teeming herds of game and 
 troops of lions and other beasts of prey, while the 
 natives occupied only secluded corners in it. The 
 series would then go on to show the Zulu invasion 
 from the south, the formation of the Matabele 
 nation, and the new comers amalgamating with the 
 old under the strong, even rule of Lobengula. It 
 would show the advent of the white man, the 
 hunters, traders, and missionaries, and, lastly, the 
 concession seekers, who, noting the many signs of 
 the presence of gold, the richness of the valleys, 
 and the mildness of the climate, sought to gain
 
 124 SOUTH AFRICA OF TO-DAY CHAP. 
 
 access to the country to work it for their benefit. 
 No picture could show the feelings which actuated 
 these men, the belief of some few leaders that they 
 were advancing the interests of their own native 
 country in the great struggle of the nations of the 
 earth, the belief of the many that they would be en- 
 abled here to provide themselves with a livelihood 
 more quickly and more easily than in their over- 
 crowded native land. But the picture would go on 
 to show these white men now coming into the 
 country in a combined body, struggling against 
 every hardship, against possible attack from natives, 
 against fever, pestilence, and starvation, and all the 
 many obstacles to the first settlement of a strange 
 people in a new country. It would show many dying 
 from privations, many returning discouraged, but 
 others coming in their places, and the whole 
 gradually spreading themselves over the land and 
 consolidating their power in it. Then small towns 
 and settlements would be seen springing up ; small 
 parties of gold seekers threading through the land 
 like ants in every direction, and shafts of mines 
 being sunk in favourable localities, while long 
 strings of waggons would be seen leaving their 
 tracks upon the land and wearing out roads from 
 one end of the country to the other. 
 
 The living pictures would rapidly move across 
 the screen till the scene of conflict between the 
 black inhabitants and the white invaders would be 
 reached. At first would be observed a small con-
 
 XII RHODESIA 125 
 
 flict between a few blacks and whites, and then two 
 columns of whites, converging from north and south, 
 advancing boldly into the very midst of the half of 
 the country still ruled by a native chief, fighting ten 
 times the number of blacks ; but in spite of all the 
 risks they ran, of annihilation by weight of over- 
 whelming numbers, of starvation, and of exposure, 
 defeating the native chief and all his force till they 
 drove him from the country and annexed it for 
 themselves. The whites are now spread over the 
 whole country. On the very spot where the old 
 native chief held his court the new white ruler 
 builds his house. Now white settlements spring 
 up, strings of waggons come into the country, the 
 thin lines of telegraph run right through it, pro- 
 spectors for gold in knots of twos and threes spread 
 over the land, gold mines are sunk and dotted over 
 each district, along every road, and wherever a 
 small mining community is formed, stores for the 
 sale of liquor, food, and goods are erected. The 
 natives, stunned by the suddenness and force of the 
 blow dealt to them, appear to have accepted the 
 inevitable ; they allow the white man to settle on 
 their lands, they allow him to carry them off to 
 labour in the mines, they appear, indeed, to have 
 submitted so meekly that the whites withdraw all 
 their armed forces ; and the lonely prospectors, the 
 solitary stores, the distant farmhouses are left at the 
 mercy of the black inhabitants in fancied security. 
 But now comes the crash. The black man has
 
 126 SOUTH AFRICA OF TO-DAY CHAP. 
 
 only been stunned ; he has not been beaten. He 
 sees his whilom conqueror defenceless, and he turns 
 upon him before he can arm. And through all the 
 land the natives are seen murdering the white men, 
 their women and their children, burning down their 
 stores and homesteads, and destroying everything 
 they possess. The land is black once more, all 
 except a few white spots still left upon it. But 
 those white spots remain untouched by the seething 
 tide of black around them till other white columns 
 come streaming into the country, till the flood is yet 
 again turned, and the blacks are thrown back for 
 ever. 
 
 Such a complete series of living scenes I cannot 
 pretend to give in detail, I can only show with 
 fidelity the last in the series the aspect of Rhodesia 
 at the present time. As I entered the country at 
 its northern end from the sea coast at Beira, signs 
 of progress were already visible. The Portuguese 
 town of Beira was rapidly becoming an English 
 settlement in appearance. Nearly all the shops 
 were English ; the hotels were English ; even the 
 telegraph office was English, and English com- 
 panies were building piers in the fine harbour, and 
 constructing the line of railway to Salisbury which 
 is already completed to Massi Kessi, and which is 
 expected to reach its destination by the middle of 
 next year. Instead of having to trudge through 
 the pestilential swamps of the low country, 
 weakened by the inevitable fever and stricken
 
 XII RHODESIA 127 
 
 down by the tropical sun, as the pioneers of a few 
 years since were obliged to do, I was able to reach 
 the cool and healthy highlands of the interior by 
 train, and, crossing the Portuguese border, arrived 
 at the first town in the Chartered Company's 
 territory at Umtali. A newly-formed frontier town 
 in South Africa is not a lovely object. The sur- 
 roundings of Umtali were as beautiful as rugged 
 
 o oo 
 
 hill and dale and varied coloured forest could make 
 them, and the picturesqueness of the sight was 
 increased at the time of my visit by the richness 
 of the spring foliage, which here in Africa, instead 
 of being uniformly green, has all the varied hues 
 of an English autumn its bright reds and yellows, 
 and deep claret-coloured tints intensified to a degree 
 only equalled in Kashmir. But the town itself was 
 as unlovely as its site was beautiful. Pioneers have 
 little time or inclination to indulge the aesthetic 
 side of their natures. They lay out the towns 
 in long straight streets, crossing each other at strict 
 right angles ; they erect along these streets the 
 useful but hideous sheds of corrugated iron ; they 
 leave a huge dust-trap in the middle, where all the 
 dust collects from whichever quarter the wind may 
 blow, and then call it the market square. A town 
 has arisen upon the face of the earth, and though 
 its population may be only that of a little village at 
 home it is henceforth marked in large letters on 
 every map, and its inhabitants are amazed at the 
 ignorance of the English when on reaching home
 
 128 SOUTH AFRICA OF TO-DAY CHAP. 
 
 again they find that the people there have never 
 heard of such a place. 
 
 And here at Umtali I received that first im- 
 pression of the "localism" which is so characteristic 
 a feature of the settlers in Rhodesia. Every 
 inhabitant of Umtali has unbounded confidence 
 in the future of his town. It is not much to 
 look at in the present ; but you have only to 
 think of what it will become just to go out and 
 see the gold mines which are being started all 
 round, and the splendid agricultural possibilities 
 of the district. Upon such a promising town the 
 Administration ought, in the opinion of the man 
 of Umtali, to spend all their energies first ; and 
 if he thinks that more attention is being paid to 
 some other town he fumes and grumbles, and 
 writes petitions to Government and letters to the 
 newspapers till, by dint of sheer hard grumbling, 
 he has induced the Company to press forward the 
 railway a little quicker towards his locality. The 
 same feature was noticeable in Salisbury, in 
 Victoria, in Gwelo, in Bulawayo wherever I 
 went. Each town was jealous of the other, and 
 all were confident of their future. Like the French 
 soldier who believes that one day he may obtain 
 the Field- Marshal's baton, each town in Rhodesia 
 believes in the possibilities of its turning out a 
 second Johannesburg, and does its best to make 
 it one. This localism is the soul of success ; and 
 it will be through this, if at all, that Rhodesia
 
 XII RHODESIA 129 
 
 will become the magnificent country its present 
 inhabitants believe it is likely to develop into in 
 the future. 
 
 Up to Umtali, with the arrangements which 
 Colonel Beale, the skilled leader of the column which 
 brought relief from Salisbury to Bulawayo, and 
 afterwards back again from Bulawayo to Salisbury, 
 had made for Mr. Cust and myself, we were able to 
 travel without risk. Beyond that the country was 
 still unsafe, and military operations were not yet 
 concluded. And, as we now began to come in con- 
 tact with the men who had fought so strenuously for 
 their adopted country and for the welfare of the 
 Empire, as we saw the positions they had had to 
 attack, and passed by the ashy ruins of the wayside 
 inns and once flourishing farmhouses where English 
 women and children had been so cruelly butchered, 
 we were able to realise something of the nature of 
 the war then scarcely concluded, to ascertain its 
 causes and appreciate its results. 
 
 Had the natives been sufficiently subdued to 
 prevent a second rising, or were they merely taking 
 breathing space to recoup their strength before 
 having one more struggle for freedom ? Men who 
 were rightly looked upon as the best acquainted 
 with the native mind say that, after many years' 
 residence in the country, they feel still so ignorant 
 of the nature of the people as to be unable to pre- 
 dict what they may do next. But the nature of the 
 black inhabitants of Rhodesia does not appear to be 
 
 K
 
 130 SOUTH AFRICA OF TO-DAY CHAP. 
 
 very greatly different from that of barbarous races 
 all the world over ; or from that of children in 
 civilised races. All alike are impulsive, and find 
 difficulty in resisting temptation. Withdraw the 
 sign of authority and they are mischievous and mis- 
 chief with such people means cruelty. Keep autho- 
 rity in evidence, and use it tactfully, and they behave 
 themselves. But, in the case of Rhodesia, all signs 
 of an authority which had never been thoroughly 
 established was withdrawn ; and the people, not 
 having been tactfully and sympathetically, but, on 
 the contrary, harshly and roughly treated, rose in 
 revolt. They saw their would-be rulers with their 
 means of authority thrown away ; and they saw 
 many of those who had treated them more as brute 
 beasts than human beings lying defenceless in their 
 power. Little wonder, therefore, that they were 
 unable to restrain their impulses or resist the tempta- 
 tion. What is remarkable is that they were able to 
 combine as they did, for they had no recognised 
 chief to rally round, and they had no religious en- 
 thusiasm to bind them together. Under ordinary 
 circumstances they probably never would have com- 
 bined. But, at the beginning of last year, so much 
 occurred to bring matters to a focus all at once that 
 they were forced to combine in a way they might 
 never otherwise have done. As a sequel to the 
 visitation of locusts, which till the arrival of the 
 white man were unknown in this part of Africa, and 
 just after the police had been withdrawn from the
 
 XII RHODESIA 131 
 
 country, came the rinderpest. The climax of irri- 
 tation (for locusts and rinderpests were alike put 
 down to the whites) and the climax of opportunity 
 were both reached at the same time. 
 
 The result was an outbreak of brutal savagery 
 never before equalled in South African history. 
 There was no warning. No attempt was made to 
 take captives, and no quarter was given. Suddenly, 
 wherever white men or women could be found in 
 isolated positions away from the towns, they were 
 cruelly murdered and their bodies most horribly 
 mutilated. 
 
 As news of these frightful atrocities reached the 
 towns, as men who had had hairbreadth escapes 
 arrived to tell the tale, and as the people realised 
 their precarious position, the wildest panic often 
 occurred, and men rushed frantically to the stores 
 for arms and ammunition, of which there was an 
 insufficient quantity. Women were hastily assem- 
 bled together in the most defensible buildings. At 
 Bulawayo three poor women were prematurely con- 
 fined in the rooms of the club. Then, when the 
 settlers had time to organise themselves for defence 
 and to send out patrols to relieve out-stations, and 
 when they came across the mutilated ] corpses of 
 their friends and, worse still, of women and children, 
 and saw the burning ruins of their homesteads, it is 
 not to be wondered at that they gave no quarter to 
 any native. The whites were engaged in a life-and- 
 death struggle with a savage foe utterly reckless of 
 
 K 2
 
 132 SOUTH AFRICA OF TO-DAY CHAP. 
 
 human life. The fiercest feelings on either side 
 
 o 
 
 were aroused, and deeds of vengeance were com- 
 mitted which few would feel inclined to dwell upon 
 now in the after-calm. 
 
 A far more pleasing task is to record some of the 
 many instances of devoted heroism which this 
 struggle brought forth. The rough prospectors in 
 Rhodesia were as good friends as they were bad 
 enemies, and one of the most remarkable features of 
 the war was the manner in which the settlers stood 
 by one another. There was the case of a man 
 named Edwards, who had walked for fifty-two miles 
 through the bush in one day to escape from the 
 natives, but who, directly he arrived in Bulawayo, 
 collected a few men together and set out to relieve a 
 friend. There was the case of Windley, who saved 
 Mr. Selous's life by carrying him away on his horse 
 when the natives were all around him. There was 
 the telegraphist Blakiston, who, in sight of the 
 rebels, walked for over a mile from the laager to 
 the telegraph station to send off a warning telegram 
 to Salisbury, though he knew full well that he would 
 never be allowed to return alive by the natives, who 
 did in fact cruelly murder him. And many other 
 instances besides these might be quoted of indi- 
 vidual heroism apart from the noble efforts made by 
 relief patrols. to succour their friends in outlying 
 stations. There is no more brilliant example than 
 the relief of the Alice Mine, twenty-seven miles 
 from Salisbury, when six men and three women
 
 XII RHODESIA 133 
 
 were surrounded in an open laager by hundreds of 
 natives, who could fire directly down upon them, 
 and who were relieved by two small patrols of a 
 dozen men each under Nesbitt and Judson, and 
 carried away in a hastily armoured waggon in broad 
 daylight through the midst of the rebel hordes 
 hidden in the long grass and among the rocky 
 kopjes by the road. Such cases as these, and 
 others in which leaders like Spreckley, Van Niekerk, 
 George Grey, and Maurice Gifford brought their 
 men through many a hard struggle with the natives, 
 showed the true self-reliant and resolute character 
 of the settlers. 
 
 But it was not the settlers alone who pacified 
 Rhodesia, and too little credit has been given to 
 the part which Imperial officers and troops took in 
 the war. Every one in Bulawayo spoke in admira- 
 tion of the behaviour of Captain Nicholson, of the 
 7th Hussars, in the first stern days of the outbreak 
 at Bulawayo ; and there was no leader more suc- 
 cessful in the fight, and under whom the men would 
 more readily rally than Captain Macfarlan, an ex- 
 officer of the 9th Lancers. The conduct of Colonel 
 Plumer, who hastily raised a volunteer force in Cape 
 Colony and marched them up for hundreds of miles 
 to the relief of Matabeleland, organising and drilling 
 his men as he went along, and subsequently fighting 
 some of the most decisive actions in the campaign, 
 was such as to give those who saw and appreciated 
 the nature of his work the impression that a brilliant
 
 134 SOUTH AFRICA OF TO-DAY CHAP. 
 
 future was before him. Colonel Baden-Powell 
 earned a reputation for restless activity even among 
 the natives, and his own countrymen appreciated to 
 an equal degree his cool-headedness, common-sense, 
 and resourcefulness. And the services of Colonel 
 Bridgman in organising something approaching to a 
 transport and supply department were highly appre- 
 ciated. The 7th Hussars were handicapped for 
 many reasons, the chief of which was their arrival 
 upon the scene of action when the enemy had 
 retired into their rocky kopjes, and when, in conse- 
 quence, the time for useful action by cavalry had 
 passed. They only on one or two occasions had the 
 opportunity of using their swords effectually, but 
 they were able to establish a reputation for efficiency 
 in rifle practice which few expected cavalry soldiers 
 to possess. The Mounted Infantry were more 
 fortunate, arriving in Mashonaland just when they 
 were most wanted. Imperial troops have not a 
 good name in South Africa. The raiders who 
 marched to Doornkop are heroes, but Thomas 
 Atkins finds little favour. It was refreshing, there- 
 fore, to hear the praises bestowed on Colonel 
 Alderson for the skill with which he planned an 
 attack on Makoni's stronghold by a sudden ddtour 
 at night from his apparent line of march, and for the 
 bravery with which his troops stormed a position 
 honeycombed with caves and much more adapted 
 for the operations of ferrets than of soldiers. This, 
 the first, and many other operations which the
 
 xill RHODESIA 135 
 
 Mounted Infantry had to conduct, sometimes under 
 Colonel Alderson in person, sometimes under Major 
 Jenner, an officer who gained the especial confidence 
 of the settlers for his coolness and skill, and some- 
 times under Captain Macmahon and junior officers, 
 led to the restoration of order in Mashonaland, 
 and, what to some will be equally gratifying, 
 the restoration in some measure of the prestige 
 of the British soldier. Even Dutchmen acknow- 
 ledged that these Mounted Infantry could shoot, 
 and were astonished at the precision of the volleys 
 which they poured in on the enemy's positions. 
 The operations which these Imperial troops, Hus- 
 sars as well as Mounted Infantry, had to under- 
 take were conducted under conditions the trying 
 nature of which may be appreciated by the fact that 
 out of twelve officers and 150 men, seven officers 
 and seventy-six men were at one time in hospital. 
 The operations covered a period of several months, 
 during the whole of which the troops had to march 
 without tents, with little transport, with inadequate 
 supplies, and with horses falling out from sheer 
 impoverishment. And they had to fight an enemy 
 retired into hills of gigantic granite boulders, belched 
 forth from the bowels of the earth apparently for the 
 only useful purpose of hiding blacks between their 
 crevices and interstices. 
 
 That General Sir Frederic Carrington under 
 these circumstances, with only a few hundred Im- 
 perial troops, a few more hundreds hastily-raised
 
 136 SOUTH AFRICA OF TO-DAY CHAP. 
 
 levies and Cape natives, and with his base practi- 
 cally at Cape Town, could bring off no single con- 
 spicuous action was not surprising. To clear such 
 a nest of strongholds as the Matoppos, nearly 
 forty miles in length and from ten to twenty miles 
 broad, at least 5,000 men would have been required, 
 and these there was no possibility of feeding. The 
 campaign therefore resolved itself into a long series 
 of small engagements chiefly noticeable for the 
 devoted bravery of officers like Major Kershaw and 
 Captain Haynes, who, though they lost their lives 
 in doing so, led their men dauntlessly on to the 
 very mouth of the horrible caves in which the 
 enemy secreted themselves. 
 
 The results of the war were not so decisive as 
 might have been wished. It would have been 
 more satisfactory and conclusive to have had one 
 decisive action, in place of the numerous little 
 engagements into which the campaign devolved. 
 The loss to the natives would probably have been 
 less, but the moral effect of a concentrated blow 
 would have been far greater and more lasting. 
 Once, however, the natives had retired to their 
 rocky fortresses there was no possibility of bringing 
 on such an engagement. Yet it must not be 
 imagined that because there has been no single big 
 fight the results of the war are altogether inde- 
 cisive. The natives certainly had the satisfaction 
 of murdering large numbers of whites at the com- 
 mencement of the outbreak, but the numbers they
 
 xii RHODESIA 137 
 
 themselves lost were nearly ten times as great 
 Hundreds of their villages were burnt. Their 
 flocks and herds were captured and their grain 
 stores carried off or destroyed. As a practical 
 result of their uprising they found themselves on 
 the verge of starvation they found the military 
 strength of the whites considerably increased and 
 forts established in their midst, and before the year 
 is out they will see the iron railroad run right into 
 the heart of the country. At the same time they 
 find the whites inclined to treat them more reason- 
 ably and considerately than they have hitherto 
 done ; and they have had ample opportunity of 
 airing their grievances to the great white chief 
 Rhodes, who exercises by his personality such a 
 wonderful influence over them, and they have 
 received practical assurance from the Government 
 that those grievances have been considered. 
 
 The probability of a further general rising seems, 
 therefore, very remote. Combination is always 
 effected with difficulty among such tribes, and was 
 only carried out last year under very exceptional 
 circumstances. Each chief is extremely jealous of 
 the other, and the divisions among them have been 
 increased through some of the chiefs having 
 remained friendly during the recent troubles, instead 
 of joining the majority. The war brought no one 
 chief prominently to the front, and the people 
 remain as loose and disconnected as before. 
 While, then, purely local disturbances, such as
 
 138 SOUTH AFRICA OF TO-DAY CH. XII 
 
 occurred lately in British Bechuanaland, and oc- 
 casional murders of white men, such as are 
 committed every year upon the Indian frontier, 
 may be expected, there is no reason to suppose 
 that, with the police force now established in the 
 country and with the improved system of native 
 administration now being introduced, there will be 
 another general rising. Other results of the war 
 are the confirming among Rhodesians of a strong 
 feeling of clanship, and of unbounded confidence in 
 Mr. Rhodes as a man of courage, who stood 
 alongside them in the midst of dangers and skilfully 
 guided the country through a terrible crisis. The 
 strongest incentive has been given to railway 
 development. And lastly, the authorities have 
 been made to recognise the necessity of regarding 
 the interests of the natives as inseparable from the 
 interests of the country.
 
 CHAPTER XIII 
 
 THE OUTLOOK IN RHODESIA 
 
 RHODESIA is a country with no past, it is essenti- 
 ally a country of the future. Every one there lives 
 in the future. The people talk of what this or that 
 place will be, not what it is ; and of what such 
 and such a company will do, not what they are 
 doing. The settlers must necessarily be imagina- 
 tive, must look ahead and attempt to define the 
 future. But at the bottom of all speculation as to 
 the future they must have some groundwork of fact 
 in the present ; and it is this ground for their 
 speculation that it is essential to examine. 
 
 What every one counts on to start the country 
 is, of course, gold. To make the country a per- 
 manently prosperous colony there must be agri- 
 cultural resources to back up this gold. But 
 agriculture alone could never start the country, 
 or make it anything more than a useful place of 
 refuge for the restless Boers who find the Trans- 
 vaal already too crowded for them. It was, there- 
 fore, into the possibilities of gold-mining develop-
 
 140 SOUTH AFRICA OF TO-DAY CHAP. 
 
 ment that I directed my first inquiries in my tour 
 through the country ; and if I cannot record having 
 heard of any large output of gold at present, I can 
 at any rate say that wherever I went I saw signs 
 of the precious metal. Round Umtali, round Salis- 
 bury, Victoria, Gwelo, Bulawayo, Tati, in the 
 neighbourhood of each town I visited, I saw or 
 heard of gold mines present and prospective. 
 
 And the extensive area over which gold has 
 been found is one of the strongest arguments in 
 favour of gold mining becoming a permanent 
 industry. No one has a right to expect a second 
 industry such as that of Johannesburg to arise in 
 Rhodesia. That may come eventually, of course ; 
 but till now only quartz reefs, whose chief character- 
 istic is the irregularity of the occurrence of gold, 
 have been found, and the mining must consequently 
 be very speculative. Nor, so far, have any great 
 results been obtained, the total output since the 
 first commencement being under 6,000 ounces that 
 is, a value of about ,20,000. But shafts have 
 been sunk, and more than surface evidence has 
 been afforded to judge of the possibilities of the 
 reefs. And it must be remembered that the cost of 
 bringing up machinery for the working of the 
 mines has hitherto been prohibitive. What that 
 cost is may be judged when I say that a bank 
 manager who wished to have up a safe into 
 Mashonaland, found that it would cost him 100 
 in carriage. Mining companies are awaiting the
 
 xm THE OUTLOOK IN RHODESIA 141 
 
 advent of the railway ; and till that comes, till they 
 can import their machinery at a reasonable rate, 
 and practically prove by actual working the value 
 of some of the principal reefs, no definite opinion 
 can be formed as to the future of the mining 
 industry. It is a matter of hope and expectation. 
 But it is worth recording that the settlers them- 
 selves have the utmost faith in it, and the value of 
 land in the townships at each of the mining centres 
 remains exorbitantly high, in spite of all the troubles 
 of the year. 
 
 In the matter of necessary accessories to a gold- 
 mining industry labour, water, fuel, climate- 
 Rhodesia is, too, fairly well provided. The present 
 native labour is not good, and the system hitherto 
 employed in gaining it has been hateful. Natives 
 who had no inclination to work who were un- 
 accustomed to work even in their fields were 
 hunted out to work in mines, and not always well 
 or justly treated there. Such a system could never 
 last, and the unwilling labour thus obtained, in the 
 long run, was the most expensive that could be 
 found. For a few years some kind of pressure 
 will be necessary to make natives work ; and as 
 long as the Government see that the men so 
 employed are properly treated, they will probably 
 be all the better for a little lesson in the "dignity 
 of labour." But with the arrival of railways from 
 the north and south other labour markets will be 
 made available, and men may be expected to come
 
 142 SOUTH AFRICA OF TO-DAY CHAP. 
 
 and work as readily as they do in Johannesburg 
 and Kimberley. Then, again, water is generally 
 obtainable and in most places plentiful. There 
 may be difficulty [in regard to the supply of coal 
 till the railways are built, but it has been found 
 near Salisbury, about sixty miles to the west of 
 Bulawayo, and again quite lately in Bechuanaland. 
 
 The climate on the elevated plateaux is cool and 
 healthy, though the low country is feverish. Many 
 deaths have occurred and many have been stricken 
 down by fever ; but this is not due to any inherent 
 unhealthiness in the climate of the uplands, but to 
 the fact that all the first arrivals had to reach the 
 country by many weeks of travel through the pesti- 
 lential low country, and even on their reaching the 
 uplands had only poor and scanty fare and had to 
 live a hard rough life, with no proper houses to 
 dwell in. What is locally known as " whisky fever" 
 is also accountable for much. The lower valleys 
 will always remain feverish. But the climate of 
 towns like Salisbury and Bulawayo is as good as 
 that of any town in South Africa. The summer 
 heat is very little greater than that of England, 
 and in the winter there are mild frosts. 
 
 Agriculture in Rhodesia must depend on the 
 development of the gold-mining industry. The 
 country seems to have all the requisites for a rich 
 agricultural colony, and in Mashonaland especially 
 there are rich, well-watered valleys where anything 
 might be grown, and there are thousands of acres
 
 Xlll THE OUTLOOK IN RHODESIA 143 
 
 of sweet good grass for sheep and cattle. One 
 beautiful glen, which a knowing Boer farmer had 
 appropriated, I particularly recall to remembrance. 
 It might have been taken out of Surrey. Low, 
 rich meadow lands, with a clear little stream 
 meandering through it, and the hills on either side 
 covered with shady copses. Yet while one sees all 
 this and hears the favourable opinions of men who 
 have had experience in other parts of South Africa 
 one cannot help recalling also the many drawbacks 
 to agriculture which are so apparent at the same 
 time. Why are the natives starving in parts where 
 the war did not reach ? Because of the drought. 
 Why do they fear for the new crops ? Because 
 of the locusts. Why are cattle, horses, and mules, 
 sheep and fowls so dear ? Because of the rinder- 
 pest, horse sickness, sheep sickness, fowl sickness. 
 Every animal seems to have an especial sickness 
 prescribed for it, and the drawbacks to the develop- 
 ment of agriculture are so great that without the 
 gold industry to first open out the country and 
 afterwards to supply a local market, little might be 
 expected. But the gold has already brought rail- 
 ways and some population into the country, and 
 a few of the settlers who have strength to stand out 
 against the all-absorbing attraction of gold mining 
 or prospecting are trying their fortune at agricul- 
 ture. Proposals have been made by Mr. Grafton, 
 of Natal, and others, to establish experimental 
 farms ; and Lord Grey is giving all the attention
 
 144 SOUTH AFRICA OF TO-DAY CHAP. 
 
 he can spare to agricultural developments. Mr. 
 Rhodes, too, has a personal enthusiasm for every- 
 thing pertaining to the soil, and has done much to 
 encourage good farmers by gifts of merino sheep, 
 and grants of land on easy terms. Companies with 
 plenty of capital who are able to farm on a large 
 scale and tide over temporary misfortunes which 
 would swamp small farmers are being formed. 
 
 While, then, one cannot at present see in 
 Rhodesia all the magnificent prospects of the 
 Transvaal, there is much to justify the transparent 
 faith of the settlers in its future. They know that 
 only a portion of the immense tracts of land on 
 either side of the Zambesi known as Rhodesia has 
 so far been touched, and that even this portion has 
 been but roughly prospected over ; yet the results 
 of this prospecting have been sufficiently encourag- 
 ing to warrant the expenditure of large sums of 
 money in the construction of railways. Railways, 
 again, will facilitate mining, and mining will render 
 agriculture commercially possible. A steady de- 
 velopment of the country for some years to come 
 may therefore be certainly expected. 
 
 By whom and how should the country be 
 governed in future ? This was the question which 
 was much exercising the minds of settlers in 
 Rhodesia, and upon the question the settlers have 
 no two minds. Imperial rule is hated ; rule by 
 the Company is appreciated. The settlers say 
 that Imperial administration is too slow-moving
 
 xm THE OUTLOOK IN RHODESIA 145 
 
 for the needs of a young colony. There is too 
 much red tape about it ; London is distant, and 
 men at the head of affairs there are disposed to 
 interfere for the purpose of satisfying faddists in 
 Parliament or to pacify the Exeter Hall party, 
 which Rhodesians imagine has such a controlling 
 effect upon the affairs of the Empire. The 
 Colonial Office is supposed to be ignorant of 
 the needs and conditions of the country, and too 
 much swayed by ill-informed public opinion in 
 England. Any sort of interference from home 
 is hotly resented by the sensitive colonists, and 
 direct Imperial administration would be in the 
 last degree distasteful to them. 
 
 Company rule is by no means held by them as 
 a pattern of perfection. The general complaints 
 against it, indeed, are often only a degree less 
 fervid than the agitation against the Boers at 
 Johannesburg. Some of the articles in the Salis- 
 bury papers before the arrival of Mr. Rhodes 
 compared not unfavourably with articles in Johan- 
 nesburg papers at the commencement of last 
 year. The favouritism, the advantages given to 
 men who may have influence in England, are often 
 bitterly complained of by hardworking settlers. 
 The personnel of the administration is recognised 
 to be inefficient. Settlers are well aware of the 
 number of incompetent and often dishonest officials 
 there have been in the Company's service. They 
 see how the Company is defrauded on every side. 
 
 L
 
 146 SOUTH AFRICA OF TO-DAY . CHAP 
 
 They know that the native administration has been 
 grossly misconducted in the past, and they com- 
 plain bitterly of the injustice done to themselves 
 in withdrawing all police protection for a raid on 
 the Transvaal. 
 
 Yet, in spite of these recognised shortcomings, 
 and in spite of their loudly-expressed complaints, 
 they prefer Chartered Company rule to direct 
 Imperial administration. Much is talked at home 
 of these colonists being pioneers of Empire, but 
 out there one hears very little of Imperialism. 
 The men who come out do not come for the 
 purpose of extending the Empire. The Empire 
 is one of the last things they think of, though 
 they would all join in heart and soul to assist 
 England if she were ever in distress. But what 
 they do come for is to make a living. The guiding 
 minds who direct the schemes of colonisation may, 
 or may not, have the extension and welfare of 
 the Empire as their ideal ; but the ordinary 
 colonist settles in Rhodesia either because he thinks 
 he can make money more rapidly there than else- 
 where, or because he wants to lead a free, un- 
 fettered style of life. One class wants a Govern- 
 ment which, good or bad, will at any rate push 
 ahead, and the other class desires to be left alone 
 as much as possible. All alike have faith in them- 
 selves and in the future of the country ; and they 
 believe that the pushing Chartered Company, 
 spirited and generous as it has always shown
 
 CECIL J. RHODES. [To face page 147. 
 
 From a photograph by Russell & Sons.
 
 Xili THE OUTLOOK IN RHODESIA 147 
 
 itself, can do more for them than the slow and 
 righteous Imperial Government ever would. Under 
 the one, development will be rapid, if not solid ; 
 under the other, it may be solid, but it will not be 
 rapid. With the Chartered Company money 
 will be made more quickly than with the Imperial 
 Government. 
 
 But when the settlers talk of the Chartered 
 Company they really mean Mr Rhodes. A 
 Chartered Company without Mr. Rhodes, and 
 really conducted by a Board in London, would 
 probably be as distasteful to the colonists as the 
 Imperial Government itself. But Mr. Rhodes is 
 felt to be the guiding influence in the control of 
 the Company's affairs ; and he is here amongst 
 the settlers, and ready to be grumbled at and 
 bullied by them, whenever they think they have 
 a grievance. He has not always been popular 
 amongst them, and he was suspected at one 
 time of thinking a great deal more about Pretoria 
 than about Rhodesia. But now he is known to 
 have his soul devoted to the country named after 
 him, and his power of furthering or retarding its 
 welfare, and the welfare of the individuals in it, 
 is felt to be unsurpassable. He is not the manag- 
 ing director of the Company ; he is not the ad- 
 ministrator of the country ; he cannot move a 
 single policeman or confer a single Government 
 appointment. But he is the founder of the 
 country ; he is yet a director of the Chartered 
 
 L 2
 
 148 SOUTH AFRICA OF TO-DAY CHAP. 
 
 Company ; he is director of the railway companies 
 upon which the whole future of the country 
 depends ; he has put hundreds of thousands of 
 pounds of his own money into the country and 
 brought millions of pounds of other people's, and 
 he owns an immense amount of personal property 
 in it. Simply as a private individual he, therefore, 
 stands far more to the settler and to the develop- 
 ment companies than the most efficient adminis- 
 trator ever could. And farmers, merchants, and 
 mining directors know that the exertion of his 
 influence in the introduction of capital into the 
 country and the pushing on of railway construction 
 means so much more hard cash in their pockets. 
 They, therefore, fully appreciate the benefit the 
 country derives from his presence in it and his 
 immense personal liberality towards them. 
 
 Yet these settlers do not look to continuing 
 permanently the present despotic system of govern- 
 ment. They are nearly all British, and conse- 
 quently liberty-loving ; and as soon as there is 
 sufficient population they hope to see a self-govern- 
 ing colony, like the Cape or Natal, formed, when 
 they can direct their own affairs. Rule by Char- 
 tered Company they prefer to direct administration 
 by the Imperial Government ; but they eventually 
 hope to rule themselves, and form themselves into 
 one more of our great self-governing colonies. 
 
 In the meantime the situation is delicate and 
 difficult. The Imperial Government does not rule
 
 Xill THE OUTLOOK IN RHODESIA 149 
 
 directly, but it exercises control ; and the armed 
 forces of the country, though paid for by the 
 Company, are under the command of Imperial 
 officers directly responsible to the Imperial Govern- 
 ment. If a native chief is refractory, the Company's 
 administration cannot move a single man to bring 
 him to order. The Imperial Deputy Commissioner 
 may consider the safety of the country requires 
 that 1,000 men should be permanently entertained. 
 The commercial Company, who have to pay for 
 the men, would rather do with less. Friction 
 must occur between the two authorities under this 
 system. But the settlers may have the satisfaction 
 of knowing that under it their safety is considered 
 independently of the cost of protection ; and, if this 
 is not much consolation to the shareholders, it is 
 at any rate for the good of the country. Men 
 who know that they are only carrying on for a 
 few years, and who are aware that in the event 
 of trouble they can, by the despatch of a telegram 
 to Cape Town, get up as many Imperial troops 
 as they choose to ask for, at the rate of a shilling 
 a day per man, may be suspected of a certain 
 inclination to run risks, rather than pay 53. a day 
 per man for a permanent police force of adequate 
 strength. The risk run is small ; the saving 
 considerable. But British taxpayers and British 
 investors have also an interest in the matter. 
 Without the support of the Imperial power, with- 
 out that reserve of Imperial strength to fall back
 
 150 SOUTH AFRICA OF TO-DAY CHAP. 
 
 .upon, the country could not stand. With the 
 Germans on one side, the Boers on another, the 
 Portuguese on a third, and the Belgians on the 
 fourth, and with the interior full of hostile blacks, 
 the country might stand for a time without Imperial 
 support, but few people would feel inclined to 
 invest their money in it ; and it is upon the steady 
 inflow of capital from Europe that the country is 
 absolutely dependent for its prosperity. Gold min- 
 ing in Rhodesia is sufficiently speculative as it is. 
 The country could not afford to make it still 
 more so. The settlers have, therefore, everything 
 to gain from the Imperial Government's continuing 
 to have its voice in the establishing of an adequate 
 police force. 
 
 But, apart from the somewhat difficult position 
 in which the Company are placed with regard to 
 the control of their forces, they have constant 
 difficulty as regards the personnel of their admin- 
 istration. South Africa, altogether, is badly off for 
 recruits for the Civil Service. And the Chartered 
 Company, in particular, have difficulties in obtain- 
 ing efficient men, because they can offer no 
 inducements of permanent service for life. The 
 majority of their servants are men who take up 
 employment for a few years while they can look 
 about for more lucrative employment with mining 
 companies. All are, more or less, engaged in 
 speculation, and none of them can look to any 
 higher appointment as a goal of ambition. There
 
 xin THE OUTLOOK IN RHODESIA 151 
 
 is no inducement, therefore, for first-class men to 
 enter the Company's Civil Service, and the evil 
 effects of the want of efficient men are especially 
 felt in the native department. 
 
 To deal with natives men of the highest class 
 are required, for the tendency to degenerate down 
 to the level of the natives can be resisted only 
 by the best. But the Company have hitherto 
 used not the best class of men who come into the 
 country, but almost the worst. A knowledge of 
 the language was considered the primary essential. 
 The field of choice was consequently limited, and 
 the men who had the qualification were mostly 
 small traders with little education, and quite 
 unsuited to be put in positions of authority over 
 men of a subject race. The result has been 
 disastrous. But this defect the Company are 
 now doing their best to remedy by introducing 
 men from Natal who know the Zulu language 
 (which is, practically, the same as the Matabele), 
 and have had experience in native administration. 
 And very careful attention is being paid to the 
 whole system of controlling the natives. 
 
 Lord Grey's task, in the circumstances de- 
 scribed above, is not an easy one. He succeeds 
 a man who, for the work of starting a new 
 colony, was unequalled, but who had not yet 
 established the administration as a working 
 machine. That has fallen to Lord Grey to 
 accomplish. The rough-and-ready methods, the
 
 152 SOUTH AFRICA OF TO-DAY CH. xm 
 
 system of liberal grants and still more liberal 
 promises, suitable for the first years of a colony, 
 must now give place to more regular methods as 
 the population increases. One of the most able 
 men in the Cape Colonial Service Mr. Milton 
 has been engaged by the Company to assist Lord 
 Grey in the work of establishing departmental 
 responsibility and putting the parts of the machine 
 in true running order ; and with the present 
 influx of better men into the country, and with 
 the experience of the past to guide them, there 
 is every hope that this work will be satisfactorily 
 accomplished.
 
 CHAPTER XIV 
 
 INDIAN IMMIGRATION TO NATAL 
 
 CIRCUMSTANCES have forced Natal one of the 
 smallest and youngest but yet most interesting and 
 progressive of all our colonies to first tackle a ques- 
 tion which, in coming years, must profoundly affect 
 the whole British Empire. She lies comparatively 
 close to the densely populated countries of India ; 
 she has a climate well suited to the inhabitants of 
 India ; and her colonists have found these Indians 
 eminently useful in developing their agricultural 
 districts, and have, therefore, not only encouraged 
 but even assisted the immigration of Indian agricul- 
 turists to Natal. But the little stream which they 
 were at first so anxious to direct into the colony 
 has now swelled into a rushing river. The re- 
 sources of the reservoir which has been tapped are 
 practically illimitable, and if the swelling stream 
 were not checked in some way the colony might 
 soon be submerged in the dusky waters. And as 
 with Natal so also may it be with the rest of the 
 tropical and semi-tropical British colonies. India
 
 154 SOUTH AFRICA OF TO-DAY CHAP. 
 
 has a population which now numbers nearly three 
 hundred millions, and this population is increasing 
 at the rate of nearly three millions per annum. The 
 means of communication between India and the 
 colonies are, year by year, being made easier. 
 Every year the natives of India are becoming 
 better acquainted with lands beyond the seas. 
 Every year more of them are being tempted to seek 
 their fortunes in new countries ; till, at the pre- 
 sent time, Indian pedlars, Indian trading firms, and 
 even Indian owners of steamship lines are found 
 in the various countries bordering on the Indian 
 Ocean. 
 
 South Africa is just become nervously aware of 
 what this means to her. And though it is only 
 in Natal that matters have yet come to a head, 
 in all parts of South Africa I heard the question 
 warmly discussed and the attitude of the Natalians 
 eagerly watched. Natal is blamed by the other 
 South African colonies for having encouraged so 
 dangerous an immigration, and her new attitude 
 in attempting to check it is thoroughly approved 
 of. For the question is both a racial and a labour 
 question. It is racial, not in the sense of their 
 being any real symptoms of race hatred, but 
 because the Anglo-Saxon colonists in South Africa 
 are bent upon building up an Anglo-Saxon country, 
 and believe that with a constant stream of immi- 
 grants from Great Britain they will be able to 
 carry out their object if another stream from India
 
 xiv INDIAN IMMIGRATION TO NATAL 155 
 
 is not allowed to mingle with it, to prevent that 
 unity which can only come from similarity of social 
 customs and ideas. And it is a labour question 
 because the small British traders and the British 
 artisans fear the competition of men accustomed 
 to live more cheaply than they and be satisfied 
 with less wages. Alike in the Transvaal, in 
 Rhodesia and in the Free State I heard the 
 opinions expressed that if South Africa was to 
 be preserved "a white man's country," Indian 
 immigration must be checked ; and on my arrival 
 in Natal I found the people who held the entrance 
 ways by which the immigrants come in fully 
 determined to carry out this object. 
 
 In January demonstrations on a large scale had 
 been made at Durban to prevent the landing of 
 two ship loads of Indians who had come from 
 Bombay. Two or three thousand men had as- 
 sembled on the quays, and expressed their intention 
 of forcibly ejecting any Indian who attempted to 
 put his foot on shore. A good deal of over-violent 
 language was used by the leaders of the agitation, 
 and a nasty crisis was only averted by the tact of 
 Mr. Escombe, the then Attorney-General, who, 
 in an address to the crowd, threw the responsibility 
 of any bloodshed which might occur upon the 
 leaders of the agitation, yet at the same time 
 promised that Government would in the present 
 Session bring in measures to deal with the question. 
 But though the words and actions of the extreme
 
 156 SOUTH AFRICA OF TO-DAY CHAP. 
 
 agitators were disapproved of by the majority of 
 men I met, I was left in no doubt that even the 
 most moderate of the colonists desired that the 
 Indian immigration should be checked. These 
 men do not attempt to hide the value of the 
 Indian to the colony in a variety of ways ; for 
 they allow that a great deal of the prosperity of 
 the colony is due to the influx of Indian labour 
 on the sugar, tea, and fruit estates. And they 
 say that if only agriculturists came from India 
 they would make no complaint. White men cannot 
 work in the fields in Natal, and therefore Indians 
 who work with a greater degree of intelligence 
 than the Kaffirs would be welcome. But the im- 
 migration of Indians is not confined to the agri- 
 cultural classes only. Swarms of petty traders 
 have also come in and entirely ousted the class 
 of small white traders who used formerly to find 
 a living in the colony. Larger Indian traders are 
 acquiring property in the principal towns, and 
 conducting considerable establishments. Indian 
 artisans are competing with European artisans, and 
 gradually driving them out of the field. 
 
 Theoretically it may be argued that such com- 
 petition must in the main be of advantage to the 
 colony, that it will reduce the price of commodities 
 to the consumer and the price of labour to the 
 employer. And in practice many of the colonists 
 follow out the theory ; for the farmer's wife, if she can 
 get her necessaries cheaper from an Indian store
 
 XIV INDIAN IMMIGRATION TO NATAL 157 
 
 than she can from a European store, will go to the 
 Indian ; and many of the agitators employed Indians 
 largely where Europeans might have been used if 
 they could have been had for equally low wages. 
 Yet, in spite of this inconsistency, they would prefer 
 to see the country rid of Indian traders and artisans ; 
 and this deep underlying feeling which prevails 
 among the colonists was made especially clear to me 
 by the past and present Mayors of Durban, Mr. 
 Jameson and Mr. Payne, who took me round the 
 town and showed the immense progress which had 
 been made by the British settlers, and explained how 
 they wished to hand the colony down to their 
 children a British colony and not a semi-Asiatic 
 country like Mauritius. They argued that they and 
 their fathers had fought for it and formed the 
 foundation of its prosperity. I was shown when 
 forty years ago only a few rough houses formed the 
 nucleus of the present town of Durban, and from the 
 clock-tower of the present Town Hall was pointed 
 out how the town had grown to its present size, 
 street after street being formed, and shops, business 
 houses and hotels springing up on every side. I 
 was then taken to the line of quays, and shown the 
 immense improvements which had there been made till 
 Durban has become one of the first ports in South 
 Africa. And the question which presented itself to 
 me was, " Would all this have been accomplished if 
 the proportion of Indians to Europeans had been 
 greater? Allowing that Indians have a large
 
 158 SOUTH AFRICA OF TO-DAY CHAP. 
 
 amount of enterprise and commercial ability, have 
 they the initiative and energy to push a young 
 colony ? " The colonists believe they have not. 
 They believe that with every Indian trader who 
 takes up a position which might have been filled by 
 a European, there is a loss of that impulsive force 
 which a young colony requires. The Indian is 
 separate from the ' European settler in religion, 
 customs, ideas and principles. There is no possi- 
 bility of his amalgamating with the original British 
 and Dutch settlers, as Germans, French or Russians 
 would. The two will always remain separate. 
 Moreover the Indian is passive not active. He has 
 none of that idde du corps of a European settler ; 
 none of that feeling that he is part of a colony, and 
 that, apart from his own interests, he must push the 
 interests of the colony as a whole, that indeed his 
 own interests are inseparably wrapt up in the 
 interests of the whole community. This is what the 
 colonists feel about the Indians, and this is what is 
 at the root of their opposition to them. Germans, 
 French or any other European nationality may 
 come as many as they please, and they are welcome, 
 because they settle down, they intermarry, they 
 become part and parcel of the communityjnterested 
 in its welfare and ready to further its progress. 
 But the Indians the colonists regard as a blight 
 upon the colony, as doing no active harm, but as 
 occupying places which, but for their presence, might 
 have been occupied by others who would have
 
 xiv INDIAN IMMIGRATION TO NATAL 159 
 
 become active powers for good in the development 
 of the colony. 
 
 And what of the Indian side of the question ? 
 Undoubtedly, to the Indian Natal is a perfect 
 paradise. The climate is exactly suited to him, 
 neither too hot nor too cold; and he obtains there 
 wages for his labour and profits on his business 
 enterprises which he would never obtain in his 
 own country. At the same time he is under a 
 strong government, which protects him in a way 
 he never would be in any Asiatic country. He 
 has his grievances, and of those I was made ac- 
 quainted by Mr. Gandhi, the leading merchant 
 of Durban. But I think these are not so much 
 grievances at their present as at their prospective 
 treatment. Mr. Gandhi, the spokesman of the 
 Indian community and the butt of the agitators, 
 is a particularly intelligent and well-educated man, 
 who has studied for three years in England and lives 
 in a well-furnished English villa at Durban. At a 
 dinner, to which he and the leading Indians invited 
 me, I found merchants who had visited England 
 and several other countries in Europe, who had 
 bought steamers in Glasgow and conducted business 
 on a large scale, and who could talk fluently in 
 English on all the current events of the time. 
 Such men as these naturally resent the use of the 
 term " coolie," which is indiscriminately applied to 
 high and low class Indians by the colonists. And 
 they complain of the objections which are frequently
 
 160 SOUTH AFRICA OF TO-DAY CHAP. 
 
 made to their travelling in upper class compart- 
 ments in the trains and tramcars. But while they 
 complain of being classed separately from Euro- 
 peans, they are much offended at Kafirs being 
 classed with them. And, on the whole, in spite 
 of occasional rudeness from rough colonists, I do 
 not think that the Indians in Natal are badly 
 treated personally, and compensation for injuries 
 can always be obtained in the law courts, where 
 the astute Indian is well able to look after his 
 interests. 
 
 What, however, they undoubtedly have to feel 
 anxious about is their future treatment. As Mr. 
 Gandhi pointed out to me, the restrictions placed 
 upon them are being increased year by year, and 
 they feel that they must protest against each, not 
 so much because any single restriction placed upon 
 them so far has been too unbearable, but because 
 these restrictions are now accumulating to a degree 
 when they might be, and they think that without 
 protest they may be, piled up still more heavily. 
 Originally they had the franchise in full. Now 
 this is restricted, and a poll tax is levied on Indians 
 who at the close of their term of indenture elect 
 to remain in the colony. Finally, the Natal 
 Government this year brought in measures which, 
 though they are not ostensibly directed against 
 Asiatics, were undoubtedly intended to check their 
 immigration. In deference to the wishes of the 
 Imperial Government no mention was made of
 
 xiv INDIAN IMMIGRATION TO NATAL 161 
 
 class or colour, but Town Councils were given the 
 power to refuse the grant of annual trading 
 licences to persons not keeping their books in 
 English, or dwelling in premises not fit for the 
 intended trade, or provided with proper sanitary 
 arrangements ; and the immigration laws were so 
 amended that any person who was unable to write 
 out and sign in the characters of any language of 
 Europe a particular application form, or any 
 person who was not possessed of available means 
 of subsistence of his own to the value of ^25, 
 might be refused admission to the colony. 
 
 This is how the colony of Natal has attempted 
 to deal with the difficult and delicate question 
 brought upon it. The Indians lay claim to com- 
 pleteness of liberty upon their status as British 
 subjects ; and to put restriction on British subjects 
 in a British colony is an anomalous attitude. But 
 the law of self-preservation is the first law of being ; 
 and when we find young men in England advised 
 against going to Natal and other parts of South 
 Africa because the position they might otherwise 
 have taken up is now occupied by Indians, we need 
 not be surprised that the colonists are so deter- 
 mined to restrict the immigration that they affirm 
 that if the price of Empire is that they must 
 necessarily allow every Indian exactly the same 
 privileges that would be granted to a native of 
 Great Britain, then they would prefer to be 
 independent of the Empire and be free to work out 
 
 M
 
 a62 SOUTH AFRICA OF TO-DAY CH. xiv 
 
 their career by themselves. And Indians have no 
 great right to complain even if immigration is 
 restricted ; for during all the centuries of the past 
 they might have done with Natal what British 
 colonists with courage and enterprise and resource 
 now have accomplished. It can therefore be no 
 special hardship or injustice to them if the colonists 
 allow them to eat of the fruit of their labours in 
 limited quantities and refuse to permit them to bear 
 down the whole tree.
 
 CHAPTER XV 
 
 THE OUTLOOK IN SOUTH AFRICA 
 
 IN this final chapter it will be useful to summarise 
 the various impressions I formed during my stay of 
 twelve months in South Africa. In my two visits 
 to the country I not only saw it at its most interest- 
 ing crisis, but in addition to a sojourn of six months 
 in the Transvaal I traversed the length of Rhodesia 
 and I travelled through the Cape Colony, the native 
 territories, Natal and the Portuguese possessions 
 round Delagoa Bay. 
 
 As a seething mass of unassimilated elements it 
 would be hard to equal the South Africa that I saw. 
 From the Zambesi to Cape Colony there was unrest. 
 Nowhere did there appear coherency, unity, or 
 security, and what chance there was of the various 
 antagonistic elements slowly settling down had been 
 incalculably thrown back by the raid, the full results 
 of which are only now being duly realised. 
 
 The British settlers believe the preposterously 
 heavy arming of the Boers means that they intend 
 to assume the offensive. The Transvaal suspects 
 
 M 2
 
 164 SOUTH AFRICA OF TO-DAY CHAP. 
 
 that an attack may again be made upon it ; for the 
 Boers, and especially their President, regard Mr. 
 Rhodes as their implacable enemy. They believe 
 that the British people and British Government in 
 heart support him ; and they require no pressing to 
 obey Mr. Kruger's recently-expressed injunction to 
 " prepare for war." 
 
 The sister Dutch Republic of the Orange Free 
 State would like to hold aloof from any disturbances, 
 but feels that this may be impossible. It fears that, 
 if the Transvaal lost its independence, its own 
 independence would soon go likewise. So the Free 
 State joins with the Transvaal in its preparation for 
 war. 
 
 Whatever tends towards a conflict between the 
 Dutch and the British in the Republics tends to 
 division in the Cape Colony and Natal, with their 
 white population half British and half Dutch ; and in 
 the former colony especially there is a marked 
 accentuation of that racial feeling which for some 
 years yet must inevitably exist. The Cape Dutch 
 sympathised with the Uitlanders in their grievances, 
 but the supposed attack upon the independence of 
 the Transvaal roused all their national sympathy 
 with men of their own blood ; and the feeling 
 amongst perhaps the majority of them is that, if any 
 unprovoked attack were now made, they would 
 have to join their compatriots in a struggle against 
 British interference. 
 
 Again, dissension between the two great divisions
 
 XV THE OUTLOOK IN SOUTH AFRICA 165 
 
 of the white population of South Africa necessarily 
 tends to cause unrest among the more numerous 
 black population held in subjection by the whites. 
 And the restless feeling engendered among the 
 natives by the divisions between the Dutch and 
 English has been increased by the appearance of 
 that terrible disease which is cutting off the one 
 great source of wealth to the blacks. So that on 
 leaving Rhodesia, where rebellion had only just 
 been stamped out, at the first town in the Cape 
 Colony I entered I found the people hastily rushing 
 to arms in expectation of a native rising, and a 
 punitive expedition had to be sent against the 
 chiefs who rose in rebellion. Travelling on to East 
 Griqualand I found a similar scare had occurred 
 there also, and the farmers in several districts had 
 collected together into laager. In Basutoland I 
 found a crisis had only been averted by the tact and 
 decision of Mr. Lagden, the Resident. 
 
 The tension was, then, on all sides so great that 
 any display of temper by either party would have 
 set South Africa in a blaze. Each one was asking, 
 "When is this state of things to end? How is 
 confidence again to be restored ? " 
 
 Before attempting to offer any solution of this 
 question I must briefly review the main factors in 
 the situation. Of the two white races of South 
 Africa one is backward and slow in movement, while 
 the other is essentially progressive. Over the 
 greater part of South Africa the progressive section
 
 166 SOUTH AFRICA OF TO-DAY CHAP. 
 
 is in power ; but the richest portion of the country 
 is held by the unprogressive section. And the 
 development of the whole of South Africa de- 
 pending so much as it does upon the development 
 of the Transvaal, the pushing, energetic section 
 are kept in a state of constant irritation at the 
 deliberateness of the more backward section, while 
 these latter are ever in a nervous dread that the 
 progressives may filch their portion from them. 
 The feeling of the British throughout South Africa 
 towards the Dutch of the Transvaal is, " Move 
 along, or let us manage affairs." And the feeling 
 of the Transvaal Dutch towards the British is> 
 " Push ahead as much as you like in your own part 
 of South Africa, but leave us alone in ours." If the 
 Boers had Bechuanaland instead of the Transvaal, 
 or if the Transvaal were as devoid of mineral wealth 
 as is the Free State, there would be no more tension 
 between the Dutch and English than there was 
 between the two in the Free State before the raid. 
 The disturbing factor in the situation is the wealth 
 of the Transvaal. 
 
 Of this wealth there is, we have already seen, 
 absolutely no doubt. Much of it will be wasted 
 through the incompetence of the Government ; for 
 mines which would pay well if a sympathetic 
 Government were in power to facilitate the 
 development of the industry, are now turning out 
 gold at a loss. But in all parts of the Transvaal, 
 as well as on the Rand, gold is to be found. And,
 
 xv THE OUTLOOK IN SOUTH AFRICA 167 
 
 besides the gold, there is a practically unlimited 
 quantity of both coal and iron, while, in addition, 
 the country has a good soil and enjoys a healthy 
 climate. 
 
 The thousands of men and women flocking to 
 South Africa from every part of crowded Europe in 
 search of a livelihood are now beginning to ask 
 whether all this wealth can be allowed to run to 
 waste, whether the Boers are justified in keeping so 
 rigorously in their own hands a country which, if 
 properly administered, might afford a home and 
 comfortable living to hundreds of thousands of the 
 over-populated States of Europe, and whether they 
 are really following out the precepts of their often- 
 quoted Bible when they persist in wrapping up their 
 talent in a napkin and making nothing further of it. 
 
 The Boers, for their part, recognising the wealth 
 of their country though only partially, for they 
 cling to the idea that gold is the sole source of 
 wealth, and that even that will last but a small 
 number of years fear this flood of strangers pour- 
 ing into the Transvaal, and suspect these aliens of 
 a desire to appropriate the country to themselves. 
 They have seen their country once already annexed 
 by the British. They last year had to resist a 
 determined effort to subvert their authority. And 
 they have this year seen indications which, rightly 
 or wrongly, lead them to believe that that effort 
 may again be renewed. The instinct of self- 
 preservation the most powerful and pressing in-
 
 168 SOUTH AFRICA OF TO-DAY CHAP. 
 
 stinct which can affect a nation induces them to 
 adopt an attitude of armed defence. They will 
 fight for their independence to the last. They will 
 not, unless absolutely compelled by force, allow 
 strangers any share in the control of the country. 
 And, further, there ha^ been recent indications 
 of a policy to discourage immigration, to make 
 matters so uncomfortable that aliens will have no 
 wish to settle in the country. To prepare them- 
 selves against an open invasion by an armed defence, 
 and to check a slow, insidious invasion by measures 
 of restraint this seems to be the policy which the 
 instinct of self-preservation is dictating to the Boers. 
 And, such being their attitude, there are many 
 Englishmen in South Africa who say that the only 
 hope for a settlement of differences and for a 
 restoration of confidence in business is for Great 
 Britain to " have it out " with the Transvaal, to 
 insist by force that British subjects should be 
 treated as liberally in the Transvaal as the Dutch 
 are in Cape Colony, and to make the Boers of the 
 Transvaal really subservient to the British. And, 
 in their opinion, the sooner this is done the better, 
 for the longer the blow is delayed the more fully 
 armed will the Boers be. There will be no 'peace 
 or feeling of security, they argue, till this is done. 
 *' Do something, whether right or wrong, but at any 
 rate act," is what they say, "and get a decision 
 one way or another, so that we may know where 
 we are in future."
 
 xv THE OUTLOOK IN SOUTH AFRICA 169 
 
 That Great Britain has the power to act in this 
 way is undeniable. The Transvaal is nearly sur- 
 rounded by British territory, and its frontier may be 
 crossed at almost any point. The British have 
 incalculably greater wealth and larger numbers of 
 men for the prosecution of a war. And those who 
 have money invested in the country would be only 
 too pleased if British taxpayers would furnish the 
 twenty millions of money and send out the thirty 
 thousand men required to subjugate the Transvaal, 
 and, by substituting a liberal and progressive 
 Government for the obstructive government of 
 Dutch farmers, enhance the value of their pro- 
 perties. 
 
 Others, however, and among them those who 
 have lived longest in South Africa, ask, " Would 
 it be possible to confine such a conflict to the 
 Transvaal, or would it not rather spread throughout 
 South Africa? Might it not affect the relations 
 between blacks and whites also, and bring murder- 
 ing hordes of savages upon defenceless farms and 
 villages throughout the country ? And what is to 
 be the result of the war? Will racial feeling- 
 Dutch and English, black and white be diminished 
 or increased thereby ? Will the stubborn Dutch- 
 men, who have struggled for their independence 
 for centuries, suddenly give up their aspirations and 
 submit like lambs ; or would it not be necessary 
 rather to keep up a strong permanent garrison in
 
 i;o SOUTH AFRICA OF TO-DAY CHAP. 
 
 South Africa to retain them in a state of subjuga- 
 tion and prevent the risk of constantly-recurring 
 efforts to regain their independence ? " 
 
 These are the questions asked by men who 
 demand further what advantage has ever been 
 gained in South Africa by hurry. Undue haste, 
 they point out, has been the cause of every one of 
 the South African mistakes and disasters from our 
 shortsighted act in withdrawing from the Free 
 State, forty years ago, the sovereignty they begged 
 us to retain over them, to our premature attempt 
 at confederation in 1877, our annexation of the 
 Transvaal, and lastly the Jameson raid. Each 
 one of these acts, instead of rendering South 
 African unity more certain, has made it more remote, 
 has tended to consolidate the Dutch Republics 
 against us, has prevailed and intensified the national 
 feeling among them. 
 
 The Boers have few of the characteristics re- 
 quired for the formation of a coherent nation, 
 and the wide vastnesses of the countries they 
 occupy serve only to increase their tendency to 
 disintegrate. Their impatience of restraint, their 
 unwillingness to submit to the irksomeness of 
 government are proverbial. When left alone they 
 have always shown a tendency to division ; and the 
 present struggle between the judicial body on the 
 one hand and the legislative and executive bodies 
 on the other is the latest example of the incapacity
 
 xv THE OUTLOOK IN SOUTH AFRICA 171 
 
 of a people of low social development to form a 
 united nation without pressure from outside to keep 
 them together. 
 
 But it is precisely this necessary pressure that 
 the British have always been so ready to give 
 them ; and it is the British alone whom the Boers 
 have to thank for causing their preservation as a 
 separate nation. One of the leading statesmen in 
 the Dutch Republics was perfectly right when he 
 told me that it was only the constant succession of 
 acts of British interference that had fostered and 
 increased the spirit of Republicanism among the 
 Dutch in opposition to British Imperial control, and 
 that if they had been left alone there would have 
 now been none of that combined antagonism to the 
 British which unfortunately at present exists. 
 
 And as long as they suspect that the British have 
 designs upon the Transvaal, that they covet its 
 riches, and are only watching for an opportunity of 
 destroying its independence, the sympathies of the 
 Cape Dutch will be with the Transvaal Boers. But 
 this undercurrent of distrust which pervades the 
 Cape Dutch to-day has not always been there. On 
 the contrary, for some years past up to the time of 
 the raid the tendency was towards a gradual abate- 
 ment of that strong clannish feeling among the 
 Dutch against the British. While many even 
 among the prominent Dutch had formerly dreamed 
 of, and perhaps worked for, the establishment of a 
 Dutch Republic throughout South Africa with
 
 172 SOUTH AFRICA OF TO-DAY CHAP. 
 
 British supremacy dwindled down to a control of 
 coaling stations only, those hopes were gradually 
 disappearing under the liberal form of government 
 to which they were subjected. At the same time 
 there was a feeling among them against the 
 Transvaal Boers because of the seclusive and 
 obstructive policy which shut up the country not 
 only against the rush of immigrants from Europe, 
 but even against their fellow-countrymen in South 
 Africa. A Cape Dutch Afrikander even a Dutch 
 Afrikander of the Free State was excluded from 
 the rights of citizenship in the Transvaal just as 
 rigorously as the rest of the Uitlanders. Their 
 produce was as heavily taxed ; and, most cruel of 
 all, Dutchmen from Holland were imported for 
 service in the Government offices in the Transvaal, 
 when Dutch Afrikanders had apparently all the 
 necessary qualifications of language and education 
 and compatriotism, and sorely needed employ- 
 ment. 
 
 What, then, is offered as a solution of the 
 problem as an alternative to the employment of 
 force ? One solution suggested is the extreme 
 opposite policy the leaving matters absolutely 
 alone, and submitting to arbitration any questions 
 in dispute between the Transvaal and Great Britain. 
 Such a course of inaction has, however, few advo- 
 cates. It would mean the abnegation by Great 
 Britain of the claims she has always made to be 
 considered the paramount Power in South Africa ;
 
 xv THE OUTLOOK IN SOUTH AFRICA 173 
 
 it would encourage the Boers in that policy of 
 passive obstruction to which they are by nature 
 so fatally addicted ; and it would involve the 
 indefinite postponement of that general development 
 of South Africa which the British race have so 
 energetically undertaken. The Transvaal has 
 treaty obligations with England which her policy 
 of recent years gives England no inducement to 
 abrogate. And the common belief is that those 
 obligations are more likely to be carried out if the 
 Transvaal feels that the paramount Power in South 
 Africa is prepared at any moment to enforce them 
 than if the points were submitted to the slow 
 uncertain process of arbitration. 
 
 But the obligations are not all on one side. 
 England is under obligations to the Transvaal as 
 the Transvaal is to England, and has undertaken to 
 respect the internal independence of the country. 
 Viewing, then, the South African question as a 
 whole ; regarding the development of the country 
 as a settlement for European races to be the 
 primary object in view ; looking upon that develop- 
 ment of the whole country to be mainly dependent 
 on the development of the richest part the Trans- 
 vaal ; and recognising that racial differences Dutch 
 and English, black and white immensely retard 
 that development, the wisest policy which suggests 
 itself for England to pursue seems to be that 
 of abstention from any direct interference in the 
 internal affairs of the Transvaal, while at the same
 
 174 SOUTH AFRICA OF TO-DAY CH. XV 
 
 time maintaining in the strictest manner the rights of 
 free access of her subjects to the country and of just 
 treatment while in it which the London Convention 
 confers ; and, further, bringing again into sympathy 
 with her all that body of Dutch opinion in the Cape 
 Colony, Natal, and the Free State which has been 
 estranged by recent events. 
 
 When this weight of Dutch colonial feeling, upon 
 which the Transvaal Boers at present confidently 
 count, can be transferred again to the British side 
 in furtherance of a policy which will open up the 
 Transvaal to Afrikanders of every part of South 
 Africa ; and when Continental opinion can be made 
 to realise the advantages which are to be gained by 
 supporting, instead of thwarting, Great Britain in 
 her work of developing South Africa ; the 70,000 
 Boers who now bar the way to progress must 
 inevitably give way, and the development of the 
 Transvaal, upon which depends so much of the 
 prosperity of South Africa, be definitely assured.
 
 INDEX 
 
 ADEN, 112 
 
 Africa, East, 12 
 
 Alderson, Colonel, 134, 135 
 
 Alice Mine, 132 
 
 America, Western States, 3, 1 6 
 
 Australia, 9, 12, 16, 17 
 
 Auret, Mr., 79 
 
 B 
 
 BAILEY, MR. ABE, 79 
 
 Barberton, 112 
 
 Barnato, 46-48 
 
 Basutoland, 165 
 
 Beale, Colonel, 129 
 
 Bechuanaland, 31, 72, 138, 142 
 
 Beira, 126 
 
 Beit, Mr., 46 
 
 Blakiston, 132 
 
 Bloemfontein, 3 
 
 Boer, history, 20 seqq. , 34 ; domestic 
 life, 28 ; characteristics, 29, 30, 31, 
 66, 67, 83-87 ; government, 31 
 seqq., 65, 70 seqq.; religious in- 
 fluence, 27, 33 ; constitution, 35, 
 54 seqq. ; relation to British sub- 
 jects, 118 seqq. 
 
 Bridgman, Colonel, 134 
 
 Bulawayo, description, 121 ; gold, 
 140 ; climate, 142 
 
 Carrington, General Sir Frederick, 
 
 135 
 
 Chamber of Mines, 2, 5, 45, 48, 49 
 Chartered Company, 2, 127 ; rule of, 
 
 148 seqq. 
 China, I, 12 
 Columbia, British, 15 
 Cust, Mr. Harry, 121, 129 
 
 D 
 
 DELAGOA BAY, n, 13, in, 119 
 Dilke, Sir Charles, 4 
 Dingan, 24, 25, 27 
 Doornkop, 134 
 
 Durban demonstration, 155; descrip- 
 tion, 157 
 Durham engineer, 14 
 
 E 
 
 ERMELO, u, 13 
 Escombe, Mr., 155 
 Eton, 98 
 Europe, Southern, 8 
 
 FARRAR, MR. GEORGE, 47, 93, 94, 
 
 96 ; death sentence, 97 
 Free State, 24, 59, 116 
 
 CALCUTTA, 19 
 
 Cape, i, 20, 21 
 
 Cape Colony, 59, 70, 116 
 
 Cape Town, 2, 3, 21, 22, 135 
 
 Cardiff, 13 
 
 GRAFTON, MR., 143 
 
 Ghandi, Mr., 159; Indian question, 
 
 160 
 Gifford, Maurice, 133
 
 176 
 
 INDEX 
 
 Gordon, 98 
 
 Goldfields Company, 48 
 
 Grey, Lord, 143 ; work, 151, 152 
 
 Grey, George, 133 
 
 Grondwet, 38, 39, 61 
 
 Gwelo, 128 ; gold, 140 
 
 II 
 
 Kruger, President, 4, 33, 37 ; rela- 
 tions with Uitlanders, 54, 70, Ji ; 
 Jameson raid, 86, 92 ; relations 
 with Cecil Rhodes, 101 ; author's 
 interview with, 102 seqq. ; at 
 sittings of Volksraad, 106 seqq. ; 
 obstacles to progress, 115, 116 
 
 Krugersdorf, 25, 79, 80 
 
 HAYES HAMMOND, MR., 9, 94, 96 ; 
 
 death sentence, 97 
 Haynes, Captain, 136 
 Heygate, Mr., 80 
 Hollander, 40, 47, 116 
 Hussars, 7th, 133, 134 
 
 I 
 
 INDIA, 12, 16, 52, 153, 154, 156 
 Indian Ocean, n, 1 12 
 Ireland, 19 
 Italy, 19 
 
 JAMESON, MR., 157 
 
 Jameson, Dr., crossing border, 68, 
 69, 70, 74 ; repudiation of action 
 by High Commissioner, 79, 80 ; 
 force, 81 ; surrender, 81, 82 ; popu- 
 Uirity of, 83; letter, 84 seqq., 93 ; 
 gravity of situation, 88, 89, 90 ; in 
 goal, 94, 95 ; consequences of 
 raid, 96, 97, 104 ; trial, 108 
 
 Jenner, Major, 135 
 
 Johannesburg, description, 3, 5, 15, 
 1 6 ; population, 4 ; crisis, 60 seqq., 
 78, 79 ; effect of Dr. Jameson's 
 surrender, 82, 83, 85 ; British 
 Agent sent to, 88, 89 ; disarmament 
 of, 91, 92 
 
 Joubert, General, 78, 102 
 
 Judson, 133 
 
 K 
 
 KAFIR, raids of, 23 
 Kashmir, 127 
 Kershaw, Major, 136 
 Khartoum, 98 
 Kimberley, 104, 142 
 Kotze, 1 02 
 
 LACE, MR., 97 
 
 Lagden, Mr., 165 
 
 Lawley, Captain, 122 
 
 Leonard, Mr. Charles, 5 ; manifesto, 
 
 61, 62, 85 
 Lobengula, 123 
 London Convention, 84, 101, 109, 
 
 118 
 Lydenburg, 112 
 
 M 
 
 MACFARLAN, CAPTAIN, 133 
 Macmahon, Captain, 135 
 Maf eking, 72 
 Magnetite, 14] 
 Majuba Hill, 28 
 Makoni, 134 
 Maloboch, 55 
 Manifesto, 61 seqq., 77, 85 
 Marks, Mr. Samuel, 47 
 Mashonaland, 31, 135, 140 ; de- 
 scription, 143 seqq, 
 Massi Kessi, 126 
 Matabeleland, 29, 133 
 Matabele, 2, 29, 121, 123 
 Matoppos, 136 
 Middelberg, n 
 Milton, Mr., 152 
 
 N 
 
 NATAL, 59, 70, 104, 143 ; Indian 
 
 immigration, 1 53 seqq. 
 Nesbitt, 133 
 Nicholson, Captain, 133 
 
 O 
 
 ORANGE FREE STATE, 3, 70 
 Orange River, 23
 
 INDEX 
 
 177 
 
 PAYNE, MR., 157 
 
 Phillips, Mr. Lionel, 2, 5, 78, 85 ; 
 
 letter, 94, 96 ; death sentence, 97 
 Plumer, Colonel, 133 
 Portal, Sir Gerald, 98 
 Powell, Colonel Baden, 134 
 Pretoria, 1 1 ; deputation sent to, 78, 
 
 79 ; state of feeling in, 93 
 Pretorius, 38 
 Prussia, 19 
 
 R 
 
 RAAD, 35 seqq., 106-108 
 Rand, 57-59 ; wealth, 44, 45 
 Reform Committee, 74 seqq., 82, 92 ; 
 
 arrest of, 94 
 
 Rhodes, Cecil, 101, 137, 138, 144 
 Rhodes, Colonel Frank, 93 seqq. 
 Rhodesia, description, 121 seqq. ; 
 
 inhabitants, 129 seqq. ; government, 
 
 144 
 
 Robinson, Mr. J. B., 46 
 Robinson, Sir Hercules, 62, 88 
 
 Transvaal, gold in, 2, 45, 52, 112 ; 
 Republic, 24, 66, 118, 119, 120; 
 size, 19 ; population, 19, 20, 42, 
 43 ; climate, 8 ; labour, 10 ; wealth, 
 160 seqq. ; National Union, 5, 61 
 
 Trek, Great, 23, 102 
 
 U 
 
 UITLANDER, characteristics, 46 
 seqq. ; work, 45, 5 2 se qq- > griev- 
 ances of, 60 seqq., 70, 71, 72, 92, 
 
 '" 113, 114 ; franchise to, 104 
 
 Uganda, 98 
 
 Umtali, 127, 128, 129; gold, 140 
 
 United States, 3, 9, 113 
 
 VAAL RIVER, n 
 Van Nickerk, 133 
 Victoria, 128, 140 
 Vlakfontein, 80, 83 
 Volksraad, 23, 53, 71, 106, 109 
 description, 37 seqq. 
 
 SALISBURY, 126, 128, 129; gold, 
 
 140 ; climate, 142 
 Selous, Mr., 132 
 Spreckley, Mr., 133 
 Shippard, Sir Sydney, 90 
 Star, 68, 72, 74 
 Stewart, Sir Herbert, 98 
 Sikukuni, 118 
 
 TAXI, 140 
 
 Times, I, 62, 73, 99 
 
 W 
 
 WERNHER, 46 
 
 Wet, Sir Jacobus, 79, 88, 90 
 
 Windley, 132 
 
 -Z 
 
 ZOUTPANSBERG, 112 
 
 Zulu, i, 24, 1 1 8, 123 
 Zambesi, 144, 163 
 
 N
 
 RICHARD CLAY AND SONS, LIMITED 
 LONDON AND BUNGAY.
 
 BY THE SAME AUTHOR. 
 
 THE RELIEF OF CHITRAL. 
 
 By CAPTAIN G. J. YOUNGHUSBAND, Queen's Own Corps of 
 
 Guides, and CAPTAIN FRANK E. YOUNGHUSBAND, C.I.E., 
 
 Indian Staff Corps (late Political Officer in Chitral). 
 
 With Map and Illustrations. 8vo, 8s. 6d. net. 
 
 TIMES. " British fortitude and native devotion have never been more 
 splendidly displayed ; and seldom have these fine qualities and heroic deeds 
 found worthier record, vivid and inspiring, and yet modest and temperate 
 withal, than in the pages of the brothers Younghusband." 
 
 DAIL Y NEWS. " Every striking incident and episode of an exceptionally 
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 West African Studies. By Miss Mary 
 
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 Travels in West Africa, Congo Frangais, 
 
 CORISCO, and CAMEROONS. By M ARY H. KINGSLEY. Second 
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 DAILY NEWS. "No work on West African life, custom, religion, 
 manners, character, and avocations, and natural scenery, is so full of various 
 information as Miss Kingsley's, or better written. " 
 
 Impressions of South Africa. By the 
 
 Right Hon. JAMES BRYCE, M.P., Author of "The Holy Roman 
 Empire," "Transcaucasia and Ararat," "The American Commonwealth," 
 &c. With Three Maps. Demy 8vo, 14$. net. 
 
 Through Jungle and Desert. Travels 
 
 in Eastern Africa. By WILLIAM ASTOR CHANLER, A.M. Harv., 
 F.R.G.S., Honorary Member of the Imperial and Royal Geographical 
 Society of Vienna. With Illustrations from Photographs taken by the 
 Author, and Maps. Large 8vo, 2is. net. 
 DAILY NEWS. " Valuable and interesting." 
 
 DAILY TELEGRAPH. "Mr. Chanler's valuable addition to the 
 already rich store of African literature contains many sporting stories, all 
 equally good." 
 
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 UCSB LIBRARY, 
 
 MACMILLAN & CO.'S ,; 
 
 RECENT BOOKS OF TRAVEL. 
 
 SECOND EDITION NOW READY. 
 With Illustrations, 8vo, 8,y. 6d. net. 
 
 A Ride through Western Asia. 
 
 CLIVE BIGHAM. Part I. ASIA MINOR. Part II. PERSIA, 
 North to South. Part III. TURKISH ARABIA. Part IV. PERSIA. 
 West to East. Part V. CENTRAL ASIA. 
 
 GUARDIAN. "We have met with few travellers' books which tell so much and so 
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 With the Turkish Army in Thessaly. 
 
 By CLIVE BIGHAM, Author of "A Ride Through Western Asia." 7> 
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 TIMES. " Forms a valuable record of the war as seen from the Turkish point of 
 view. . . . In a final chapter he discusses, with knowledge and lucidity, various questions of 
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 THE DONGOLA EXPEDITION. 
 
 Letters from the Sudan. By the Special 
 
 Correspondent of the Times (E. F. KNIGHT). Reprinted from the 
 Times of April to October, 1 896. With Illustrations and Plans. Demy 
 8vo, Ss. 6d. net. 
 
 SATURDAY REVIEW. " A model hook of its class." 
 
 Sketches of Travel in Normandy and 
 
 MAINE. By EDWARD A. FREEMAN. With Illustrations from 
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 The Great Frozen Land. A Narrative 
 
 of a Winter Journey across the Tundras, and a Sojourn among the 
 Samoyads. By FREDERICK GEORGE JACKSON, F.R.G.S., 
 Leader of the Jackson-Harmsworth Polar Expedition. With Illus- 
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