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 RAID AND REFORM
 
 RAID AND REFORM 
 
 BY A PRETORIA PRISONER 
 
 ALFRED P. HILLIER, BA., M.D., CM. 
 
 AUTHOR OK " IN THE VELDT " UY HAKl.EV 
 
 '■ Let no one who begins an innovation in a State expect that he shall 
 stop it at his pleasure, or regulate it according to his intention." 
 
 Machiavelli. 
 
 WITH TWO ESSAYS ON THE ANTIQUITY OF MAN 
 IN SOUTH AFRICA 
 
 ILontion 
 MACMILLAN AND CO., Limited 
 
 NEW YORK: THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 
 1898 
 
 All rie'liis rcsctTcd
 
 Richard Clay and Sons, Limited, 
 london and bungay.
 
 DT 
 
 TO 
 
 MY MANY SOUTH AFRICAN FRIENDS 
 I DEDICATE 
 
 THIS LITTLE BOOK 
 
 13041S0
 
 INTRODUCTION 
 
 In the history of the Transvaal several raids have 
 occurred. They have for the most part been made 
 by the Boers into the territories of their neighbours, 
 none of whom have entirely escaped these un- 
 welcome visits. To the south they invaded the 
 Free State, to the west Bechuanaland, to the east 
 Zululand, and to the north an expedition intended 
 for the territories of the Chartered Company was 
 only checked on the banks of the Limpopo, where 
 the Boer leader was arrested. These " incursions" 
 on the four points of the compass, of which no Select 
 Committee could hesitate to record "an absolute and 
 unqualified condemnation," although characterised 
 by a certain broad impartiality, were, fortunately 
 perhaps for the general welfare of South Africa, 
 only successful, and that in a small measure in one 
 instance, the invasion of Zululand. 
 
 In 1895 ^t was given to the Boers themselves to 
 sustain and repel an " incursion." 
 
 With the causes of unrest in this young country
 
 viii INTRODUCTION 
 
 which have produced these disturbances, and the 
 history of the more important of them, the following 
 pages deal. 
 
 Of the events culminating in the crisis of 
 1895-96, the crisis itself, and some of the con- 
 sequences attendant thereon, I have written freely 
 and unreservedly. All trials, imprisonments and 
 inquiries being now at an end, there is no further 
 necessity for silence ; and what a participator may 
 feel disposed to say with reference to the motives 
 and actions of himself and others durino- the 
 occurrence of this now historic incident, may thus 
 find due expression, without prejudice to any one. 
 
 Of the Boers themselves I should like to say a 
 friendly word. During a residence, at one time 
 and another, of sixteen years in South Africa, 
 beginning with my boyhood, I have known many 
 of them, and count among their number not a few 
 friends. I have fought side by side with them 
 through a campaign on the Kaffir frontier of the 
 Cape Colony, in which many European lives, 
 including that of my brother, were lost. I have 
 hunted with them, travelled for weeks by waggon 
 with them, and lived amongst them, and I know 
 them to be possessed for the most part by kindly 
 if rugged natures. They have much in common, 
 bolli In lis virtues and defects, with the old 
 Puritan side of the English character, and they
 
 INTRODUCTION ix 
 
 possess much of that grit which is inherent in 
 the British race. There is, I beHeve, no Euro- 
 pean race to-day more nearly allied to the British 
 in strong natural characteristics than the Dutch of 
 South Africa. But the isolation of two hundred 
 years has weaned a section of them from civilisation ; 
 and ignorance, and the prejudices arising from 
 ignorance, have been the chief cause of all our 
 troubles with them. Though, in fairness be it said, 
 for these troubles the vacillation of the Colonial Office 
 in bygone years has also been a good deal to blame. 
 
 Throughout the Reform movement in Johannes- 
 burg, from 1892 onwards, which was in effect for 
 equality of rights among the white men of the 
 country, the feeling was not one of hostility to the 
 Boers ; it was one on behalf of fairplay. And in 
 reform lay the true interests of Boer as well as 
 Uitlander. 
 
 I have briefly commented on the Proceedings of 
 the British South Africa Select Committee, and in 
 doing so I have been guided both by my personal 
 knowledge of "the Origin and Circumstances of 
 the Incursion " and also by my own observation as 
 a spectator during the greater portion of the inquiry 
 in the Committee Room at Westminster. 
 
 The first of the following essays, in the form of a 
 historical review, contains at its conclusion a state- 
 
 b
 
 X . INTRODUCTION 
 
 ment of the position as it appeared to the writer in 
 Johannesburg in December 1895, which was pub- 
 Hshed in The Star at the time just before the crisis. 
 " The Origin and Circumstances of the Incursion " 
 and the period of imprisonment are then dealt with. 
 Of the last two essays on the Antiquity of man in 
 South Africa, there is little need be said in the shape 
 of preface. They are the result of some research 
 and reading in less troubled times than those recently 
 experienced in the Transvaal ; and on the advice of 
 some literary friends I have inserted them for the 
 perusal of such readers as may feel an interest in 
 the dawn of aboriginal native life in the country. 
 They formed the basis of a paper which I read 
 before the British and American Archaeological 
 Society in Rome last February, a prdcis of which 
 appeared in the Journal of the Society's proceedings. 
 
 ALFRED P. HILLIER. 
 
 30, WiMPOi.E Street, London, W. 
 December, 1897.
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 I. The Transvaal and its Story. A Historical 
 
 Review down to 1894 i 
 
 II. The Origin and Circumstances of the Incursion 
 into the South African Republic of an Armed 
 Force, 1895-96 23 
 
 III. The Diary of a Political Prisoner in Pretoria, 
 
 April and May, 1896 82 
 
 IV. Appendix— Letter to the Secretary to the 
 
 British South Africa Select Committee . . 107 
 
 V. The Antiquity of Man in South Africa in 
 
 VI. Prehistoric Man, and the Parallelism in Develop- 
 ment between the Primitive Races of Europe and 
 the Native Races of Africa 142
 
 RAID AND REFORM 
 
 THE TRANSVAAL AND ITS STORY 
 
 A Historical Review^ down to the Year i8g^ 
 
 Young and growing countries have but little time 
 for the production of literature, and South Africa is 
 no exception to this rule. Nevertheless, South 
 Africa has produced a historian of talent, patriotism, 
 and industry in McColl Theal. In five goodly- 
 volumes Mr. Theal has recorded for the benefit of 
 his own and succeeding generations the history of 
 South Africa from its earliest times in the fifteenth 
 century down to the year 1872. It is a history full 
 of incident and interest, clearly and truthfully 
 written, and I can cordially recommend it to South 
 African readers. For the purpose of this Review, 
 however, I propose confining myself to that portion 
 of the work which deals with the history of the 
 emigrant farmers, who, leaving the Cape Colony in 
 1836 and 1837, gradually dispersed themselves over 
 
 B
 
 2 RAID AND REFORM 
 
 the country to the north of the Orange River and in 
 Natal. Previous to this date, in the early thirties, 
 several English missionaries, traders, and hunters 
 had visited these territories, and were familiar with 
 the country as far north as the Limpopo. Among 
 them were the Rev, Dr. Moffat, David Hume from 
 Grahamstown, Captain Sutton, and Captain Corn- 
 wallis Harris, whose wonderfully illustrated work on 
 the fauna of South Africa is so well known to 
 naturalists and hunters. We find, however, that in 
 1837, Commandant Potgieter, at the head of a Boer 
 commando, after a successful encounter with Mose- 
 likatse, issued a proclamation formally annexing a 
 large tract of country including the present South 
 African Republic. 
 
 While the limits of a Review will not allow of 
 a full investigation of the causes which led to the 
 extreme friction between the trek Boers and the 
 British authorities, it is, I think, necessary to refer 
 to one of the most prominent of them, as it was not 
 only one of the original causes of the trek from the 
 Cape Colony, but has been a constant source of 
 irritation both north and south of the Orange River 
 since. This has been an excessive and frequently 
 misdirected zeal on the part of missionaries and 
 others on behalf of the native races. To South 
 African farmers — Dutch and English alike — who 
 are in daily contact with these races, and who have
 
 THE TREK BOERS AND BRITISH AUTHORITIES 3 
 
 only too good reason to know what the real nature 
 of the South African savage is, it has been extremely 
 galling to have to hear from European missionaries 
 and others constant complaints and frequently ex- 
 aggerated charges made against farmers generally 
 to the authorities in Downing Street, who, in former 
 years, showed themselves only too ready to defer to 
 the demands of the Exeter Hall party. That these 
 same farmers, as a body, are nevertheless capable 
 of dealing with the natives in a firm and at the same 
 time considerate manner, is shown by the status of 
 the native in the Free State. Here the first of all 
 essentials in the treatment of natives is observed, 
 and drink is forbidden. Such a thinor as a drunken 
 native is almost unknown in the Free State ; their 
 locations are as a consequence cleanly and comfort- 
 able, and if these things be not Godliness, they are 
 with the savage the first true step towards it. The 
 pious horror of Exeter Hall has not succeeded in 
 stopping the native liquor traffic in British colonies. 
 After the first settlement in the Transvaal fresh 
 families continued to come in, and the districts of 
 Lydenburg, Potchefstroom, and Rustenburg were 
 formed, each with a separate commandant. 
 
 The district and township of Pretoria were founded 
 in 1855. These earlier years of this northern Re- 
 public were stormy times for the emigrant farmers ; 
 their hearts were great, their aspirations high, and 
 
 £ 2
 
 4 RAID AND REFORM 
 
 in endeavouring to spread themselves over huge 
 tracts of country they met with terrible losses from 
 fever and from the numerous Kaffir tribes with 
 which they came into conflict. The tragedy of 
 Dingaan's Day, when Piet Retief and sixty-five 
 followers were treacherously massacred to a man 
 while on an expedition into Natal, will never be 
 forgotten while South Africa has a history. Nor 
 will the fate of that gallant little band of English- 
 men, seventeen in number, who with some fifteen 
 hundred native allies marched on the Zulu army 
 from Durban to avenge the fate of their Dutch 
 friends. Four of the Englishmen survived, the rest 
 lay dead on the field of battle. The Zulu force was 
 7,000 strong, but Theal says : "No lion at bay ever 
 created such havoc among hounds that worried him 
 as this little band caused among the warriors of 
 Dingaan before it perished." 
 
 The boundaries of the Transvaal Republic were 
 at length practically determined by the establish- 
 ment of the British in Natal and in the Orange 
 Sovereignty after the battle of Boomplaats, in which 
 Sir Harry Smith defeated the Boer force. The 
 subsequent withdrawal from the Orange Sovereignty 
 of the British Government against the wishes of 
 a large number of inhabitants brought into existence 
 the Orange Free State. 
 
 In 1844 a code of thirty-three articles was drawn
 
 STEPHANUS JOHANNES PAULUS KRUGER 5 
 
 Up and adopted by the Volksraad at Potchefstroom, 
 and this was practically the Constitution in existence 
 in the Transvaal Republic till the year 1857. At 
 this date an event memorable in the history of the 
 Republic occurred, an event highly interesting from 
 a constitutional point of view, and of special interest 
 to those — not yet citizens of the State — resident in 
 Johannesburg. In 1857 the Republic north of the 
 Vaal attained its twentieth year. It had increased 
 in population, and had taken on to some extent the 
 habits and modes of life of a settled community. 
 Mr. Pretorius and his followers began to feel that 
 in the altered circumstances of the State the time 
 had arrived for a remodelling of the Constitution 
 Among these followers of Pretorius, these advocates 
 for reform, it is interesting to find, was Mr. Ste- 
 phanus Johannes Paulus Kruger, now President of 
 the Transvaal. Mr. Theal says : " During the 
 months of September and October, 1856, Com- 
 mandant-General W. M. Pretorius made a tour 
 through the districts of Rustenburg, Pretoria, and 
 Potchefstroom, and called public meetings at all the 
 centres of population. At these meetings there was 
 an expression of opinion by a large majority in 
 favour of an immediate adoption of a Constitution 
 which should provide for an efficient Government 
 and an independent Church." And again, later on, 
 we have, in the words of South Africa's historian.
 
 6 RAID AND REFORM 
 
 the gist of the complaint against the then existing 
 state of things. " Thecommzcnity of Lydenburg was 
 accused of attempting to domineer over the whole 
 country, ivithout any other right to pre-eminence 
 than that of being composed of the earliest inhabitants, 
 a right which it had forfeited by its opposition to 
 the general weal.'' 
 
 Such was the shocking state of things in this 
 country in 1856. It was a great deal too bad for 
 such champion reformers as Mr. Pretorius and his 
 lieutenant, Mr. S. J. P. Kruger, as we shall see 
 later on. Shortly after these meetings were held, a 
 Representative Assembly, consisting of twenty-four 
 members, one for each field-cornetcy, was elected, 
 for the special purpose of framing a Constitution and 
 installing the officials whom it should decide to 
 appoint. It had no other powers. The represen- 
 tatives met at Potchefstroom on the i6th December, 
 1856, and drafted a Constitution. I will not go 
 into the details of this Constitution, but will 
 merely remark with regard to it that all the people 
 of the State of European origin — and not a mere 
 section of them — were to elect the Volksraad, in 
 which was vested the legislative power. 
 
 On January 5th, 1857, the Representative 
 Assembly appointed Mr. Marthinus Wcssels Pre- 
 torius President, and also appointed members of an 
 Executive Council. In order to conciliate the
 
 THE REBELS ^ 
 
 people of Zoutpansberg, the Commandant of their 
 district, Mr. Stephanus Schoeman, was appointed 
 Commandant-General. They chose a flag — red, 
 white, blue and green. The oaths of office 
 were then taken, the President and executive 
 installed, and the flag hoisted. 
 
 When intelligence of these proceedings reached 
 Zoutpansberg and Lydenburg there was a violent 
 outburst of indignation. At a public meeting at 
 Zoutpansberg, the acts and resolutions of the Repre- 
 sentative Assembly at Potchefstroom were almost 
 unanimously repudiated. Mr. Schoeman declined 
 to accept office under Mr. Pretorius, and a Mani- 
 festo disowning the new Constitution and everything 
 connected with it was drawn up. The Government 
 then issued a proclamation deposing Commandant- 
 General Schoeman from all authority, declaring 
 Zoutpansberg in a state of blockade, and prohibiting 
 traders from supplying " the rebels " with ammuni- 
 tion or anything else. 
 
 This conduct on the part of the new Government 
 under Mr. Pretorius appears to me distinctly adroit. 
 Having taken upon themselves to remodel the 
 entire Constitution of the country, they turn round on 
 the adherents of the older Government, whom by 
 the bye, they had not thought it worth while to 
 consult, and promptly call them "rebels." And so 
 you have this striking political phenomenon of a
 
 8 RAID AND REFORM 
 
 revolutionary party turning on the adherents of the 
 Government of the State and denouncing them, 
 forsooth, as "rebels." 
 
 What matter for the student of Democracy does 
 not this incident afford ? Here you have the demo- 
 cratic spirit carried to its extreme point, to its logical 
 conclusion. What did these hardy Republicans 
 think ? What did they say among themselves ? 
 They said, " We, the people of the country, are the 
 sovereign power of the country ; what the majority 
 of us determine on is what we have a right to 
 demand, is what we will have." By the people and 
 for the people was the instinct which dominated 
 them and guided all their movements. The old 
 Government no longer represented the majority of 
 the people, it must give way to the one that did. 
 There was but one appeal ; it was to the sovereign 
 power — the people themselves. They declared for 
 a new order of things, a new Government, and all 
 who resisted it became in their eyes rebels, even 
 though, as we have seen, they were loyal to the 
 original Government of the country. Loyalty ! there 
 was but one loyalty they knew, — loyalty to the 
 common weal, loyalty to the people of the country. 
 " The Volksraad under the old system of Govern- 
 ment was to have met at Lydenburg on December 
 17th, 1856. At the appointed time, however, no 
 members for the other districts appeared. What
 
 INCURSION INTO THE FREE STATE 9 
 
 was transpiring at Pochefstroom was well known, 
 and a resolution was therefore adopted declaring 
 the district a Sovereign and Independent State 
 under the name of the ' Republic of Lydenburg.' " 
 And thus two Republics, two Volksraads, two 
 Governments, were formed and existed simul- 
 taneously in the Transvaal. And all this without a 
 shot being fired, each party finding sufficient relief 
 to their feelings by calling the other party " rebels." 
 In order to strengthen their position the party of 
 Pretorius now determined on a bold stroke. They 
 sent emissaries to endeavour to arrange for union 
 with the Free State. The Free State Government 
 rejected their overtures ; but Pretorius was led to 
 believe that so many of the Free State burghers 
 were anxious for this union that all that was 
 necessary for him to do in order to effect it was to 
 march in with an armed force. He therefore placed 
 himself at the head of a commando and crossed the 
 Vaal, where he was joined by a certain number of 
 Free State burghers. " When intelligence of this 
 invasion reached Bloemfontein, President Boshof 
 issued a proclamation declaring martial law in force 
 throughout the Free State, and calling out the 
 burghers for the defence of the country. It soon 
 appeared that the majority of the people were ready 
 to support the President, and from all quarters men 
 repaired to Kroonstad."
 
 lo RAID AND REFORM 
 
 At this Stage the Free State President received 
 an offer of assistance from General Schoeman, 
 of Zoutpansberg, against Pretorius, in which 
 object he beHeved Lydenburg would also join. 
 What the precise political status of Zoutpansberg 
 may have been at this crisis I regret to say I have 
 been unable to discover ; but the fact of the matter 
 is, in the old days of the Transvaal they thought 
 nothing of an extra Government or two in the 
 country. As long as each individual white man was 
 represented somewhere and somehow he was ap- 
 proximately happy. The one thing he did abso- 
 lutely decline was being left out altogether, which 
 appears to be the position, by the bye to take a 
 modern example of the little community of some 
 hundred thousand Europeans living on the Rand 
 to-day. The old burgher felt his individuality and 
 respected it ; and while powder, shot, and shouting 
 were available to him, he asserted it. " On May 25th 
 the two commandos were drawn up facing each other 
 on opposite banks of the Rhenoster river, and 
 remained in that position for three hours." 
 
 Threatened from the north as well as from the 
 south, Pretorius felt his chance of success was 
 small, and he therefore sent out Commandant Paul 
 Kruger with a flag of truce to propose that a pacific 
 settlement should be made. I can quite believe 
 that in this graceful act Mr. Paul Kruger appeared
 
 HIGH TREASON ii 
 
 to great advantage. The treaty arrived at was 
 practically an apology on the part of the South 
 African Republic. Many citizens of the Free State 
 who had joined the northern forces moved over the 
 Vaal after this event. Those who remained, and 
 those who had been previously arrested, were 
 brouofht to trial for hio^h treason. One man was 
 sentenced to death, but the sentence was mitigated 
 subsequently to a fine, others were fined. These 
 fines were again still further mitigated at the soli- 
 citation of Messrs. Paul Kruger and Steyn, until 
 it came to little more than ten pounds each. In 
 fact, I find there was a good deal of mitigation all 
 round at the conclusion of the various political 
 junketings which characterised the early history of 
 these Republics. Shortly after this event Zout- 
 pansberg was incorporated with the Republic, and 
 General Schoeman was appointed Commandant- 
 General of the country. The Republic of Lyden- 
 burg followed suit in i860, after considerable nego- 
 tiations on both sides. Pretoria was then chosen as 
 the seat of Government. 
 
 One might naturally suppose that after such a 
 series of political disturbances as has already been re- 
 corded, the new Government would now have a peace- 
 ful and assured future. It was united, and founded 
 on the will of the majority of the people. But the 
 spirit of unrest was upon them. One of the principal
 
 12 RAID AND REFORM 
 
 causes of disturbance among the Boers was un- 
 doubtedly differences of opinion on ecclesiastical 
 matters. At this time, 1858, there came to the 
 country a clergyman named Portma, sent out by the 
 Separatist Church from Holland. The minister 
 settled at Rustenburg, and there founded the first 
 branch of what has since become a famous sect 
 among the Dutch, both in the Free State and Cape 
 Colony as well as the South African Republic, and 
 which is known in South Africa as the Dopper sect. 
 Their principal point of difference from the Reformed 
 Church, was an objection to singing of hymns as part 
 of the Church service. To this sect Mr. Kruger and 
 his immediate followers belong. 
 
 In i860, President Pretorius, then President of 
 the Transvaal, was elected President of the Free 
 State, whither, after obtaining six months' leave of 
 absence, he repaired, in the hope of bringing about 
 union between the two Republics. No sooner had 
 he departed than the old Lydenburg party showed 
 signs of disaffection, protesting that union would 
 confer much greater advantao^e on the Free State 
 than on them. Mr. Cornelius Potcfieter, Landdrost 
 of Lydenburg, then appeared in the Volksraad as 
 the leader of the disaffected party. They contended 
 that it was illegal for any one to be President of 
 the South African Republic and the Orange Free 
 State at the same time, and the upshot was that
 
 TWO GOVERNMENTS IN THE S. A. REPUBLIC 13 
 
 Pretorius resigned. Mr. J. H. Grobbelaar, Acting 
 President, was requested by the Volksraad to remain 
 in office. The partisans of Mr. Pretorius hereupon 
 resolved to resist. A mass meeting was held at 
 Potchefstroom, and they resolved unanimously that 
 (a) The Volksraad no longer enjoyed its confidence, 
 and must be held as having ceased to exist, (d) 
 That Mr. Pretorius should remain President of the 
 South African Republic, and have a year's leave of 
 absence to bring about union with the Free State. 
 (c) That Mr. S. Schoeman should act as President 
 during the absence of Mr. Pretorius, and Mr. Grob- 
 belaar be dismissed, (d) That before the return of 
 Mr. Pretorius to resume his duties a new Volksraad 
 should be elected. 
 
 The complications that ensued on all this were 
 interminable, too complicated for us to follow in 
 detail, but suffice it to say some of the new party 
 were arraigned for treason and fined ^100 each — 
 another man ^15 — that after this for several months 
 there were once more two Acting Presidents and 
 two rival Governments in the South African Re- 
 public. Then Commandant Paul Kruger called out 
 the burghers of his district and determined to 
 establish a better order of thingrs. 
 
 Having driven Schoeman and his adherents 
 from Pretoria, Commandant Kruger then invested 
 Potchefstroom, which after a skirmish in which three
 
 14 RAID AND REFORM 
 
 men were killed and seven wounded in all, fell into 
 his hands. He then pursued Schoeman, who fairly- 
 doubled on his opponent, and re-entered Potchef- 
 stroom. Commandant Kruger hastily returned, and 
 at this stage President Pretorius interposed. After 
 this followed elections and re-elections until 
 Commandant Jan Viljoen raised the now familiar 
 standard of revolt. He was engaged by Kruger's 
 force, and after a skirmish, in which Viljoen's forces 
 were defeated, Mr. Pretorius again intervened. A 
 conference lasting six days now finally settled 
 matters. Mr. Pretorius took the oaths of office. 
 The Volksraad met in May, 1864. "With this 
 ceremony the civil strife which had so long agitated 
 the Republic ceased. When, a little later on, it was 
 decided that all sentences of banishment, confiscation 
 of property and fines which had been passed for 
 political offences should be annulled, and that what- 
 ever had been seized should be restored to its 
 original owner, there was a general feeling of satis- 
 faction." These prolonged civic hostilities were over, 
 but they left their mark behind them. The Treasury- 
 was empty, salaries in arrear, and native taxes 
 uncollected. Moreover, the natural enemy of the 
 South African pioneer, whether Dutch or English, 
 the various Kaffir tribes both within and without the 
 Transvaal border, were menacing the Boers. On 
 the Zulu border for a considerable distance from
 
 BRITISH ANNEXATION OF THE TRANSVAAL 15 
 
 the frontier the farmers went into laager. Cetewayo 
 was busy reviewing his troops, and in the Wakker- 
 stroon district a commando was assembled ready to 
 repel an invasion. In the early sixties both the 
 Free State and the South African Republic found 
 themselves involved in native wars. Basuto chief 
 Moshesh was the foe whom the Free State had to 
 contend with. Zoutpansberg was the -scene of the 
 Transvaal disturbances. In both instances the 
 Kaffirs belong to what Theal describes as the 
 mountain tribes of the Bantu family. 
 
 I have referred to the early history of this 
 Republic in some detail because I think it is new to 
 most of us, and because it is full of incident and 
 interest for all of us. What follows is better known 
 to the world. In 1877 the Transvaal was annexed 
 by the British Government, and was administered 
 first by Sir Theophilus Shepstone, and secondly by 
 Sir Owen Lanyon. Some of the principal reasons 
 alleged for this annexation were : — " The increasing 
 weakness of the State as regards its relations with 
 neiofhbourino- native tribes, which invited attack 
 on the country and upon the adjoining British 
 possessions." " The state of anarchy and faction 
 that prevailed in the country." "The danger of 
 invasion by Sekukuni and Cetewayo." "The 
 paucity of public funds with which to cope with this 
 state of things." Of this period of the history of
 
 i6 RAID AND REFORM 
 
 the country a good deal has been written in a book 
 called The History of the Transvaal by John Nixon. 
 The annexation at the outset appears to have been 
 received with mixed feelings. Some strongly ap- 
 proved, some sullenly acquiesced, while the Volks- 
 raad sent a deputation to protest in England. 
 Grumbling soon began among the Boers, and 
 meetings were held. 
 
 In 1879 Sir Theophilus Shepstone, a South 
 African by birth, and one thoroughly in touch with 
 the Boers, was superseded by Sir Owen Lanyon. 
 Sir Theophilus was always ready to drink a cup 
 of coffee and talk matters over with any disaffected 
 Boer visitor. Sir Owen Lanyon was a stiff-necked 
 British soldier, full of fads and prejudices, and soon 
 felt that he was completely out of touch with the 
 Boer population. Had some constitutional assembly 
 been formed during Shepstone's rdgime, wherein 
 the Boers had full representation and control of 
 their own internal affairs, and Sir Theophilus been 
 retained in office, there are writers who think it 
 probable that peace would have been maintained. 
 But be that as it may, events took a different 
 course. In the meantime, it is worthy of notice 
 that the two great native enemies of the Transvaal, 
 Sekukuni within their borders, and Cetewayo in 
 Zululand, were both attacked and defeated, the 
 former by a force under Sir Garnet Wolseley, the
 
 MR. GLADSTONE AND MAJUBA 17 
 
 latter after considerable losses by Lord Chelmsford 
 and Sir Evelyn Wood. 
 
 In the Zululand campaign Piet Uys and a small 
 body of Boers from the Republic did good service, 
 Piet Uys, a brave leader, losing his life, but the 
 large body of Boers held aloof. In 1880 affairs in 
 the Transvaal again reached a crisis. According 
 to Nixon, " the levying of taxes on the Boers by 
 an administration in which they were totally un- 
 represented " was the principal cause. Add to this the 
 attitude of Mr. Gladstone, who, while in opposition, 
 had condemned in unmeasured terms the annexation 
 of the Transvaal, and who had just now come into 
 power, and the case for the Transvaal is an in- 
 telligible one. What followed early in 1881 is too 
 well known to need repetition. The British forces 
 under Sir George Colley were hurried up to the 
 Natal frontier, and, without waiting for reinforce- 
 ments, engaged the Boers and were defeated. After 
 this the policy of retrocession was decided on by 
 the Gladstone Cabinet, and the independence of 
 the Republic recognised. Great Britain, in both the 
 Pretoria and London Conventions, retaining the 
 right to supervise treaties with foreign powers. 
 
 We have now to deal with another and important 
 phase of this State's progress and material develop- 
 ment. For some years previous to the date at 
 which we have now arrived in our historical review, 
 
 c
 
 i8 RAID AND REFORM 
 
 gold had been discovered in the Lydenberg district, 
 and this was followed by still further discoveries in 
 1883, which led to the formation of Moodie's Com- 
 pany and the foundation of Barberton. As the 
 mineral resources of the country became known, 
 new comers poured in, and with their capital and 
 enterprise opened up the mines of that district. 
 Prospecting went on all over the country, and in 
 1886 gold was discovered in the Witwatersrand 
 district. What that discovery meant for the South 
 African Republic we now know. From being a 
 thinly-populated grazing country, with very little 
 in the way of funds in its State coffers, it has 
 become the wealthiest and most prominent State in 
 South Africa. Its population has been increased 
 four or five fold, and every farmer has been enriched 
 by getting a market in the country for his pro- 
 duce. Farms have risen in value throughout the 
 land ; and there is not a burgher to-day who in 
 his heart does not thank heaven for the prosperity 
 which the capital, the energy, and the enterprise of 
 the mining community in the country have brought 
 him. 
 
 And yet, what is the political status of the mining 
 men in tlic country? — the men who j)r()vide four- 
 fifths of the revenue, and who have j)oured wealth 
 alike into the coffers of the (jovennnenl and the 
 pockets of the farmers. Their position is that ihey
 
 POLITICAL MONOPOLY 19 
 
 are allowed to have neither part nor lot in the 
 government of the country. In thus enriching the 
 country it is true this community has materially 
 enriched itself; but wealth is not everything, and 
 it is as demoralising for the Boers as it is for the 
 mining population that all political rights should be 
 withheld from the latter. Men amonofst us are 
 reproached for merely getting all the money they 
 can together and then leaving the country. In the 
 first place this is true of only a small minority, and 
 who can blame them for leaving? Entirely shut 
 out from public life, what has the country to offer 
 them to induce them to remain ? In any large com- 
 munity there are always a few men in whom the 
 instincts of public service are so strong as to inevit- 
 ably lead them to become public servants of that 
 community, — men who feel themselves capable and 
 anxious to serve the public, and who for the most 
 part, let the motive be what it will, serve them 
 faithfully and well. Year by year such men as these 
 are driven from this country by the existing state of 
 things. 
 
 There is a question which arises in one's mind 
 after this brief review of the history of the country 
 which I think one may fairly address to the Govern- 
 ment and burghers of this State : Are they to-day 
 meting out to us the political justice which they have 
 ever insisted upon from the State for .themselves ? 
 
 c 2
 
 20 RAID AND REFORM 
 
 What induced them or their fathers to frame a new- 
 Constitution at Potchefstroom in 1857 ? The 
 feehng that the majority of the white inhabitants 
 were not properly represented in the Government 
 of the country ; the feeling that the community of 
 Lydenburg were attempting to domineer over the 
 whole country without other right to pre-eminence 
 than that of being the oldest inhabitant, a right 
 which it had forfeited by its opposition to the 
 general weal. What was one of the principal 
 causes which led them to throw off the British 
 yoke in 1881 ? The objection to being taxed by an 
 Administration in which they were unrepresented. 
 Are we not labouring under all these disabilities 
 to-day ? The one retort to this is that we are 
 Uitlanders. That is to say, that in a country not 
 yet sixty years old, in which the population has been 
 formed almost entirely by immigration, in which the 
 President himself is an immigrant, the mining com- 
 munity, who have been coming in for at least fifteen 
 years past, and have done more in developing the 
 material resources of the country in that time than 
 was ever conceived in the wildest dreams of the 
 earlier inhabitants, are foreigners. What proportion 
 of tlic burghers of this State were actually born in 
 the country ? — this State, which owes its prosperity 
 and its progress alike to the continuous stream of 
 immigration. The President at least was not born
 
 THE PRETORIA OLIGARCHY 21 
 
 here. The fact is that what was originally a 
 Republic, and what we hope to see once more a 
 Republic in deed as well as in name, has, by con- 
 tinually tinkering with the franchise law, become 
 an oligarchy. 
 
 I have had some little difficulty in obtaining the 
 information with regard to the various alterations in 
 the franchise law, but I am indebted to Mr. Charles 
 Leonard for the following. I gather that originally 
 every white man had a vote. Subsequently every 
 white man not born in South Africa had to pay 
 ^15 to get the vote. Later, in 1874, strangers who 
 had no land in the country had to live here one year 
 to get the vote. The acquisition of land qualified 
 them at once. Next, in 1882 burghership could 
 only be obtained after living in the country and 
 being registered on the field-cornets' books for 
 five years and paying £2^. In 1887 the law fixed 
 fifteen years and the payment of £2^. 
 
 In 1890 the Second Volksraad was established. 
 The inestimable boon of a vote for this body, whose 
 decisions are liable to revision by the First Raad, is 
 obtainable after being resident two years, taking the 
 oath and paying £^. At the same time the law was 
 altered to permit admission to the right to vote for 
 the First Raad after ten years, and to become a 
 member after fourteen years. In 1893, without 
 reference to the people, the law was altered so that
 
 22 RAID AND REFORM 
 
 we are virtually excluded for ever. The law was 
 confirmed in 1S94, and there was added a clause by 
 which children born here cannot get the vote unless 
 their fathers have taken the oath, an oath which, 
 remember, deprives a man of the citizenship of the 
 country he came from, and offers him something" less 
 than half citizenship of this in return. 
 
 The tendency of this legislation is perfectly clear ; 
 it is from makinof the franchise difficult to makinor it 
 impossible for the inhabitants of the Rand. We 
 are growing old as the years go by, and if the Raad 
 wishes to be logical and consistent it will assuredly 
 next Session pass a Bill excluding the grandchildren 
 of Uitlanders. We have sketched the growth of this 
 State from its earliest days to the present time. 
 
 A^ofe. — The above paper was published in Johannesburg in the 
 Sfar in December, 1895, and contains at the conclusion a statement 
 of the position as it then appeared.
 
 MACHIAVELLI 23 
 
 *'THE ORIGIN AND CIRCUMSTANCES 
 OF THE INCURSION INTO THE 
 SOUTH AFRICAN REPUBLIC OF AN 
 ARMED FORCE" 
 
 " Let no one," says Machiavelli, " who begins an 
 innovation in a State, expect that he shall stop it 
 at his pleasure or regulate it according to his 
 intention." 
 
 And Machiavelli, who lived in the early days of 
 the small Republics of mediaeval Italy, and who had 
 witnessed their intrigues, their corruption, and their 
 decay, knew whereof he was writing. 
 
 There seems to be a Nemesis, some mad but 
 watchful Fury, that waits on political reform, that 
 sees with jealousy its every movement, and tarries 
 not in her pursuit. 
 
 To Englishmen of this generation, reared in the 
 free air of Anglo-Saxon liberty, she exists but as a 
 shadow — to Machiavelli, the child of political corrup- 
 tion, tyranny, and intrigue, she seemed as some dark 
 spirit of destiny brooding for ever over the freedom
 
 24 RAID AND REFORM 
 
 of mankind. Have students of evolution, the phi- 
 losophy of history, all the science of the ages, dis- 
 covered any inexorable law of nature ? or must we 
 regard it as the irony of fate, whereby all small 
 Republics, as far as history knows them, beginning 
 with those of Greece and includinor those of 
 mediaeval Italy and of South America, inevitably 
 end either in perpetual faction strife, in oligarchy, or 
 in tyranny ? That which was founded on the in- 
 stincts of justice and freedom seems to engender 
 licence, and the greed and ambition of the few- 
 govern the destinies of the many. In South Africa 
 the Transvaal during the few decades of its exist- 
 ence has been no exception to the rule. 
 
 Despising Anglo-Saxon civilisation, yet with no 
 civilisation of their own to fall back upon, the Boers 
 have hovered between savagery and the civilisation 
 they have in vain endeavoured to forsake. 
 
 Having a language, a patois with "neither a 
 syntax nor a literature," the sons of the wealthy are 
 sent to English schools and universities, and English 
 books almost entirely fill the shelves of every library 
 in the country, thus showing that in their hearts 
 they appreciate the civilisation they affect to 
 despise. 
 
 Ten years ago the inllux of new comers began to 
 settle on the Rand. And as this inllux increased 
 and advanced with ever-gaining strides, the Boers
 
 ANGLO-SAXON CIVILISATION 25 
 
 realised that the world and civilisation were once 
 more upon them. In spite of all the opposition that 
 patriarchal prejudice could muster, railways usurped 
 the place of the slow moving ox-waggon, and in 
 the heart of their solitude a city had arisen ; while 
 to the north and to the east between them and the 
 sea were drawn the thin red lines of British boun- 
 dary. The tide of Anglo-Saxon civilisation — that 
 strong ever-flowing current, on whose bosom all 
 barks are borne as freely as on the open sea — had 
 swept around and beyond them to the banks of the 
 Zambesi and to territories even further north in the 
 interior of a continent of whose existence they were 
 but dimly conscious. A primitive pastoral people, 
 they found themselves isolated, surrounded — " shut 
 in a kraal for ever," as Kruger is reported to have 
 said, — while the stranger was growing in wealth and 
 numbers within their gates. Expansion of territory, 
 once the dream of the Transvaal Boers, as their in- 
 cursions into Bechuanaland, into Zululand, and the 
 attempted trek into Rhodesia, all testify, was be- 
 coming daily less practicable. One thing remained, 
 — to accept their isolation and strengthen it. 
 
 Wealth, population, a position among the new 
 States of the world had been brought to them, 
 almost in spite of themselves, by the new comer, 
 the stranger, the Uitlander. What was to be the 
 attitude towards him politically ? Materially he had
 
 26 RAID AND REFORM 
 
 made the State — he developed its resources, paid 
 nine-tenths of its revenue. W ould he be a strength 
 or a weakness as a citizen — as a member of the body 
 poHtic ? 
 
 Let us consider this new element in a new State 
 — how was it constituted, what were its component 
 parts ? Was it the right material for a new State to 
 assimilate ? Cosmopolitan to a degree — recruited 
 from all the corners of the earth — there was in it a 
 strong South African element, consisting of young 
 colonists from the Cape Colony and Natal — members 
 of families well known in South Africa — and many 
 of them old schoolfellows or in some other way 
 known to each other. Then the British contingent, 
 self-reliant, full of enterprise and energy — 
 Americans, for the most part skilled engineers, 
 miners and mechanics — French, Germans, and 
 Hollanders. A band of emigrants, of adventurers, 
 and constituted, as I think all emigrants are, of two 
 great classes — the one who, lacking neither ability 
 nor courage, are filled with an ambition, character- 
 istic particularly of the British race, to raise their 
 status in the world, who find the conditions of their 
 native environment too arduous, the competition too 
 keen, to offer them much prospect, and who seek a 
 new and more rapidly developing country elsewhere ; 
 and another, a smaller class, who sometimes 
 through misfortune, sometimes through their own
 
 THE UITLANDERS 27 
 
 fault, or perhaps through both, have failed else- 
 where. Adventurers all, one must admit ; but it is 
 the adventurers of the world who have founded 
 States and Kingdoms. Such a class as this has 
 been assimilated by the United States and absorbed 
 into their huge fabric, of which to-day they form a 
 large and substantial portion. What should the 
 Transvaal Boers have done with this new element 
 so full of enterprise and vigour ? This had been for 
 the last ten years the great question for them to 
 solve. Have they desired merely a political mono- 
 poly for a passing generation of men from the very 
 nature of their lives and training but poorly qualified 
 for the sole control and conduct of the affairs of a 
 rapidly developing country — or have they desired to 
 lay the foundation of a permanent State, a true 
 Republic, that might be sustained and upheld by 
 those very principles of democracy which inspired 
 and guided the Boer voortrekkers in the State's 
 foundation? Hitherto they had steadily and with 
 ever-increasing determination sought only political 
 monopoly. Enfranchisement, participation in the 
 political life of the State by the Uitlander, — this 
 means, they said, a transference of all political power 
 from our hands to those of men whom we do not 
 trust. " I have taken a man into my coach," said 
 President Kruger, "and as a passenger he is wel- 
 come ; but now he says, Give me the reins ; and that
 
 28 RAID AND REFORM 
 
 I cannot do, for I know not where he will drive me. 
 To the Boer it is all or nothing ; he knows no mean, 
 no compromise. Yet in that very mean lies the vital 
 spirit of republicanism. What is the position of the 
 Boers in the Cape Colony ? Are they without their 
 share, their influence, their Africander bond in the 
 political affairs of the country ? And so it is through- 
 out the world to-day, — in the United States, in 
 England, in France, in the British Colonies, 
 wherever the individual thrives and the State is 
 prosperous — the compromise of divided political 
 power among all classes, all factions, is the great 
 guarantee of their well being. To this end all 
 political evolution moves ; and whether it finds 
 expression in a Republic or in an ancient Monarchy, 
 "broad based upon the people's will" — will move 
 while civilisation continues. 
 
 So trite are these reflections that one almost 
 hesitates to record them ; and yet so many are the 
 admirers of the so-called sagacity of the Boer — so 
 many who take the "all or nothing view" — that a 
 restatement of them can do no harm. 
 
 That the enfranchisement of the Uitlander would 
 mean a complete transference of political power into 
 his hands involves two assumptions : the first is 
 that the Uitlanders would form a united body in 
 politics ; the second is that their representatives 
 would dominate the Volksraad. The most superficial
 
 BOER UNREASON 29 
 
 acquaintance with the action of the inhabitants of 
 the Witwatersrand district on any public matter 
 will serve to refute the first of these, while it is a 
 well-recosTnised fact that there are amonofst the 
 Uitlanders — among the South Africans especially — 
 a large number of men whose sympathies with the 
 Boers on many matters would run directly counter 
 to what one might describe as those of the ultra- 
 English section. 
 
 The second of these assumptions — though it is 
 continually put forward — almost answers itself. 
 The number of representatives from the Uitlander 
 districts under any scheme of redistribution of seats 
 which the Boer could reasonably be expected to 
 make would fall considerably short of those returned 
 from the Boer constituencies. 
 
 Such was the attitude of the Boers on this vital 
 question which led to the Reform Movement of 
 1895 ; and I have stated what I believe to be the 
 injustice of it as regards the Uitlanders and the 
 unwisdom of it in the true interests of the Boers. 
 
 I shall now deal with the Reform Movement itself, 
 endeavouring to trace its real origin and object. 
 The movement ended in a drama which attracted 
 the attention of the world for more than a year, and 
 to the proper understanding of which the House of 
 Commons appointed a Select Committee of Enquiry. 
 Before the Committee facts have been laid bare.
 
 30 RAID AND REFORM 
 
 misrepresentations and misconception, and in some 
 instances the injustice resulting from them, removed. 
 And the evidence recorded, together with the 
 reports thereon, fill 600 pages of a Parliamentary 
 Blue Book. 
 
 The Committee appointed was constituted as 
 follows : — The Attorney-General (Sir Richard 
 Webster), Mr. Bigham, Mr. Blake, Mr. Sydney 
 Buxton, Sir Henry Campbell Bannerman, the 
 Colonial Secretary(Mr. Chamberlain), the Chancellor 
 of the Exchequer (Sir Michael Hicks Beach), Mr. 
 Cripps, Sir William Hart Dyke, Mr. John Ellis, 
 Sir William Harcourt, Mr. Jackson, Mr. Labouchere, 
 Mr. Wharton, and Mr. George Wyndham ; and 
 they formed a strong an able and a representative 
 Committee of the House of Commons. 
 
 It was to the circumstances, rather than to the 
 origin of the incursion, that the Committee devoted 
 its most assiduous attention ; and with reference to 
 them and the degrees of responsibility for different 
 actions attaching to different persons, its findings, the 
 result of exhaustive examination of witnesses, are 
 clearly and impartially stated in their Report. 
 
 The task was no ordinary one, and of the many 
 issues involved there were some on whicli the 
 Committee concentrated their attention. The 
 reputation of the Colonial Office had been impugned ; 
 ihc rcsp()nsil)ility of Mr. Rhodes had to be deter-
 
 CABLES V. BOREDOM 31 
 
 mined ; were the Chartered Company Directors 
 impHcated, and if so to what extent ? A conspiracy 
 was to be unmasked, a mystery to be unravelled, 
 and to the questions which might involve this person 
 or that, punctilious points of immaculacy in a Duke 
 or a Colonial Office official, the Committee 
 addressed itself with zeal, and with some suspicion 
 of the relish which ladies bestow on a new-fledsfed 
 scandal. Moreover they had amongst them a 
 notorious gossip — Mr. Henry Labouchere. 
 
 They confessed Charles Leonard rather bored 
 them ; but the missing cables — Miss Flora Shaw, — 
 here is matter indeed, my masters ! 
 
 They resolved at the outset to divide their labours 
 into two parts, and the first was, in the terms of the 
 Order from the House of Commons, to "inquire 
 into the origin and circumstances of the incursion 
 into the South African Republic of an armed 
 force." Within the "origin" of that incursion, 
 came the history of the Reform Movement in 
 the Transvaal ; and it must ever remain a matter 
 of some reproach to the Committee that while they 
 accorded to Mr. Schreiner, who probably has not 
 spent more than a month in his life within the 
 Transvaal, no less than nearly four sittings wherein 
 to record his political views and demonstrate his 
 ignorance of the true Uitlander position, they con- 
 fined Mr. Charles Leonard, and that imder distinct
 
 32 RAID AND REFORM 
 
 pressure from the Chairman, to less than a single 
 sitting. He is a South African by birth, and has, no 
 less than Mr. Schreiner, both talent and patriotism. 
 To the question of reform in the Transvaal during a 
 residence of several years he has given unremitting 
 attention and conspicuous ability, and he was the 
 man of all others qualified to record in accurate detail 
 the history of the movement which was the principal 
 factor in the "origin of the incursion," and which 
 it was the function of the Committee clearly to 
 ascertain. 
 
 That the Committee did not deal as systematic- 
 ally with the " origin of the incursion " as was 
 desirable in the true interests of the inquiry was, 
 however, the fault of the Opposition rather than of 
 the Government members. The Government itself 
 being indirectly implicated through the charges made 
 against the Colonial Office, the Government mem- 
 bers, in their desire for the fullest inquiry, placed 
 no check on the cross-examinations of witnesses by 
 the Opposition members, and these form the bulk 
 of the evidence taken. 
 
 The Opposition members did not exhibit the 
 same impartial spirit when witnesses were being 
 examined on the history of the Reform Movement 
 in Johannesburg — and of this, their interruptions 
 during Mr. Leonard's evidence, which called forth a 
 remonstrance from Mr. Chamberlain, was a striking
 
 THE SELECT COMMITTEE 33 
 
 instance. Mr. Labouchere's presence on the Com- 
 mittee, which at least in character should have been 
 a judicial one, was an anomaly at the outset ; and 
 his retention thereon after his retractation of, and 
 apology for, charges made under cover of privilege 
 in the House of Commons, seemed to the lay mind 
 unacquainted with the ways of Parliament and its 
 Committees, almost a scandal. The members of the 
 Committee who showed most regard for the terms 
 of the Order from the House of Commons were 
 Mr. Chamberlain, Mr. Wyndham and Mr. Bigham. 
 
 But while one cannot help regretting that the 
 proportion of time allotted to Mr. Leonard in which 
 to give his evidence was not greater, one must 
 admit on perusing the official record of it that he 
 made the most of his opportunity. With quiet 
 persistence he told his story, adroitly evading the 
 irrelevant questions of the Opposition, and bringing 
 out with clearness and emphasis the main points of 
 the position which had culminated in the disaster of 
 December, 1895. 
 
 From the earliest settlement on the Rand down 
 to 1892 the Uitlander had continued to hope that 
 something like political equality on a fair basis 
 would be obtained. In 1892 the National Union 
 was formed, and at its meetings enthusiastic crowds 
 attended, while speakers from among the Pretoria 
 Dutch residents, notably Mr. Esselen, an ex-Judge 
 of the High Court, and Mr. Wessels, a well-known 
 
 D
 
 34 RAID AND REFORM 
 
 Pretoria advocate, were among those who addressed 
 the meeting, expressing their sympathy for the 
 desire of the Uitlander to attain to citizen rank. 
 
 From 1892 to 1895 ^^^ history of the Reform 
 Movement in Johannesburg was practically the 
 work done by the National Union and its adherents 
 — unaided, and even be it said discouraged, by the 
 capitalists, who held aloof Petitions to the Govern- 
 ment were sent in year after year. Resolutions 
 calling for some amelioration in the conditions of the 
 franchise law, the dynamite trade, education, and 
 the courts of justice were passed both at the 
 National Union meetings and by other public bodies 
 — but all without avail. And not merely without 
 avail — matters did not even stand still : they went 
 steadily back. What had been possible when men 
 entered the country was made impossible to them a 
 few years later. And it was this retrogressive legis- 
 lation, this actual setti^ig back of the hatids of the 
 clock, that convinced men of the hopelessness of the 
 position, that exasperated them even to conspiracy. 
 
 Facts showing this retrogressive movement have 
 been set forth in Mr, Charles Leonard's printed 
 statement, and in some sense made public ; but op- 
 portunity was not given to put them clearly in 
 evidence before the Committee of Inquiry, and thus 
 points of the most vital importance to the subject 
 of the inquiry have been left out of that evidence, 
 and the actual retrogression in Boer Legislation
 
 THE FRANCHISE 35 
 
 is not even referred to in the Committee's Report. 
 As the Franchise Law stood in 1882, to quote 
 from Mr. Leonard's printed statement, "it was 
 enacted that in order to become naturalised and 
 acquire full citizenship the new comer should have 
 resided in the country for a period of five years, 
 and should have been registered on the field-cornets' 
 list for that period, and should pay a sum of twenty- 
 five pounds." A provision, restrictive undoubtedly, 
 but not wholly unreasonable. But mark what 
 follows. 
 
 "In 1890 a new departure was made. A law 
 was passed in that year providing for the creation of 
 a Second Chamber, called the Second Volksraad, to 
 the powers and constitution of which further refer- 
 ence will be made hereafter. It was enacted that 
 aliens could acquire the right to vote for members 
 of the Second Chamber after having been registered 
 upon the field-cornets' list and having resided in the 
 country for a period of two years. They had to 
 renounce their allegiance to their own country, and 
 to take the oath of allegiance to the Transvaal, and 
 to pay the sum of five pounds for the privilege. 
 After having been eligible to vote for the Second 
 Chamber for a period of two years, the new-fledged 
 voter, or naturalised person, as he is called in the 
 Transvaal, became eligible for a seat in such 
 Chamber. It was further provided in the same year 
 
 D 2
 
 36 RAID AND REFORM 
 
 that no person who had been so naturalised could 
 vote for a seat in the First Volksi'aad until the 
 lapse of a period of ten years after he had become 
 eligible for the Second Chamber. 
 
 " No one could be a member of the Second 
 Chamber until he was thirty years of age, and it 
 will thus be seen that under no circumstances could 
 a man eet the riorht to vote for the First Chamber 
 until he was at least forty ; and during the interval 
 that had elapsed from the period of his naturalisation 
 he would be in the position of having renounced his 
 allegiance to the country of his origin and having 
 rendered himself liable to all the burdens of a 
 citizen, including military service, and that in the 
 meantime he would be deprived of the exercise 
 of the most important rights of citizenship. But 
 even then no one was of right entitled to the 
 franchise. He could only get citizenship after 
 fourteen years' residence and compliance with the 
 above provisions, if the First Volksraad passed a 
 resolution admitting him, and in ptwsuance of 
 regulations which have never been framed!' 
 
 " With regard to the Second Chamber it must be 
 pointed out that this body bears no such relation 
 to the First Volksraad as its name might at first 
 sight imply. Its powers of legislation are strictly 
 defined. It has no power to enforce its own acts, 
 and no control whatever over the First Chamber.
 
 RETROGRESSION 37 
 
 All its acts and resolutions must be submitted to 
 the First Chamber, which has the right to veto 
 them ; and even if not so vetoed they do not acquire 
 the force of law until promulgated by the President, 
 who has the right to withhold such promulgation at 
 his discretion. It need scarcely be added that the 
 Second Chamber has no control whatever over the 
 finances. It cannot be wondered that even ardent 
 South African patriots like the late John Cilliers 
 should have described the Second Raad as a 
 mockery and a sham, and that the Uitlanders 
 decline to regard it as of any real benefit to them." 
 A sham and a mockery indeed, a withdrawal of 
 the substance and a substitution for ever by statute 
 of the shadow ! John Cilliers was not the only 
 Transvaal burgher and patriot who saw with indig- 
 nation and foreboding this retrogressive action. 
 Let us take the testimony of Mr. Esselen in 1892 
 on the platform of the National Union. Mr. Esselen 
 began his political career as a prominent member of 
 the Africander Bond in the Cape House of Assembly ; 
 he was then made a Judge of the High Court in 
 the Transvaal, and having resigned that position 
 took an active part in the politics of the country. 
 On the occasion referred to at a meeting in Johan- 
 nesburgf he said : "I agrree with this movement. I 
 may tell you I am in entire accord with the move- 
 ment of the National Union, and I am proud to be
 
 38 RAID AND REFORM 
 
 asked to say a few words. I wish to ask you 
 whether you can give any credence to the state- 
 ment of a man (President Kruger), who says he is 
 going to unite two people, when the whole of his 
 acts for the last ten years show it is absolutely un- 
 true. I do not speak without knowing what I am 
 talking about — I say you have been kept out of 
 your political privileges, not because the people 
 have kept you out from fear that your being granted 
 these privileges would wreck or endanger the inde- 
 pendence of this country, but to enable a few, and a 
 greedy few, to rule the country for their ends." 
 
 Other matters there were innumerable that at- 
 tracted, nay, even demanded the attention of every 
 thoughtful man, Uitlander or burgher, in the country 
 during the years from 1890 to 1895. ^ have placed 
 the Franchise question first — and for assigning it 
 that position, there is, as we have seen, abundant 
 reason given from intelligent and patriotic burghers 
 themselves. The redress of all other evils was too 
 obviously dependent on the redress of this one, and 
 compared with it they became matters of secondary 
 importance. Among them, however, were matters 
 of such moment as an absence of municipal financial 
 control for municipal purposes ; the dynamite mono- 
 poly, an iniquitous tax on the great industry of the 
 country ; an education law, which, out of the 
 revenue furnished to the State by the Uitlander,
 
 MENACING THE COURTS OF JUSTICE 39 
 
 provided in effect solely for the children of the 
 Dutch ; and anomalies with reference to the ad- 
 ministration of justice whereby in the first place all 
 juries were taken from the Dutch burghers, so that 
 an Englishman living in the midst of a large Eng- 
 lish speaking community was not even accorded a 
 jury of his fellow-citizens. And then, finally, a con- 
 tinual tampering with the Grondwet — the Constitu- 
 tion of the country — by resolutions hastily passed in 
 the Volksraad which not only kept in perpetual 
 uncertainty the position of every man in the State, but 
 even threatened, and that in no uncertain manner, 
 the independence and stability of that last refuge of 
 the Uitlander, the Courts of Justice themselves. 
 
 So menacing did the position of affairs appear — 
 even to the Chief Justice of the Republic — a man 
 who at the last Presidential election was supported 
 as a candidate for the Presidency — that in October. 
 1894, he felt it his duty to issue to the burghers, in 
 words which will remain memorable in the history 
 of the Republic, a solemn warning. The address 
 was delivered at Rustenburg, and from it we shall 
 do well to consider a few extracts : "No one who 
 for a moment considers the condition of things in 
 the State will deny that the country is at present 
 in a very critical position. The unmistakable signs 
 of an approaching change are apparent on every 
 side. It entirely depends upon the people whether
 
 40 RAID AND REFORM 
 
 the impending change is to take place peaceably, or 
 to be accompanied with violence. Do not let us 
 close our eyes and ears to the truth. The people 
 should thoroughly understand the true position of 
 things. I repeat what I have just said, — the non- 
 observance of and departure from the Grondwet 
 menaces the independence of the State." " The 
 country has a Constitution, and must be governed 
 by its precepts, and in a statesmanlike manner. 
 Let me repeat here what I said in 1892." " How 
 frequently have we not seen that the Grondwet, 
 which as the Constitution ought to stand on an 
 entirely different footing from our ordinary law, has 
 nevertheless been varied and treated as such ? 
 Many a time has the Grondwet been altered by a 
 simple resolution of the Legislature. By this means 
 many a radical, and I am afraid often unwise change 
 has been brought about in the Constitution. This 
 objectionable and unstatesmanlike mode of pro- 
 cedure can no longer be followed without impairing 
 the progress and jeopardising the independence of 
 the State." " The trek spirit has well nigh become 
 extinct, the Republic has its beacons and bound- 
 aries which, with the exception of our Eastern 
 border, can no longer be extended. In the wise 
 dispensation of Providence everything has its 
 proper season. It is remarkable that, although our 
 mineral treasures have for ages existed in the
 
 INFRINGEMENT OF THE CONSTITUTION 41 
 
 country, they have only recently been discovered 
 and developed (by the Uitlander). It is equally 
 remarkable that soon after we had to experience a 
 movement (by Mr. Cecil Rhodes) which has defin- 
 itely fixed the Limpopo as our northern boundary. 
 These facts, together with the daily increasing popu- 
 lation and the many complications arising there- 
 from, indicate that we must more than ever devote 
 our attention upon our internal and domestic affairs. 
 There is but one safe course to follow in dealing 
 with public matters under the altered conditions, 
 — the country must be ruled in accordance with the 
 recoo^nised rules of Constitutional Government." 
 
 Further on in this same speech, the spirit in 
 which a Volksraad Committee appointed to revise 
 and piece together the Grondwet " devoted its at- 
 tention to these same internal and domestic affairs," 
 is somewhat severely commented on by the Chief 
 Justice. Referring to their labours and the new 
 draft Grondwet submitted to the Volksraad by them, 
 he says it " contained such important radical and 
 dangerous provisions that, had they been adopted, 
 I do not hesitate to say the independence of the 
 country would have come to an end," " the Courts 
 of Justice from the lowest to the highest in the 
 land would have been so affected in the independent 
 exercise of their functions that it would simply have 
 been an impossibility to have dispensed justice
 
 42 RAID AND REFORM 
 
 between man and man without fear or prejudice. 
 The altered provisions in question assign powers 
 and functions to the Executive and the Legislature 
 which at present belong exclusively to the Courts 
 of Justice. The very safe and constitutional rela- 
 tion which, according to the Grondwet, existed 
 between the three great powers" (Legislative, Exe- 
 cutive and Judicial), or " departments in the State 
 would have been so violated that the Courts of 
 Justice would have tottered to their deepest founda- 
 tions. The liberty, property, and other rights of 
 people would have been placed in the greatest 
 jeopardy, aye, the very independence of the Re- 
 public, which is so inseparably connected with the 
 independence of the Courts of Law, would thereby, 
 as I have already observed, have come to an end." 
 
 We had not been privileged to see this new 
 Grondwet ; and by some miracle we had hitherto 
 escaped its enforcement; the Volksraad was apparently 
 in a cautious mood, and "these dangerous changes," 
 recommended to them by a Committee chosen to deal 
 with the subject, were rejected. The incident is, 
 however, sufficiently significant of the feeling of 
 unrest which the Volksraad was calculated to en- 
 gender among every section of the community. 
 
 It was in 1894 also that occurred the commandeer- 
 ing incident. Englishmen, although accorded no 
 civil rif^hts, were commandeered to serve in the
 
 BRITISH SUBJECTS COMMANDEERED 43 
 
 Malaboch Campaign. Five of them in Pretoria 
 refusing to go were imprisoned ; they appealed 
 to the High Court, but their HabiHty to service was 
 upheld ; they were then taken under compulsion to 
 the front. This caused the greatest indignation 
 throughout the Uitlander community, and in- 
 duced even the British Government to take action. 
 Sir Henry Loch was despatched to Pretoria, and a 
 pledge was given that no further commandeering of 
 British subjects should occur. It was on this occa- 
 sion that Sir H, Loch is reputed to have asked how 
 many rifles the Uitlanders could muster. 
 
 Another and continual source of irritation not 
 only to the South Africans among the Uitlanders, 
 but even amongr the burghers themselves, was the 
 employment by the Executive of young freshly im- 
 ported Hollanders to fill so many of the lucrative 
 offices both hiorh and low in the State, to the ex- 
 elusion of South Africans, many of whom had 
 enjoyed the advantage of university education, who 
 were imbued with a genuine love for the country and 
 who naturally regarded the public offices arising out 
 of the development of South Africa as a heritage 
 for her sons. The Hollanders introduced by 
 the Government were more truly foreigners to the 
 burfjhers in lano^uaQ^e, in manner of life and in the 
 type of their civilisation than even the most lately 
 arrived Englishman. The educated South African
 
 44 RAID AND REFORM 
 
 Dutchman is to all intents and purposes an English- 
 man : he reads English literature, English is his 
 daily language, and he has the English love of 
 athletics and field sports. To the Hollander neither 
 the cricket bat nor the polo stick is a joy, nor is his 
 literature that of Whyte-Melville or of Shakespeare. 
 
 Of the corruption and abuses in the public ad- 
 ministration I do not propose to burden this book 
 with details. Their record has been revealed often 
 enough ; they were, as the world well knows, one more 
 continual source of exasperation. In the Volksraad 
 itself it is only fair to say that there has always been a 
 small minority of some few men who held enlightened 
 views and a more far seeing patriotism. And among 
 them must be remembered by the Uitlanders with 
 some measure of gratitude such men as Mr. Carl 
 Jeppe, Mr. Loveday and Mr. Lucas Meyer. 
 
 Before concluding our brief review of events as 
 they occurred in the Transvaal in rapid and even 
 alarming succession between the years 1S90 and 
 1895, some reference to one of the most prominent, 
 energetic and public-spirited men among the 
 Uitlander community itself is necessary. Mr. Lionel 
 Phillips was the senior resident partner in the 
 wealthy house of Eckstein, and for four years 
 1892-95 was President of the Chamber of Mines. In 
 common with other capitalists he held aloof from the 
 political agitation which was proceeding under the
 
 THE MONSTER PETITION 45 
 
 auspices of the National Union until towards the 
 end of 1895. Nevertheless, as President of the 
 Chamber of Mines, and as a private citizen he never 
 ceased pressing upon the Government the urgent 
 necessity for redress with regard to the material 
 burdens upon the industry; and as a member of the 
 Council of Education he assisted both with money 
 and personal supervision the furthering of its end. 
 
 In 1895 th^ monster petition praying in respectful 
 terms for admission to the Franchise, signed by 
 38,500 people, was presented to the Volksraad. It 
 was rejected with jeers and with insult. Such then 
 was the poition of affairs in the middle of 1895. 
 And looking back on it all, with its opposing forces 
 of stern unbending prejudice and ignorance on the 
 one hand, and of an outraged democracy demanding 
 the common rights of man on the other, it was, one 
 must admit, a scene not unfamiliar to the pages of 
 history. And it was a pretty quarrel as it stood. 
 At this time the sympathy of the Progressive party 
 among the Boers themselves, including, as we have 
 seen, that of the Chief Justice of the country, the 
 enlightened minority in the Volksraad, and many 
 educated burghers throughout the land, was with 
 the Uitlander cause. The irritation amongst the 
 Cape Colonists, English and Dutch alike, over the 
 recent question of the arbitrary closing of the Drifts 
 (Fords) on the main wagon roads between the Cape
 
 46 RAID AND REFORM 
 
 Colony and the Transvaal, where they cross the 
 Vaal River, was profound, and, as we now know, far 
 reaching. So far had matters gone that towards the 
 end of the year an arrangement was come to between 
 the English and Cape Colonial Governments, where- 
 by, in the event of what was nothing less than an 
 ultimatum to the Boer Government not attaining its 
 end in compelling them to throw open the Drifts, 
 the two Governments undertook to share the 
 expenses of a joint military expedition to the 
 Transvaal. 
 
 The ultimatum did attain its end, and the Drifts 
 were thrown open ; but the incident was a significant 
 one, and will show how near England then was 
 to a policy of "an incursion into the South African 
 Republic of an armed force." 
 
 After the rejection of the monster petition of 1S95 
 the men of Johannesburg realised once and for all 
 that, whatever else might come, to look for redress 
 of their grievances by constitutional means was 
 about as hopeless as would be the prospects of a 
 syndicate which had for its object the pegging out 
 of another main reef on the surface of the moon. 
 In some sense the time seemed ripe for action, in 
 another and a very vital one it was not. Politically, 
 affairs had reached their nadir as far as one could 
 see, \)Ut financially they were far from it ; the mines 
 were in full work, the market was buoyant, and men
 
 RHODES, JAMESON AND BEIT ,47 
 
 were earning good incomes and big wages. Suc- 
 cessful revolutions are usually accomplished on 
 empty stomachs, and this element was wanting. 
 
 Mr. Cecil Rhodes, who had practically fixed 
 the Limpopo as the northern boundary of the 
 Transvaal, while he had stretched that of the British 
 Empire to beyond the Zambesi ; accustomed as he 
 was to success, quick movement and rapid deve- 
 lopments, in his great career ; had, to his credit, 
 watched with impatient eyes the setting back of the 
 clock within the South African Republic. His chief 
 lieutenant, Dr. Jameson, who had shared with him the 
 labour of reclaiming from barbarism and developing 
 Rhodesia, and whose ambition was no less than his 
 superiors, discussed with him the desirability of 
 some active outside pressure ; and between them 
 was evolved what is known as the Jameson plan. 
 Mr. Beit, the capitalist, most largely interested in 
 the mines of the Rand, an old financial colleague of 
 Mr. Rhodes, both in the De Beers amalgamation 
 and in the establishment of the Chartered Company, 
 promised both his influence and his purse in support 
 of the plan. Overtures were then made to Mr. 
 Lionel Phillips, who was at the head of the Chamber 
 of Mines, and Mr. Charles Leonard, the Chairman 
 of the National Union ; and, as a review of the pre- 
 ceding events will show, they came to them in a 
 very tempting hour.
 
 48 RAID AND REFORM 
 
 In the light of subsequent events it is not difficult 
 to be wise on this question ; it is a simple and indeed 
 an orthodox attitude to condemn both the tender 
 and the acceptance of these seductive proposals, 
 and to be impartial it is right we should consider 
 the views held by a few enlightened South Africans. 
 With the internal movement going on in the Trans- 
 vaal for the obtaining of reform, they said when the 
 Jameson plan first came to their notice in Johannes- 
 burg, the whole of South Africa and the world at 
 large have every sympathy. The enlightened 
 opinion among the Boers themselves is with you, 
 and for that matter even expects a disturbance, 
 possibly a rebellion, over the great question of the 
 Franchise. In such a quarrel with the Govern- 
 ment, it is doubtful if Kruger could get the 
 burghers to take action, so strong is the sense 
 among many of them of the anomalous position 
 of Johannesburg. In any case the position cannot 
 long remain unchanged, a solution must assuredly 
 come. And if you must take action, rely upon 
 yourselves, the justice of the cause, close down the 
 mines, let the men go to Pretoria in a body and 
 demand their rights. Any harsh measures under 
 these conditions will be resented by the British 
 Government, and the Boers know it ; but if you 
 accept foreign aid, if chartered troops enter the 
 country, the Boers will be welded as one man, all
 
 THE JAMESON PLAN 49 
 
 political anomalies will be forgotten, they will see 
 only the independence of their country menaced, the 
 Englishmen again invading the Transvaal ; the 
 Free State will be with them ; your cause will be a 
 lost one. And these views were not without wis- 
 dom. 
 
 They were right in foreseeing the dangers and 
 impolicy of the Jameson plan ; they were wrong in 
 expecting any substantial redress from the Boer 
 Executive except under absolute compulsion. Both 
 Mr. Phillips and Mr. Leonard were aware, if any 
 men could be, of all the difficulties and the dangers 
 of the situation. Mr. Rhodes was at that time at 
 the very zenith of his power and of his reputation. 
 He had shown himself a master of statecraft and 
 diplomacy in dealing with men both in the English 
 political and financial worlds and in South Africa, 
 and any proposal emanating from him therefore 
 carried with it the prestige which only one of the 
 most able and most successful men of his generation 
 could give it. Moreover, what a tower of strength 
 his unique position made him, — Premier of the Cape 
 Colony, Managing Director of the British South 
 Africa Company, Chairman of De Beers : here was 
 an ally indeed ! The plan at this early stage was 
 presented in a very attractive form. A force under 
 Dr. Jameson was to be quietly gathered on the 
 border. The Johannesburg agitation, reinforced with 
 
 E
 
 50 RAID AND REFORM 
 
 capitalist support, was to be steadily pushed forward. 
 Rifles and ammunition were to be smuggled into 
 Johannesburg. Both the High Commissioner and 
 the Colonial Office might be counted on, it was said, 
 to support a vigorous forward movement for reform. 
 Mr. Phillips and Mr. Leonard, sick and weary of 
 the hopelessness of unsupported constitutional 
 action, and of the continual set back in Boer 
 politics, already casting round in their minds for 
 some new departure, accepted and from that time 
 forth co-operated with Mr. Rhodes and Dr. Jame- 
 son in the development of the Jameson plan. 
 
 In October, 1895, ^ meeting took place at Groote 
 Schuur, Mr. Rhodes' residence near Cape Town, at 
 which were present, in addition to Mr. Cecil Rhodes, 
 Mr. Lionel Phillips, Mr. Hammond, Mr. Charles 
 Leonard, and Colonel Frank Rhodes. At this 
 meeting the plan was more fully discussed and 
 matured; and in November, 1895, when Dr. Jame- 
 son visited Johannesburg, the details were finally 
 settled. The letter of invitation was written, signed 
 and handed to Dr. Jameson, and the date of com- 
 bined action provisionally fixed for the end of 
 December. Dr. Jameson's force was to be about 
 1,000 strong, and the start to be made when final!)- 
 summoned by the signatories of the lctt(!r. In the 
 meantime the J()hann('sl)urg leaders were to have 
 sent in to them 4,500 rifles and 1,000,000 rounds of
 
 LETTER TO JAMESON Sr 
 
 ammunition, and were, if possible, to arrange for an 
 attack on the Pretoria Arsenal simultaneously with 
 the move from outside. 
 
 With regard to the letter of invitation which was 
 subsequently used by Dr. Jameson as a justification 
 for his start, there has, unfortunately, been a good 
 deal of misunderstanding. It is now entirely a 
 matter which concerns Dr. Jameson and the signa- 
 tories of that letter which they gave him during the 
 final arrangement of the plan in November, and 
 without reference to others than themselves. But 
 as it has been the subject of very careful inquiry 
 on the part of the Select Committee, and as they 
 have recorded their finding thereon in the body of 
 their Report, it is only fair to the signatories of the 
 letter to refer to it. 
 
 The Select Committee's Report reads as follows — 
 "As soon as the preparations were well advanced 
 towards the latter end of November, 1895, Dr. 
 Jameson, who had been with Mr. Rhodes at Cape 
 Town, went to Johannesburg and procured a letter 
 signed by Mr. C. Leonard, Colonel Rhodes, Mr, 
 L. Phillips, Mr. J. H. Hammond, and Mr. G. 
 Farrar. Mr. Leonard has stated that he was very 
 reluctantly a party to giving this letter of invitation 
 to Dr. Jameson ; and he has said in effect that it was 
 given to afford a pretext which might justify Dr. 
 Jameson with the Directors of the Chartered Com- 
 
 E 2
 
 52 RAID AND REFORM 
 
 pany, and induce the officers and men to join him 
 in the raid. This letter was shown to Mr. Rhodes 
 by Dr. Jameson on his return to Cape Town ; and 
 upon December 20th, 1895, ^^^- Rhodes asked to 
 be supplied with a copy. Mr. Leonard, Colonel 
 Rhodes, and Mr. Phillips have all distinctly stated 
 that this letter was never intended as an authority 
 to Dr. Jameson to enter the Transvaal, unless 
 and until he received a further summons from 
 them." 
 
 Such was in brief the history of the Jameson 
 plan as far as concerned Johannesburg". And it is 
 necessary here to refer to the position with regard 
 to it of the bulk of the men who subsequently 
 constituted the Reform Committee. They at this 
 time, with the exception of a few of their number, 
 of which I personally was one, were entirely ignor- 
 ant of what was going on. It was obvious that 
 in such a plan as this the utmost secrecy was 
 necessary ; and the Johannesburg leaders, relying 
 on the general sentiment of the community, assumed 
 the responsibility of arranging a basis of operations. 
 So that the plan when it was gradually revealed to 
 various men had either to be accepted by them in 
 its entirety or rejected. There was not much time 
 left for discussion and alteration of plans. Men 
 demanded and received assurance ihal the- move- 
 ment was to be a Republican one, and in no way to
 
 ATTEMPT TO ARM JOHANNESBURG 53. 
 
 be an attempt on the independence of the country. 
 A sufficient number of rifles were also to be forth- 
 coming, and the High Commissioner was to be on 
 the spot to expedite the adjustment of matters 
 immediately disturbances arose. 
 
 There was nothing in Johannesburg itself at a 
 later juncture which caused so much dissatisfaction 
 as what was held to be the inadequate supply of 
 arms and ammunition. Many men held, and strongly 
 expressed the view, that at least 10,000 rifles and 
 an adequate amount of ammunition would be re- 
 quired wherewith to arm Johannesburg. But they 
 had to content themselves with a prospect of 4,500, 
 which later was cut down to 2,500, and another 
 1,000 which Dr. Jameson was to bring in with him. 
 True, more were to be obtained from the Pretoria 
 Arsenal, but this was rather a counting of chickens 
 still unhatched. It is of course easy enough to 
 criticise this, as it is many other details of the 
 scheme. It would have been a oreat thine no 
 doubt to have had, when the time arose, 20,000 
 rifles to distribute among the eager crowd, but it 
 is only fair to those concerned to consider the 
 difficulties of obtaining them. In the despatch 
 and the receipt of this contraband cargo the greatest 
 precaution had to be observed. Every additional 
 case or oil drum containing rifles added to the risk 
 of detection ; while, most exasperating of all (in
 
 54 RAID AND REFORM 
 
 fact, there was one of our number who went so 
 far as to declare it constituted a fresh Uitlander 
 grievance), was the prolonged delay in their transit 
 over the Netherlands Railway. 
 
 During- the month of December was undertaken 
 the extremely difficult work of sounding some of the 
 leading men as to their readiness to support the 
 plan, and every effort consistent with a degree of 
 safety from detection was made at organisation. 
 During November and December there were de- 
 livered some memorable speeches, setting forth the 
 Uitlander position and denouncing the Government; 
 but no general public meeting was convened, it 
 being deemed too dangerous to risk a premature and 
 abortive explosion. On December 26th the Mani- 
 festo was published in The Star. It was a long 
 and exhaustive indictment, drawn up by Mr. C. 
 Leonard, showing the injustice of the Uitlander 
 position, and it concluded as follows : — 
 
 a. What do we want ? 
 
 b. How shall we get it ? 
 
 I have stated plainly what our grievances are, and I shall answer 
 with equal directness the question, "What do wc want?" We 
 want : — 
 
 1. The establishment of this Rcpuljlic as a true Republic. 
 
 2. A Grondwet or Constitution, which shall be framed by competent 
 persons selected by representatives of the whole people and framed 
 on lines laid down by them, a Constitution which shall be safeguarded 
 against hasty alteration. 
 
 3. An equitable Franchise Law and fair representation. 
 
 4. Equality of the Dutch and English languages.
 
 THE MANIFESTO 55 
 
 5. Responsibility to the Legislature of the heads of the great 
 departments. 
 
 6. Removal of religious disabilities. 
 
 7. Independence of the Courts of Justice, with adequate and secured 
 remuneration of the Judges. 
 
 8. Liberal and comprehensive education. 
 
 9. An efficient civil service, with adequate provision for pay and 
 pension. 
 
 10. Free trade in South African products. 
 This is what we want. 
 
 There now remains the question which is to be put before you 
 at the meeting of the 6th of January, viz., "How shall we get it?" 
 To this question I shall expect from you an answer in plain terms 
 according to your deliberate judgment. 
 
 (Signed) Charles Leonard, 
 
 Chairnian of the Transvaal National Union. 
 
 In the meantime the course of affairs at head 
 quarters was not running smoothly. The mihtary 
 department under Colonel Rhodes were chafing at 
 the tardy arrival of the arms and ammunition. The 
 men organising the surprise on the Arsenal at 
 Pretoria had reported that the scheme at that 
 moment was entirely impracticable ; and they were 
 confirmed in this opinion by an old and trusted 
 officer of Dr. Jameson's, who had distinguished 
 himself in the service of the Chartered Company, 
 and who had been specially sent to Johannesburg to 
 assist and advise in military matters. He stated 
 that to pro'ceed with this scheme at that time would 
 be nothing short of madness. 
 
 The Christmas Naachtmaal, a religious festival, 
 was being celebrated in Pretoria, and the town was
 
 56 RAID AND REFORM 
 
 thronged with Boers. To crown all came the 
 flag incident, which was a misgiving on the part 
 of a large number of the revolutionary party as 
 to what was to be the true nature of the external 
 support. It had arisen out of messages brought 
 down from Cape Town, which implied that the 
 Jameson aid would be accorded only to a move in 
 favour of the Eno-lish flaof. 
 
 Affairs were in a critical position, and a meeting 
 was hurriedly summoned at Colonel Rhodes' house 
 on Christmas day of December, 1895. It was soon 
 obvious that postponement was an imperative 
 necessity ; only a portion of the small supply of 
 arms had arrived, the attempt on Pretoria Arsenal 
 was impracticable, and a large section of the Com- 
 mittee refused point blank to proceed any further 
 with the undertaking until positive assurances with 
 regard to the flag question had been received. 
 Under these circumstances Mr. C. Leonard and 
 Mr. Hamilton were despatched to Cape Town to 
 confer with Mr. Rhodes, 
 
 It has been suggested that the importance of the 
 flag incident was exaggerated ; but it must be borne 
 in mind that it was not merely a question of what 
 men felt on the subject of English or Republican 
 rule — it was a question of what they were pledged 
 to. The movement within the Transvaal had from 
 its outset been one in favour, not of a British
 
 REPUBLIC versus UNION JACK 57 
 
 Colony, but of a sound Republic. It was the one 
 practicable basis on which it had been found 
 possible to secure some sort of political union 
 among a cosmopolitan community ; and on this 
 ground it had been adopted. Many Americans and 
 South Africans had accorded their support only on 
 this understanding, and it mattered not what a 
 man's affection for the Union Jack might be ; he 
 had accepted the National Union Manifesto, and he 
 was in honour bound to abide by it. No one will 
 accuse Colonel Rhodes of ultra- Republican views, 
 but in this instance he felt the obligation of his 
 position, and frankly said so. The ground on 
 which numbers of men had been induced to join 
 the movement could not be departed from. On 
 the following day Dr. Jameson duly received a 
 telegram from Johannesburg, advising him that it 
 was "absolutely necessary to postpone flotation." 
 
 As the Johannesburg postponement has been the 
 subject of a good deal of criticism, it will be of in- 
 terest, in conjunction with what has already been 
 said, to consider the finding of the Select Committee 
 in their Report. It reads as follows : " There is a 
 conflict of evidence as to what were the true 
 grounds which determined the revolutionary party 
 at Johannesburg on the 26th December to counter- 
 order the insurrection which had been fixed for the 
 28th, and to prohibit the invasion of the Transvaal
 
 58 RAID AND REFORM 
 
 by Dr. Jameson, which had been settled for that 
 day. Colonel Rhodes states that it was ' because 
 they would hot rise before they got a distinct assur- 
 ance about the flag, and they only got that on 
 the Sunday morning. We were told in the telegram 
 we got from Cape Town from C. Leonard that an 
 entirely new departure had been decided on.' Dr. 
 Wolff attributes the failure to the fact that * being 
 unable to seize the Arsenal at Pretoria they were 
 quite unprepared.' Mr. C. Leonard gives the same 
 reasons, as well as the difficulty about the flag. Mr. 
 Phillips says they had not arms for the men." 
 
 It is difficult to understand what conflict there is 
 in this evidence ; it is true that some of the witnesses 
 did not assign all the reasons, but no single reason 
 given is in conflict with any other. Moreover, any 
 one of the reasons alleo^ed was enouoh to render 
 postponement expedient, and taken altogether they 
 rendered it imperative. But the crash was now 
 nigh at hand. 
 
 Dr. Jameson, instead of falling in with the Com- 
 mittee's instructions, and the new departure decided 
 on by Rhodes and Leonard, determined to march to 
 Johannesburg. To quote from the Select Committee's 
 Report: "When they (Mr. Leonard, Colonel 
 Rhodes, and Mr. Phillips) learnt that Dr. Jameson 
 was intending to start, so far from authorising liim 
 to come in, they used every measure in tlieir power
 
 START OF THE JAMESON FORCE 59 
 
 by telegram and by messenger to prohibit and pre- 
 vent the Raid, With the full knowledfje of all these 
 circumstances, Dr. Jameson, being convinced that 
 no rising was about to take place at Johannesburg, 
 determined to bring matters to a head, and tele- 
 graphed to Mr. Rhodes : ' We will make our own 
 flotation, with help of letter which I shall publish.' 
 Immediately upon the Raid becoming known, this 
 letter, by the order of Mr, Rhodes, was cabled by 
 Dr, Harris to Miss Shaw for insertion in the Times 
 newspaper, with a date filled in which made it 
 appear that it had been sent as an urgent appeal 
 from Johannesburg just before the Raid." The 
 news of Dr. Jameson's actual start on Sunday even- 
 ing reached Johannesburg on the Monday afternoon 
 through the medium of the public press, the Boers 
 having been in possession of the intelligence some 
 hours previously. 
 
 The effect of this news on the Johannesburg 
 leaders and the few others who were cognisant of 
 the Jameson plan was one, to use no stronger 
 term, of astonishment. They saw their plans 
 blown to the winds — themselves discredited and 
 apparently distrusted by their ally — the worst 
 possible hour for action forced upon them ; and to 
 what end, for what reason ? Whether Dr. Jame- 
 son reached Johannesburg or not, would not this 
 premature movement prejudice the whole cause }
 
 6o RAID AND REFORM 
 
 Would it not paralyse the High Commissioner's 
 hand ? 
 
 But if this was the effect on the minds of the 
 leaders, what was it — what was it bound to be ? — on 
 the great mass of people in Johannesburg, who, while 
 thoroughly in sympathy with the movement for 
 Reform, knew nothing of the Jameson plan ? What 
 did it mean ? As far as was possible explanations 
 were given. But it was difficult to make people 
 understand why a man, in the position of an ally, 
 had taken the step of marching into the country 
 because he had been requested not to do so. One 
 thing, however, they not unnaturally argued, and 
 that was that the Johannesburg leaders were entirely 
 in the dark. This, said a large number, is a move 
 quite independent of us. Rhodes has evidently sent 
 Jameson in with the full assurance that he will 
 be supported by the High Commissioner and the 
 British Government. Happy but brief delusion! On 
 the very following evening the High Commissioner's 
 proclamation was placed in their hands. 
 
 I am reluctant to be thought hypercritical, but in 
 view of the wholesale detraction and misrepresenta- 
 tion to which the Johannesburg leaders and their 
 followers have at one time and another been sub- 
 jected by a misinformed Press, some expression of 
 opinion, now that all the facts are known to the 
 w(jrld, may not unreasonably find utterance. The
 
 THE STRONG IMPERIAL STATESMAN 6i 
 
 wide mental habit which some one in Mr, Rhodes' 
 case has described as that of " thinking in Con- 
 tinents," is doubtless in a great and strong imperial 
 statesman, as I hold Mr. Rhodes to be, an admirable 
 trait ; and in so far as it is the expression of a lofty 
 and generous ambition to further the spread of a 
 free and enlightened civilisation, and the interests 
 of that great nation in whose destinies he has such 
 an abiding faith, I render it every homage. But it 
 has its dangers ; the habit is somewhat infectious — 
 it is apt to extend itself to colleagues, and even 
 cable correspondents ; and if when carried into the 
 field of practical politics — it is allowed to engender 
 a certain scorn for prosaic details — its influence 
 may be productive of failure, and even disaster. 
 
 With regard to what followed, the story of Dr. 
 Jameson's march and battle need no repetition. The 
 news of Dr. Jameson's actual start filtered through 
 to head-quarters in Johannesburg<about 3 p.m. on 
 Monday ; and pocketing whatever feelings they 
 might have on the subject, the leaders at once 
 endeavoured to make every preparation in their 
 power. The arms that had arrived were unpacked, 
 and those that had not were sought for and found 
 by messengers sent down the railway line. These 
 messengers accomplished the delicate task of care- 
 fully piloting to Johannesburg the remainder of the 
 rifles, the bulk of the ammunition and three Maxim
 
 62 RAID AND REFORM 
 
 guns, which, however, did not arrive until Tuesday 
 evening. The Reform Committee was then formed 
 and remained in perpetual session day and night 
 throughout the crisis. Whatever more this well- 
 abused Committee might have done, they at any rate 
 preserved perfect order among an excited community, 
 both white and black : they enrolled a police force 
 and closed the canteens ; they provided food and 
 shelter for numbers of men, women, and children 
 who flocked into the town from the outlying mines ; 
 and in common fairness to the members of the 
 Committee of whom not much that is generous has 
 been said, it may as well be recorded that many of 
 them were willing and eager to accompany whatever 
 force might be sent out to meet Dr. Jameson, and 
 would gladly have done so if the Executive of the 
 Committee, with whom the ultimate decision rested, 
 had not concluded that such a step was both im- 
 practicable and unnecessary. The responsibility for 
 this decision rests with the Committee, and more 
 especially its Executive — and not with the people 
 of Johannesburg as a whole. That the decision, 
 looking back to the whole circumstances of the 
 position, was a natural one I think must be admitted; 
 but as far as the people of Johannesburg, among 
 whom were campaigners from many a South African 
 battle-field, are concerned, il is only right to say 
 that those of them who had arms would cheerfull)
 
 THE REFORM COMMITTEE 63 
 
 have gone on foot if necessary, to endeavour to 
 effect a junction with the Jameson column, had they 
 been asked or even permitted to do so. 
 
 What Johannesburg should have done at this 
 juncture has been the subject of more recrimination, 
 and more controversy than anything else connected 
 with the whole subject of the "Armed Incursion." 
 The Jameson force, which had fought, and fought 
 gallantly according to the testimony of those best 
 able to judge, the Boers who opposed them, 
 naturally had the sympathy of the world in the 
 hour of reverse. Should Johannesburg not have 
 made some effort to assist Dr. Jameson even with 
 the inadequate means at their command and in the 
 circumstances as they then stood ? On this question 
 Mr. Phillips writes in the Nineteenth Century as 
 follows : — " I think to-day, as I thought at the time, 
 that it would have been an act of grossest folly 
 to send out a force on foot to meet an ally whom 
 we had not the slig-htest o-round for believing- was 
 in any need of our aid, in direct opposition to the 
 commands of the High Commissioner, and more- 
 over as a declaration of hostilities against the 
 Government which we were unprepared to fight. 
 The mere fact of the invasion having occurred prior 
 to the internal rising put us hopelessly in the wrong. 
 
 " The British Government had declared itself in 
 definite terms from which they could not retreat,.
 
 64 RAID AND REFORM 
 
 and we had the combined Transvaal and Oranore 
 Free State as opponents." 
 
 Dr. Jameson and his force, which in November 
 he had stated would be 800 strong, and not, as was 
 only known after the surrender, 500, had started not 
 only after receiving orders from the Johannesburg 
 leaders for postponement, but without advising 
 them of his start. Naturally he could not in these 
 circumstances expect aid, nor did he, as he frankly 
 admitted in his answer to question 5,720 before 
 the South Africa Committee. The Hio-h Com- 
 missioner's proclamation repudiating Dr. Jameson 
 and warning British subjects was issued in Johan- 
 nesburg on Tuesday. 
 
 Unfortunately, with that persistent bad luck w^hich 
 dogged every step of this expedition, a letter sent 
 by Col. Rhodes to Dr. Jameson appears to have 
 created a misunderstanding. Some of Dr. Jameson's 
 followers stated after the surrender that Col. Rhodes 
 had sent them a letter which reached them on the 
 march, containing a promise to send a column to 
 their assistance at Krugersdorp. Sir J. Willoughby 
 repeated this in his evidence before the Committee, 
 and in suj)p(jrt of his contention ])ul in llic fragment- 
 ary letter found on the batde-field with ihc missing 
 words filled in l)y himself and his Iricntls from 
 memory. Col. Rhodes filled in the missing words 
 in examin.'ition before the ConimiLtee, giving a dif-
 
 COL. RHODES'S LETTER 65 
 
 ferent meaning to the letter ; and in reference to it 
 he said : " I know that some of Dr. Jameson's party 
 really believed that that note contained a distinct 
 promise to meet them at Krugersdorp. All I can 
 say most distinctly is, that it never was in my head 
 to do so ; all I meant to do was to send a few men 
 on the road to meet them and show them their 
 camp. Their camp was on the Krugersdorp side of 
 Johannesburg, and I meant to send, and in fact I 
 ordered the men to go out and show them directly 
 they got in sight of Johannesburg. But as for 
 sending a force to meet them, that was not in my 
 mind. If it had been I ought to have sent the men 
 off at the same time as this note left, because the 
 note only left on the Wednesday morning early, 
 and I fully expected them on the Wednesday 
 evening." 
 
 "Question 5405. Were you in a military position 
 to enable you to send out anything in the nature of 
 a force ? — If one had thought they were in difficul- 
 ties, of course one would have sent out a force. But 
 I do not think we were in a position to send them 
 anything that would have been of very much service 
 to them. 
 
 " Question 5406. And in your opinion I under- 
 stand you to say that you were clear in your mind 
 that Dr. Jameson would get in without any diffi- 
 culty.'* — Certainly, I always thought so." 
 
 F
 
 66 RAID AND REFORM 
 
 Mr. Phillips, Mr. George Farrer, and Mr. S. W. 
 Jameson (Dr. Jameson's brother), read this letter 
 before its despatch, and they all assert most posi- 
 tively that it contained no suggestion of sending out 
 a force to Krugersdorp. In order to clear the 
 matter up, Mr. Phillips cabled out for a photograph 
 of the fragments found on the battle-field, which 
 had been pieced together by the Transvaal 
 authorities. On this photograph Mr. Gurrin, an 
 expert on handwriting, reported that the words 
 filled in by Sir John Willoughby and his 
 friends from memory were " not only inconsistent 
 with the amount of space available," but "did 
 not fit in with the letters and position of letters 
 
 visible." 
 
 The cyclists who took the letter and were cog- 
 nisant of its contents also confirm Col. Rhodes's 
 version. 
 
 This subject would not have called for such 
 lengthy treatment here if it had not been made 
 the cause of considerable, and, as I think must 
 now be admitted, unjustifiable reproach to Col. 
 Rhodes and the other Johannesburg leaders. Mr. 
 Cecil Rhodes, when asked for his opinion on this 
 matter, is reported by a correspondent of South 
 Africa to have replied as follows: "Oh," he said, 
 " it is a mistake. I know my brother is absolutely 
 truthful, and I have every reason to believe that Sir
 
 LIONEL PHILLIPS 67 
 
 John Willoughby is also ; but at the same time, I 
 would rather trust my brother's recollection of what 
 he wrote than Sir John's of what he read." 
 
 The evidence of Mr. Lionel Phillips before the 
 Select Committee states that the nature of the 
 arrangement with Dr. Jameson was, what indeed 
 it was always understood to be by those in Johan- 
 nesburg who were privileged to know anything 
 about it, that when called upon he should come 
 to the aid of Johannesburg. That Johannesburg 
 would be called upon or expected to go to his aid, 
 had never been suggested or contemplated. We have 
 had Col. Rhodes's evidence on the resources at his 
 command, we have had Dr. Jameson's frank state- 
 ment that at any rate, previous to the start he never 
 anticipated the want of, nor expected, aid. Mr. 
 Phillips is even more emphatic in reply to question 
 6909, in which he was asked if the statement that 
 an arrangement existed with the leaders of the 
 Reform Committee that " Dr. Jameson should be 
 assisted by troops sent from Johannesburg to 
 Krugersdorp" was true, he said: "It is absolutely 
 untrue. We never made any such arrangement. 
 We never for a moment contemplated that Dr. 
 Jameson would need any assistance." 
 
 On Tuesday night, the 31st of December, two 
 delegates were sent to the Reform Committee from 
 the Transvaal Government. They said the Govern- 
 
 F 2
 
 68 RAID AND REFORM 
 
 ment had instructed them to invite the Committee 
 to send a deputation that the matters in dispute 
 might be discussed, and if possible adjusted, in a 
 friendly spirit. 
 
 A deputation of four, including" Mr. Lionel 
 Phillips, was sent on the following morning to 
 Pretoria, and Mr. Phillips described in his evidence 
 what had occurred. He said : — 
 
 " We described the whole of the greivances. We 
 were perfectly frank ; we told the Commission 
 exactly the nature of our relations with Dr. 
 Jameson. We told them that by arrangement Dr. 
 Jameson was on the border, that he had certainly 
 left without our instructions. We did not know for 
 what reason he had left, but as we had made 
 arrangements with him we regarded him as one 
 with ourselves." 
 
 Later on the Commission handed to the deputa- 
 tion the decision of the Transvaal Executive, and it 
 was to the following effect : "Sir Hercules Robinson 
 has offered his services with a view to a peaceful 
 settlement. The Government of the Republic has 
 accepted his offer. Pending his arrival no hostile 
 step will be taken against Johannesburg, provided 
 that Johannesburg t^ikes no hostile action against 
 the Government. In terms of the proclamation 
 recently issued by the President the grievances will 
 be earnestly considered."
 
 DEPUTATION TO PRETORIA • 69 
 
 In the meantime the Reform Committee, sitting 
 in Johannesburg, telegraphed to the deputation at 
 Pretoria as follows : — " Meeting has been held since 
 you started to consider telegram from British Agent, 
 and it was unanimously resolved to authorise you to 
 make following offer to Government : In order to 
 avert bloodshed on grounds of Dr. Jameson's action, 
 if Government will allow Dr. Jameson to come in 
 unmolested, the Committee will guarantee, with their 
 persons, if necessary, that he shall leave again peace- 
 fully within as little delay as possible." 
 
 The deputation then returned to Johannesburg 
 and reported to the Committee, from which time 
 they were free to take any course that seemed best. 
 The above negotiations are what have been de- 
 scribed as an armistice — though the term is obviously 
 an inaccurate one. The position was about as diffi- 
 cult as it could be ; and, at the risk of placing his 
 neck in jeopardy, Mr. Phillips took upon himself his 
 full share of responsibility for Dr. Jameson's action. 
 
 The High Commissioner had always been con- 
 sidered an essential factor to a satisfactory settle- 
 ment, and on him the leaders were now compelled 
 to rely. That he was in feeble health at the time 
 was no fault of his, but it undoubtedly constituted 
 one more of the unfortunate circumstances with 
 which this whole question was involved. Having 
 arranged for the handing over of Dr. Jameson and
 
 70 RAID AND REFORM 
 
 his followers, he felt himself unable to do more, and 
 the srrievances and the Reform Committee were left 
 to their fate. 
 
 In dealinor with the actual facts I have thought it 
 wisest to take as far as possible the statements of 
 the principal actors themselves, wherever any con- 
 troversial point has come under consideration. With 
 regard to what followed the surrender of the Jame- 
 son force there is little that need be said here. Dr. 
 Jameson with his officers and men were, after an 
 imprisonment of some few weeks in Pretoria, 
 handed over to the High Commissioner and for- 
 warded to England, where the officers and Dr. 
 Jameson were tried and punished with imprisonment 
 under the Foreign Enlistment Act. The members 
 of the Reform Committee were arrested and tried 
 by the High Court at Pretoria on charges of high 
 treason, and subsequently imprisoned and fined, 
 althouofh not before the four leaders had been sub- 
 jected to sentence of death, afterwards commuted. 
 
 Punishment, however much or however little 
 merited, has therefore been freely meted out to all 
 concerned. But there are instances in which it fell 
 with undue and disproportionate weight, if, for the 
 sake of argument, one may adopt a scale relative to 
 the knowledge of and participation in, the whole 
 movement of different participators. It did so in 
 the case of a large number (not including myself)
 
 DIFFERENT PARTICIPATORS li 
 
 of the Reform Committee, who knew nothing of 
 the Jameson plan until after Dr. Jameson had 
 started, and who joined the Reform Committee, 
 mainly because they did not care to appear back- 
 ward in supporting what they believed to be a just 
 cause at a critical moment. And these same men, 
 in the great majority of instances, quietly awaited 
 and accepted the consequences of their action 
 afterwards, though they smiled somewhat grimly 
 when in Pretoria prison they learnt that the whole 
 world was denouncing them for having urgently 
 called Dr. Jameson in by letter alleged to have 
 been received by him the day before the start, and 
 then refused to assist him. As, however, Dr. Jame- 
 son and his officers were awaiting trial they thought 
 it better to remain silent, and did so, to the great 
 edification of a large section of the Press, which con- 
 tinued to denounce them both in poetry and prose. 
 The consequences fell with undue weight also upon 
 the officers of the Jameson force, who, in addition 
 to suffering imprisonment, lost their commissions. 
 With the policy of starting when they did they had 
 nothing to do. They obeyed the commands of their 
 superior officer ; and the reasons adduced by him 
 supported by the belief that their action would not 
 be disapproved by the Imperial authorities, were 
 more than ample to determine them not to refuse to 
 follow their chief, which it is argued they should
 
 72 RAID AND REFORM 
 
 have done. To retire on receipt of the High Com- 
 missioner's letters and proclamation, while their 
 chief proceeded, would have again placed them in a 
 most invidious position, to say the least of it. Under 
 the circumstances imprisonment was surely ample 
 punishment. If it was right to retain Mr. Cecil 
 Rhodes on Her Majesty's Privy Council, it was 
 wrong to deprive these men of Her Majesty's com- 
 missions. The British Government have decided, 
 wisely and rightly in public opinion, to retain Mr. 
 Rhodes ; and as trustees for the reputation of fair 
 play, which the English nation looks on as a herit- 
 age to be handed down untarnished to posterity, it 
 is their duty to deal in like spirit with the Jameson 
 officers. 
 
 With reference to Mr. Chas. Leonard a good 
 many hard things have been said, because he did 
 not return from Capetown after his interview with 
 Mr. Rhodes. The period of the " Armed Incur- 
 sion " was, it was felt, rather an unfortunate one for 
 the Chairman of the National Union to be absent ; 
 and in deference to Mr. Leonard it is only fair to 
 notice the explanation which he at least has been at 
 no great pains to make public. He had intended 
 to return with his colleague Mr. Hamilton, when he 
 received an urgent request from Mr. Rhodes to 
 remain and render him what assistance he could 
 with Mr. Hofmeyer and the Imperial authorities at
 
 CHARLES LEONARD 73 
 
 Capetown. On this point Mr. Wyndham elicited 
 from Mr. Leonard before the South African Com- 
 mittee, that he had received a letter from Mr. Rhodes 
 from which the following was an extract : " I asked 
 you with Hamilton to stay and help me. You could 
 do no good in a train, you could do great good here. 
 I know you fought for going, but it was nonsense and 
 too late. Afterwards blame me, but I was thoroughly 
 right." It is thus clear that if Mr. Leonard has 
 erred, it was an error of judgment ; and personally 
 now that all the circumstances are known, I do 
 not consider him even to have erred in that. To 
 have returned at a later stage after the warrant 
 for his arrest was made public would not have 
 served any useful purpose ; whereas it is clear from 
 the unremitting attention which he devoted to the 
 matter in England that he used his liberty to 
 better purpose in the Uitlander cause than any 
 that could have been served by his imprisonment 
 at Pretoria. 
 
 The action of the Cape Government in first 
 arresting Messrs. Joel and Bettelheim and subse- 
 quently in endeavouring to arrest Mr. Charles 
 Leonard, pursuing him with that end to a Portu- 
 guese port, will ever remain a stain on this page 
 of the history of the Cape Colony. The arrest 
 of political refugees, one of them a British subject, 
 in a British colony, to be handed over to a foreign
 
 74 RAID AND REFORM 
 
 State, is an act, the character of which might be 
 natural in Turkey, but which surely has never before 
 in history been perpetrated by a British Colonial 
 Government. 
 
 To Mr. Leonard it was left to find on the shores 
 of England that protection which even a Portuguese 
 port would not withhold from him, but which was 
 denied him in the land of his birth, a British colony. 
 Well might he exclaim in the bitterness of his heart 
 that Cape politicians, during this crisis in South 
 Africa, thought of nothing but " crawling on their 
 stomachs before the Boers." 
 
 Among those who have suffered heavily the con- 
 sequences of the Incursion is assuredly Dr. Jameson. 
 In dealing with his action I have taken recorded 
 fact, and I should be sorry indeed if I felt that I had 
 done him the least injustice. He came to the con- 
 clusion that expediency demanded a bold forward 
 movement, and, contrary instructions notwithstanding, 
 he endeavoured to carry it out. Mr. Rhodes, it has 
 been shown, although a party to and a principal in the 
 Jameson plan, was not a party to the actual start of 
 Dr. Jameson's force. Moreover, the apparent readi- 
 ness with which he agreed to a new departure, after 
 the interview with Messrs. Hamilton and Leonard, 
 and also with which he offered to keep Dr. Jameson 
 on the border for "six or nine months if necessary," 
 clearly shows his appreciation of their reasons for
 
 PRECIPITATE ACTION 7$ 
 
 preventing precipitate action. Mr. Rhodes's name 
 has come continually before us ; and whatever errors, 
 ethical or political, he may or may not have com- 
 mitted, one thing at least has been made clear to 
 any impartial man, and that is that he was inspired 
 in his actions by public spirit and an honourable 
 ambition to further the cause of civilisation in South 
 Africa. In his successful career it has not often 
 occurred to him to have to exclaim with Voltaire : 
 
 Nous tromper dans nos entreprises, 
 C'est h quoi nous sommes sujets. 
 
 But we have been brought face to face with 
 political disaster ; and now that the episode is past 
 and the tale told, with a fulness which in the 
 world's history no such tale has ever been told 
 before, it is not unreasonable to speculate on what 
 were the causes of failure, and what under different 
 circumstances might have been the prospects of 
 success. And at the outset of the consideration of 
 the problem the question which forces itself upon 
 one is, whether there was not too much lofty con- 
 templation of the end and an insufficient consider- 
 ation of the means on the part of all the originators 
 of the Jameson plan. Was not a federated South 
 Africa — the avowed object of at least some of the 
 originators — a too distant object, a matter too 
 remote to the immediate business in hand ? Was it 
 not allowed to obscure the real and immediate issue.
 
 76 RAID AND REFORM 
 
 and that in a disastrous manner, for instance, when 
 at the eleventh hour it appears to have inspired an 
 attempt to force the British flag on the internal 
 movement at Johannesburg, which was avowedly 
 and irretrievably republican in its object ? Federation 
 must bide its time ; and when it comes — if it come 
 at all — it can only come as the spontaneous wish of 
 the various States and Colonies of South Africa ; 
 attempts to force it drive it further away. 
 
 It has been contended, and not without reason, that 
 the Jameson plan was never put into execution, and 
 therefore never had a trial. Dr. Jameson, impatient 
 at delay, determined on an immediate movement, 
 which inevitably alienated the support of the British 
 Government and the aid of the High Commissioner, 
 both deemed indispensable to the original plan. In 
 fact they were the vital essence of the original plan ; 
 it was never supposed that the Jameson force plus 
 the men to be hurriedly armed in Johannesburg 
 could defeat the burgher army ; it was expected that 
 they would be able to hold Johannesburg until they 
 received the moral support of the High Commissioner 
 and if necessary the physical support of the British 
 Government. But if, as Mr. Charles Leonard says in 
 his evidence, things were "misfitting" in Johannes- 
 burg, they " misfitted " a good deal worse between 
 Capetown and the Colonial Office. Of any know- 
 ledge of the "Jameson plan" the Colonial Office
 
 VITAL ESSENCE OF THE JAMESON PLAN 77 
 
 have been, and in the Hght of the evidence must be, 
 acquitted. Moreover, Mr. Chamberlain's immediate 
 repudiation of Dr. Jameson's move was in itself con- 
 clusive. Of charges of Colonial Office complicity 
 the world is heartily sick. As Sir William Harcourt 
 said in the South African debate on the Committee's 
 Report : " Men have gone muttering about the world 
 and they are muttering still ; " but what particle of 
 proof has been forthcoming to justify all the head 
 shaking and inuendo ? Where then was this moral 
 support to come from ? 
 
 The fact is Mr. Rhodes was either deceived by 
 the sensational telegrams of his cable correspondents, 
 or he was mistaken in his estimate of the Colonial 
 Office mind. 
 
 He probably was both. 
 
 The latter he might not unnaturally to some 
 extent have been, by the policy which had induced 
 the Colonial Office to arrange for a joint expedition 
 with the Cape Goverment against the Transvaal 
 in case the ultimatum on the Drifts question was 
 not complied with ; as to the former, their ambiguous 
 language speaks for itself. 
 
 To be wise after the event is a privilege accorded 
 to Courts of Inquiry and even to writers ; and one 
 important question remains : Given the position of 
 the Uitlander in the Transvaal in 1895, was revo- 
 lution of any sort or kind a wise or expedient
 
 78 RAID AND REFORM 
 
 policy ? That it was justifiable, looking to the 
 aggravation of the position, I believe ; that is, if any 
 revolution or rebellion in the whole course of history 
 — and in the Transvaal there have been several — ever 
 was justifiable. Failure was its worst condemnation. 
 
 But was it in any shape or form expedient ? 
 Against the solid wall of Boer prejudice and 
 ignorance was it the most effective weapon ? 
 
 In the light of subsequent events it is probable 
 that any scheme involving the use by invasion of a 
 foreign force not directly under Imperial control 
 would have been doomed to failure. The arrival of 
 such a force at Johannesburg might have postponed 
 the catastrophe — it would not have averted it — 
 much less would it have achieved the object of a 
 revolution. On the other hand it is possible that 
 a movement purely internal, which would not have 
 alienated and wounded the Progressive Burgher 
 sentiment, and which would not have precluded 
 the possibility of some measure of Imperial sup- 
 port, might at least have obtained a liberal instalment 
 of reform. 
 
 But there is another alternative course which 
 might have been adopted. There was the alternative 
 of a firm but patient policy, carried on both internally 
 and externally within constitutional lines in the open 
 light of day. This statement would sound some- 
 what trite if it were not for the fact that at the time
 
 ALTERNATE POLICIES 79 
 
 we are reviewing new factors had been imported 
 into the problem which had not yet been taken into 
 the calculation, new elements had been introduced 
 into the position which were only beginning to make 
 their presence felt. 
 
 The true attitude of the British Government on 
 the question of the Drifts towards the end of 1895, 
 although known to Mr. Rhodes and other members 
 of the Cape Government, came as a revelation to the 
 world generally long after the Jameson Raid. The 
 British Government and the Government of the 
 Cape Colony pledged under certain conditions to 
 co-operate in coercing the Transvaal. Here was 
 an alliance, here was a menace which even the 
 Boer Executive could ^not have realised without 
 alarm. Unrest within, profound irritation without, 
 the British and Cape Colonial Government united, 
 some of the grievances of the Uitlander held to con- 
 stitute breaches of the Convention, a strong Conserva- 
 tive Government in office in England — was there 
 not material here for a statesman to manipulate ? 
 Would not co-operation with the Imperial authorities 
 at this juncture have been a better policy than any 
 policy of isolation ? But the incident is over, the 
 day has passed ; the great Proconsul, at least for a 
 time, is out of power, and the curtain has risen on a 
 new act in the South African political drama, which 
 it is not our object here to consider.
 
 8o RAID AND REFORM 
 
 The whole episode has not been the first, nor I 
 fear will it be the last blunder, committed on the 
 confines of a world-wide Empire. Every step has 
 been revealed for the edification and sometimes the 
 amusement of an eager public ; every mistake has 
 been duly censured, and every action which has 
 fallen below the ethical standard of public morality 
 been severely condemned. Fortunately, perhaps, 
 for the happiness of mankind, it is not given to 
 many persons to have either their public or their 
 private conduct laid so absolutely bare. The ver- 
 dict of posterity ^has been variously estimated ; but 
 as posterity will see things in perspective, that 
 portion of it which regards South African history 
 will find a bigger blunder looming larger on their 
 view on which to visit their condemnation. 
 
 They will look to 1881, and they will see a 
 British Colony, the Transvaal, with one section of 
 its inhabitants in rebellion ; they will see English 
 soldiers hurrying to the support of their defeated 
 and overpowered comrades countermanded ; their 
 fellow countrymen, loyal colonists, stoutly holding- 
 Pretoria and other towns, deserted and betrayed ; 
 concessions refused in the day of England's power, 
 granted under pressure of temporary defeat ; and 
 English prestige so shattered and pitiful a thing as 
 within the confines of South Africa to threaten the 
 very foundation of Empire.
 
 THE VERDICT OF POSTERITY 8l 
 
 In this they will recognise so many mistakes, so 
 many lapses from public virtue, so much of political 
 poltroonery, that beside it the Jameson Raid will 
 sink into insignificance. 
 
 They will observe, moreover, with something 
 akin to indignation, that the Ministers responsible 
 for this policy in 1881 were neither imprisoned, 
 fined, nor deprived of their commissions, and that 
 the Right Hon. W. E. Gladstone was not even 
 threatened with dismissal from Her Majesty's Privy 
 Council.
 
 82 THE DIARY OF A POLITICAL PRISONER 
 
 DIARY OF A POLITICAL PRISONER IN 
 PRETORIA 
 
 Note. — The sentences under which the sixty- 
 three Reform prisoners were sent from the High 
 Court of the Transvaal to Pretoria prison on 
 April 28th, 1895, were as follows : — 
 
 The four leaders were sentenced to death, which 
 sentence on the following day was commuted to 
 fifteen years' imprisonment. 
 
 The fifty-nine remaining Reformers were sen- 
 tenced to 
 
 Two years' imprisonment. 
 ;^2,ooo fine, or another year. 
 Three years' banishment. 
 
 Previous to the imprisonment under sentence 
 was the imprisonment after arrest in January, ex- 
 tending over a fortnight, but of this I kept no note 
 at the time. 
 
 The diary was written in [)rison at intervals 
 during the term of our imprisonment. It is not a
 
 AT PRETORIA 83 
 
 daily record, nor does it do more than describe some 
 of the details of the life there. A few portions of 
 no general interest are omitted. 
 
 It was written with a view more to filling up the 
 time then than to publication afterwards. I have 
 since added a few notes, which make the picture a 
 little more complete. 
 
 One of the first matters that came up for our 
 consideration was the question of whether we were 
 to be treated under ordinary gaol regulations, or 
 whether we were to have such treatment as political 
 prisoners or first-class misdemeanants would be 
 entitled to in most civilised countries. In this 
 question were involved such points as clothing, 
 food, correspondence, and the right to see friends. 
 Our accommodation was as vile as it could be ; the 
 prison food, which we had tried for some days, con- 
 sisted of mealie meal porridge at 7 a.m. with salt. 
 At noon, thin soup, coarse meat and bread. At 
 4 p.m. mealie meal with salt, water ad lib. and no 
 other liquid. 
 
 To many men the porridge and salt were uneat- 
 able, and at the end of a few days there were men 
 weak and ill from hunger. It was therefore obvious 
 that a continuance of this food must mean illness to 
 a certain number. 
 
 At this juncture we were informed that if we 
 applied for privileges as political prisoners, they 
 
 G 2
 
 84 THE DIARY OF A POLITICAL PRISONER 
 
 would be granted ; failing an application we were to 
 don prison clothes on the following day and continue 
 prison food. The men who objected to signing this 
 application urged that it would be better to come 
 under gaol regulations, wear prison clothes, &c., 
 than ask for any privileges. As against this it was 
 urged that we were only asking for what we were 
 entitled to in the way of treatment ; and the request, 
 partially signed, was eventually sent in, with the 
 result that some modification of the regulations was 
 allowed. 
 
 Pretoria Prison, 
 
 May, 1895. 
 
 Our daily life here is somewhat monotonous. 
 We rise about seven, and take a walk in the 
 yard. We then wash in the muddy stream which 
 runs through the yard, {Note : — When it was not 
 occupied by native prisoners washing their clothes,) 
 and have breakfast. After breakfast beds, consist- 
 ing of straw mattresses on the floor, have to be 
 taken out, and the cells are swept by native prison- 
 ers. Men spend the morning according to their 
 different tastes — walking, talking, loafing, or reading 
 and writing. The difficulty of both the latter is to 
 find a spot which is quiet and shaded. I am now 
 writing among the trunks in the cell used for our 
 luggage. It is the best spot I know. The great- 
 est drawback to our life is the tlirong : there are
 
 PRISON LIFE 85: 
 
 sixty-three of us all crowded together, and anything 
 like even momentary seclusion is almost impossible. 
 In the cells or rooms themselves there is always 
 inevitably noise and movement. In our cell there 
 are, or rather originally were, thirty-five men. It is a 
 small low structure, of galvanised iron sheeting, 22 feet 
 long by 14 feet 6 inches across, and about 9 feet high. 
 {Note ."—The inner, or back wall of our cell, which 
 is described in the diary, was only the thickness of 
 a sheet of corrugated iron, and was one common to 
 ourselves and the inmates of a similar cell on the 
 other side of it, who were a lot of native prisoners. 
 We heard their every word and movement ; and 
 through the greater portion of one night the short 
 gasping respiration of a poor Kaffir dying from 
 pneumonia. Our mattresses, which were small, 
 covered the whole of the floor, with the exception of 
 a narrow gangway down the middle. We were 
 thus for sleeping purposes packed something like 
 sardines.) 
 
 The floor of our cell is boarded, but not the walls. 
 It is villainously ventilated, with small holes cut in 
 the corrugated iron wall. These holes are situated 
 near the roof, and are about one foot long and six 
 inches deep. It is naturally hot by day and cold by 
 night. The yard of bare gravel into which our cell 
 opens is the best feature about the prison. In this 
 we can get fresh open air, and as it is about 50
 
 86 THE DIARY OF A POLITICAL PRISONER 
 
 yards square, a fair stretch for exercise. {Note: — 
 The yard was the one used by all the native 
 prisoners as well as ourselves.) 
 
 Mr. Clemens (Mark Twain) visited us yesterday, 
 and gave us a bright hour of his conversation. He 
 is a man of somewhat delicate physique, but with a 
 fine head, shaggy eyebrows, a shock of strong grey 
 hair, and a long eye which nearly closes when he 
 laughs. He speaks in the slow American staccato 
 manner, and has an easy and graceful command of 
 language. He spoke of prison life as in many 
 respects an ideal existence, the one he had ever 
 sought, and never found — healthy, undisturbed, 
 plenty of repose, no fatigue, no distraction — such a 
 life as enabled Bunyan to write the Pilgri77ts 
 Progress, and Cervantes Don Quixote. Bunyan 
 while in prison had for companions " angels, devils, 
 and other scarecrows," and he enjoyed many hand- 
 some adventures and interesting travels without un- 
 due risk and with no more concern than was involved 
 in their superintendence on paper. The body of 
 Cervantes may have been enclosed in four walls ; but 
 his spirit roamed at large, and he had for his friends 
 two such splendid fellows as Don Quixote and 
 Sancho Panza. Thus two great works classic for 
 all time would probably never have seen the light 
 had it not been for the imprisonment of these two 
 men. For himself, Mark Twain continued, he could
 
 MARK TWAIN CALLS S7 
 
 conceive of nothing better than such a life ; he 
 "Would willingly change places with any one of us, 
 ar.d, with such an opportunity as had never yet 
 been offered him before, would write a book — the 
 bock of his life. Of course some of us failed to look 
 at It in this philosophic light, and he admitted that it 
 was not always easy to discover the concealed com- 
 pensation which invariably existed under apparently 
 adverse circumstances. Still, this was such a clear 
 case that he would assuredly, in the interview which 
 he WIS to have with the President on the followino- 
 day, endeavour to get our sentences extended. For 
 Clement — one of the prisoners who improperly spelt 
 his name with a " t " — descended like himself on the 
 left-hand side from a long papal ancestry, he would 
 endeavour to get thirty years. 
 
 There is a run on the luggage room this morning, 
 and I have had to move on to the yard, where I 
 am now lying on my bed, trying to write legibly. 
 At noon I generally take some of the prison soup 
 and bread. At 5 p.m. we have dinner ; and this, as 
 well as breakfast, is now sent in from outside. We 
 have formed into different messes, and two members 
 of each mess are appointed daily to superintend 
 operations. As we have neither chairs nor tables, 
 these operations are somewhat intricate. Planks are 
 raised on boxes, newspapers spread on the planks ; 
 and the meal, with such plates, cups, knives, forks.
 
 88 THE DIARY OF A POLITICAL PRISONER 
 
 &c,, as we are able to muster placed on them. 
 Baskets and small boxes serve as seats. Visitors 
 are allowed in daily, for ten minutes each, from ten 
 to twelve and two to four, except on Sundays, 
 Saturdays and public holidays. For the first ttree 
 weeks we slept with mattresses on the floor ; but 
 since Hull and King, two of our number, have been 
 liberated, they have used their influence in our 
 behalf and have procured stretchers ; these are aa im- 
 provement, as it is trying work to be always stting 
 or lying on the ground. Perhaps our best tine is 
 after dinner in the evenings. When we first came 
 in we were locked up at 5.30 p.m., and lights liad to 
 be extinguished shortly afterwards ; these rules were 
 gradually relaxed, and now lights are allowed to any 
 reasonable hour, and doors remain open till 8 30 p.m. 
 A new moon rose shortly after our imprisonment, 
 and now is making to the full. Nightly we see her 
 in our after-dinner stroll — white and splendid in the 
 still deep tropic sky. Inside scratch games of whist 
 and poker are being played ; and in the little inner 
 yard, outside Jim Leonards' cell — the piazza, as we 
 call it — Muggins Williams sings, in a fair tenor 
 voice, a host of ballads, operettas, and songs, of 
 which he remembers with wonderful facility both the 
 melody and the words. It is a poor heart that never 
 rejoices ; and as the last candle is blown out the 
 snoring brigade, of which we have a large con-
 
 FELLOW PRISONERS 89 
 
 tingent in our cell, take up the running, happy them- 
 selves and " innocent of hostile intent," but adding 
 one more to the cares that produce insomnia in 
 their less fortunate friends. 
 
 Amongst us are men of all nationalities — men of 
 all creeds and no creeds — of every shade of opinion 
 — political, ethical, or religious — British, English 
 South African, and Dutch South African, Americans, 
 Hollander, Swiss, Germans, a Turkish Effendi and 
 a Scotch baronet.^ Barristers, lawyers, doctors, 
 mining men, speculators, commercial men — all are 
 represented. Men of great wealth and men of 
 poverty — luxurious effeminate men and hardy 
 pioneers — lie side by side on the prison floor, and 
 whistle or sigh as the spirit moves them to the 
 morning star shining clear through the narrow 
 window. For if, as Bacon says, " adversity doth 
 best discover virtue," it also "makes strange bed- 
 fellows." Of raconteurs we have our share ; and 
 none of us will ever forget the pithy yarns of those 
 astute old Americans, Mein and Lingham. Their 
 supply would, if necessary, last out the two years. 
 They never tell the same yarn twice, and never tell a 
 flat one. There are among us men who are staunch 
 
 ^ The Reform Committee, of which only sixty-three were arrested 
 or voluntarily surrendered themselves, actually consisted of thirty- 
 four men of British nationality, seventeen South Africans, eight 
 Americans, two Germans, one Australian, one Swiss, one Hollander, 
 one Turk, and one Transvaal burgher.
 
 90 THE DIARY OF A POLITICAL PRISONER 
 
 champions and pillars of the Y.M.C.A., and men 
 whose language is shockingly frequent and free. 
 One is a vegetarian and has conscientious objections 
 to penny points at whist ; others of our number 
 have in their time lost and won thousands at 
 poker. 
 
 Literature in prison. — My two books since I 
 have been here have been Macaulay's Essays and 
 Plutarch's Lives. Of the former I have been read- 
 ing again the essay on Bacon. Bacon's career as 
 Attorney-General and Judge is interesting politically, 
 as throwing a lurid light on the influence exercised 
 by the Crown on the courts of justice in England in 
 the days of James I. To this practice Bacon lent 
 himself an only too willing instrument, and in this 
 matter he covered an illustrious name with ignominy. 
 He was an opportunist, and a somewhat sordid one. 
 As a philosopher he has conferred a great debt on 
 mankind. He saw the barrenness of the specula- 
 tions of the Platonists and the Schoolmen, and 
 became the founder of the Philosophy of Fruit, as he 
 called it. In his De Augyneyitis and Novum Organum 
 he set forth in most brilliant manner the claims of 
 experiment and research in every department of 
 nature, the sciences and arts. Experimental philo- 
 sophy, not metaphysics, was his doctrine ; and the 
 exposition of this, along with his Lnductive Logic, 
 seem to have constituted his great life work.
 
 LITERATURE IN PRISON 91 
 
 I have read several of Plutarch's lives. His 
 favourite method appears to be to take a famous 
 Greek and a famous Roman, and, after giving the 
 life and history of both in separate essays, to 
 compare the two. The parallel is generally a 
 striking one, and serves to illustrate more than 
 anything else how Greek civilisation, with its philo- 
 sophy, art, and political institutions, impressed itself 
 upon Rome. The writing is concise and condensed, 
 and the comparison is made in an epitome of both 
 lives in a short essay by itself — to epitomise all 
 this again is difficult. In vol. ii. the essays on 
 Alcibiades and Cams Marcius Coriolanus are most 
 interesting. Alcibiades, in whom the pursuit of 
 pleasure was as strong a passion as ambition, has 
 been for ages the ideal of numbers of men of the 
 Bulwer Lytton type. His liberality, eloquence, 
 beauty, bravery, and personal strength all won the 
 hearts of the Athenians. 
 
 Coriolanus, who was exiled, returned at the head 
 of an armed force of Volscians against Rome. The 
 appeals of ambassadors and priests were disregarded 
 by him ; but he gave way to the appeal of his 
 mother and wife, who prostrated themselves before 
 him, begging that Rome might be spared. His 
 leniency cost him his life, for he was slain by 
 the indignant Volscians on his return to Antrium. 
 
 These notes are written a week or two after
 
 92 THE DIARY OF A POLITICAL PRISONER 
 
 reading the essays ; and the conditions for reading" 
 in the midst of the sixty-three Reform prisoners 
 have been so bad that my recollection of details is 
 uncertain. At present, after a month in a cell with 
 thirty-four others, I am sharing a small room with 
 Bettelheim, which gives one more quiet. 
 
 The extremes of virtue and vice, crime and 
 high nobility of character, in these old Greeks and 
 Romans are astounding — heights high as heaven 
 and depths deep as hell, as Ouida puts it in re- 
 ference to some of her heroes. The two extremes 
 occasionally, though rarely, occur in the same 
 individual. 
 
 Among the moralists Aristides and Cato the 
 Censor are the most interesting ; and I think 
 Plutarch's essay on the last is the best of his I have 
 read. Cato was parsimonious, industrious, and 
 severe. The position of censor was the highest 
 dignity in the Roman Republic. " For, beside 
 the power and authority that attended this office, 
 it gave the magistrate a right of inquiry into the 
 lives and manners of the citizens. The Romans 
 did not think it proper that any one should be 
 left to follow his own inclinations without inspection 
 or control, cither in marriage, in the procreation 
 of children, in his tabic, or in the company he 
 kept."i 
 
 * Aristides and Cato compared, see p. 340
 
 MESS 93 
 
 Yesterday Bettelheim and I moved into a little 
 room with earth floor opening on the main yard. 
 This gives one some quiet and peace for reading 
 or writing. Our furniture is of course confined to 
 the stretchers and blankets, it still being apparently 
 impossible to get in tables or chairs. For the last 
 few evenings I have been learning poker. 
 
 New building is going up apace, yet benevolent 
 rumours about further mitigation amounting to 
 immediate release keep coming in. Jim is more 
 sanguine than ever. 
 
 I have succeeded in getting off Bettington and 
 Clement, both of whom have been ill, to hospital in 
 the last few days — previously Joel, Buckland, and 
 Lingham had gone up there. Hammond is the 
 only American left in now. The question of appeal 
 for mitigation of the sentence to the Executive of 
 the Government has caused much discussion among 
 us. As usual, all shades of view. Our demand is 
 simply for justice. South Africa denounces the 
 sentence. 
 
 For feeding purposes we are divided up into 
 messes. My first mess included Fritz Mosen- 
 thal, Buckland, and Brodie ; but as all these were 
 on the free list, as the list of those first liberated 
 is called, their departure necessitated new arrange- 
 ments ; so I have since cut in with St. John Carr, 
 H. A. Rogers, Dr. Mitchell, Van Hulsteyn,
 
 94 THE DIARY OF A POLITICAL PRISONER 
 
 Hosken, and Clement. Two of us are on duty 
 daily. 
 
 Number two mess have obtained — fairly or not I 
 don't know — the reputation of jumping everything 
 worth having in the way of boxes, planks, milk, 
 knives, forks, &c., that are to be found ; so Sandy 
 last night, when the mess was decorously asleep, 
 inscribed their walls in large letters with the legend 
 " Beware of pickpockets." 
 
 Du Plessis, the gaoler, is a typical Boer. He is an 
 intimate friend of the President and an old one ; and 
 although a rough old wolf, is not without intelligence. 
 (Note : — He had a keen nose for contraband articles, 
 such as cigars in the provision baskets sent in.) 
 
 It has been announced that the banishment part 
 of our sentence, which was subject to the confirma- 
 tion of the Executive, has now been confirmed by 
 them ; this, it was explained by our legal Reform 
 colleagues, including the Q.C., was probably only 
 done as a matter of form and out of courtesy to 
 the Judge ; nevertheless, when daily led by all our 
 Pretoria attorneys to expect an early mitigation, it 
 came as rather an unpleasant surprise — to Grey 
 it was a cause of great consternation — confirming 
 his worst fears that the whole sentence was to be 
 carried out in its entirety, and that all the outside 
 rumours that reached us were simply intended to 
 lull us into a fool's paradise. I had a talk with him
 
 DEATH OF FRED GREY 95 
 
 on the whole question on Friday, and took the best 
 view I could of the situation. I assured him that 
 there was no need for despondency, and that the 
 matter would be favourably settled within a few 
 days. The following night he professed to have 
 slept well, but on Saturday morning after taking a 
 walk and talking apparently cheerfully with Duirs, 
 he slipped away and ended his own life. I was 
 on the spot before he actually died ; but it was 
 the most determined case of suicide I have ever 
 seen, and on the Diamond Fields and Gold Fields 
 I have seen a good many. He was dead within 
 a minute of the occurrence. 
 
 The funeral was arranged for outside. We drew 
 up behind the hearse sent to fetch the body, and 
 with bare heads followed it across the yard to the 
 prison gates, where our procession ended. 
 
 It was a sad day for us all, and one we are not 
 likely ever to forget. His poor distracted wife had 
 been in daily to see and comfort him, spending the 
 brief ten minutes allowed her by the authorities 
 with him in the open yard — their only meeting 
 place. She knew of his constitutional nervous 
 weakness, and dreaded the worst. It was of her 
 and of our own anxious harassed wives we thought, 
 when poor Grey's end came. 
 
 This event has naturally cast a gloom over us 
 all, and made a tremendous impression in Pretoria
 
 96 THE DIARY OF A POLITICAL PRISONER 
 
 and throughout South Africa. The suspense lasting 
 over three weeks has been trying, and its effect has 
 been very much heightened by the assurances of 
 well-meaning but ill-informed friends, who, visiting 
 us daily, have kept reiterating from the very first 
 day of our incarceration that the sentences would 
 be forthwith considered — considered so favourably 
 that the imprisonment in probably all the cases of 
 the fifty-nine would be entirely remitted. This had 
 gone on day after day, and it was but small wonder 
 that one or two per cent, of mankind should be 
 mentally worn out and affected by it. As a matter 
 of fact, with very few exceptions up to the time of 
 Grey's death, men had taken it philosophically and 
 well. The "to-morrow" of the optimists became a 
 standing joke, and many an evening the cells rang 
 with laughter over the yarns of Yankee diggers and 
 South African pioneers. 
 
 It is the custom every Sunday for one or two 
 clergymen of different denominations to obtain leave 
 of admission and hold service among us. These 
 services, generally held in cells two and three, were 
 fairly attended and appreciated by many of the 
 Reformers. 
 
 On Monday evening — to have been the evening 
 of our release — we were slill in, but licard that a 
 decision h;i(i been come to ; later on that night we 
 leariU that it was unfavourable.
 
 AT THE KING'S PLEASURE 97 
 
 At eleven the next morning our sanguine, devoted 
 and never-deterred Pretoria attorneys arrived with 
 long lists in their hands. Eight of the fifty-nine 
 were to be released forthwith ; twenty-three, myself 
 amongst them, had our sentences reduced to three 
 months ; some were to be considered again in five 
 months, and four in twelve months. The four 
 leaders were still under fifteen years* sentence, and 
 had not yet been considered. 
 
 Only in the case of the three months' men was 
 the commutation absolute ; in the cases of the five 
 and twelve months' men, whose sentences were to 
 be reconsidered at the expiration of these periods, 
 the pretence at commutation was a farce. 
 
 Thus, what the prosecution, after months of 
 collecting, sifting, and weighing evidence, did not 
 deem it its duty to do ; what the Judge, whose func- 
 tion it was above all others to perform, apparently 
 felt himself unable or unjustified to attempt ; the 
 Executive did. They endeavoured to discriminate 
 between fifty-nine men, all of whom had pleaded 
 guilty to the same offence. 
 
 This action was not merely unwise, it was as an 
 act of clemency or even justice ridiculous. It was 
 the first false step the Boer Government had taken 
 throughout the course of the whole movement ; it 
 did not bear on its face the Kruger hall mark, and, 
 as we are informed, it was taken in the teeth of 
 
 H
 
 98 THE DIARY OF A POLITICAL PRISONER 
 
 Kruger's strong opposition. Underlying it was 
 palpably the idea of holding a number of men 
 prisoners, practically "at the King's pleasure" as 
 political pawns. 
 
 Following this decision in a few days came the 
 erection of a new iron building opposite cell No. 3 
 in the prison yard — for our better accommodation ; 
 and the information from Du Plessis that inquiries 
 were being made from the State Prosecutor's office 
 as to the accommodation at the various prisons 
 throughout the country, viler hells possibly even 
 than the one at Pretoria. Du Plessis, however, 
 told us that this splitting up throughout the country 
 would not be carried out if we were content with 
 our accommodation — a hint not to grumble further. 
 
 July 20th, 1896, finds me, thank God, with all 
 my family aboard the good ship " Norman " in mid- 
 Atlantic bound for Southampton. As my prison 
 diary still wants completing, I take this the first 
 opportunity of leisure since our release to finish it. 
 
 The mitigation to the shorter periods of sentence, 
 while it gave some relief to the three months men, 
 was felt to be most unsatisfactory as regards all the 
 others, not only in the prison itself, but throughout 
 South Africa. Fresh petitions, got up in some 
 instances, I believe, at Kruger's instigation, kept 
 coming in ; delegates were sent up from the Free 
 State and from nearly every town in the Cape
 
 THE FOUR LEADERS 99 
 
 Colony and Natal ; and we soon learnt that in all 
 probability the sentences would again be considered 
 by the Executive. On May 30th their further 
 decision was announced. All, with the exception 
 of six, were released on payment of the fines, ^2,000 
 each and the signature of the bond to take no active 
 part in Transvaal politics for three years from the 
 date of release, which was substituted in lieu of 
 banishment for that period. 
 
 We reached Johannesburg on the evening of May 
 30th. We were cheered by sympathetic friends as 
 the train passed the different mines along the reef, 
 and at Park Station we got a hearty reception. 
 
 Note. — A few weeks after the release of the fifty- 
 six prisoners, the four leaders were released on 
 payment of ^25,000 each and a signature of a 
 bond to take no further part in the politics of the 
 Transvaal. This last was signed by all but Col. 
 Frank Rhodes, w^ho in place of it incurred the 
 penalty of banishment. Messrs. Karri Davis and 
 Sampson, the two irreconcilables, refusing to make 
 any request whatever of the Government, were left 
 in prison. Inasmuch as there was no special 
 purpose to be served by this action or rather inaction 
 on their part it has been described as unreasonable 
 and quixotic. Quixotic it may have been, but 
 courageous it undoubtedly was ; and one cannot deny 
 that in making any request whatever of the Boer 
 
 H 2
 
 loo THE DIARY OF A POLITICAL PRISONER 
 
 Executive, there was a sense of humiliatian. Eng- 
 land will not regret that two of her sons declined to 
 suffer it, while History will award them the honour 
 due to their pride and their fortitude. 
 
 They remained in prison, as all the world knows, 
 for fifteen months, and were then released by the 
 Transvaal Government on the occasion of Her 
 Majesty's Jubilee. 
 
 With regard to the four leaders, Mr. Lionel 
 Phillips, Colonel Rhodes, Mr. George Farrer, and 
 Mr. Hammond, it is due to them to say that they 
 bore the death sentence, as well as the tremendous 
 strain caused by the uncertainty as to their fate, from 
 the time of their arrest to the time of their release, 
 a period of five months, with undaunted courage. 
 
 Some incidents occurred during our imprisonment 
 in Pretoria of which I made no note in my diary, 
 but which I think are worth recording. The day 
 after our arrival I visited the small collection of cells 
 opening off an inner yard, which passes for the 
 hospital in Pretoria prison. I found a hospital 
 orderly in charge, and as I entered he greeted me 
 by name. I looked at the man, but failed to re- 
 cognise him. I then asked him how he came to 
 know me, and he replied that he remembered me 
 well on the Diamond Fields, seven years before, 
 when Dr. Jameson and I were practising in partner- 
 ship. During his incarceration — such arc " the slings
 
 DOUBLE OR QUITS loi 
 
 and arrows of outrageous fortune "—both members 
 of that once reputable firm had been prisoners in 
 Pretoria prison. 
 
 Tasked him what his offence had been, and he 
 told me that finding himself destitute, he and some 
 others had robbed a safe, belonging, if I re- 
 member rightly, to some Dutch church. I then 
 asked him what his sentence was ; and he 
 replied, with a grim smile on his face which I 
 shall never forget, "Only a quarter of a century." 
 " What ! " I rejoined, " twenty-five years ? " " Yes, 
 sir ; you see " — the man was an Irishman — " the 
 Judge had no taste for gambling ; he sentenced me 
 for twenty years. ' Twenty years ! ' said I ; ' you 
 don't mean that. I'll toss you double or quits.' And 
 he gave me another five for contempt of court ; so 
 I'm in for a quarter of a century." 
 
 Among other relics of a bygone and more bar- 
 barous age which still linger about Pretoria prison 
 is that ancient instrument of mild torture, the stocks. 
 And the sight of some unfortunate native sitting 
 sullen and morose with his feet securely locked 
 therein became a common and familiar one to us. 
 But one morning the scene was slightly changed. 
 The stocks had been moved to a position imme- 
 diately facing our cells, and as we came out about 
 sunrise we were astonished to see seated in it the 
 figure of a white man, and an Englishman. He
 
 I02 THE DIARY OF A POLITICAL PRISONER 
 
 was an old man with grey hair and beard, wear- 
 ing an old tweed suit, and on his head a battered 
 white top hat. He sat up — as well as might be — 
 with his hands outstretched behind him, supporting 
 himself in his uncomfortable and cramped position. 
 The sight of this quaint woebegone figure would 
 have made a subject for a picture in the last century. 
 The effect at first was almost ludicrous, but the 
 pathos of it was too great for this sensation to be 
 more than momentary. As far as I can recall his 
 history, he had been a tutor with a Boer family. 
 During the Crisis a political discussion had arisen 
 between the Dominie and the Laird — which became 
 so warm that it ended in general riot, and a breaking 
 of windows. The poor Dominie being hauled 
 before a stern Boer magistrate was fined, bound 
 over to keep the peace, and called upon to find a 
 surety for ^50. Not having 50i-. the delinquent 
 was marched off to Pretoria prison. Here he had 
 been guilty of some breach of prison discipline, 
 which resulted in the stocks. That day one of our 
 number instructed his agent to pay the fine and 
 lodge the necessary security, and we had the satis- 
 faction a day or two afterwards of seeing our friend, 
 after carefully adjusting his hat, pulling on a well- 
 worn pair of gloves, and bidding us a hurried adieu, 
 depart from Pretoria prison with the dignity of the 
 Dominie somewhat restored.
 
 IN THE STOCKS 103 
 
 On another occasion a particularly recalcitrant 
 Kaffir of herculean proportions had been placed in 
 these same stocks — which, like the Dominie's hat, 
 were themselves rather old and worse for wear. As 
 he sat there dogged and silent resting on his hands 
 stretched out behind him, a constable came up and 
 ordered him to raise his hands from the ground. 
 
 Now as the stocks had no lateral posts to hold on 
 by, and a man placed in them had his feet raised in 
 front of him, to sit up without the support of his 
 hands stretched to the ground behind for more 
 than a few minutes at a time, was a physical im- 
 possibility. 
 
 The Kaffir either did not understand or would 
 not comply with the constable's request, and the 
 constable kicked one of his hands from beneath 
 him. This act so incensed one of our number, 
 Mr. " Bill Goddard," who happened to be by at the 
 moment, that he roundly abused the constable. In 
 the meantime the Kaffir, who was nothing less than 
 a giant in strength, made one prodigious effort and 
 broke the stocks. Springing to his feet he seized a 
 splinter of wood with which he would assuredly have 
 brained the constable, if he had not fled for his life 
 to the nearest shelter. 
 
 Next morning the Kaffir appeared in heavy 
 chains. 
 
 Among the visitors who came to see us most
 
 I04 THE DIARY OF A POLITICAL PRISONER 
 
 frequently while in Pretoria Prison was the late 
 Mr. B. I. Barnato, or Barney, as he was more 
 familiarly known. He took the keenest interest in 
 our welfare, and undoubtedly used every influence 
 he possessed to expedite our release. But when 
 once inside the gates of the prison the life-long 
 habit of banter almost invariably came over him, 
 and many were the little jokes he scored at our 
 expense, and many the stories he told. 
 
 On one occasion, when making somewhat caustic 
 reference to the whole movement which had placed 
 us there, and including Rhodes, Jameson, Reform 
 Committee, and every one else connected with the 
 movement in his strictures, he remarked that we had 
 all tried to play a game of poker with the Transvaal 
 Government on a " Colley Thumper " hand. The 
 term was a new one, and we asked him what he 
 meant by a " Colley Thumper." 
 
 In explanation he told the following story : An 
 English traveller with a not very extensive know- 
 ledge of poker, found himself on one occasion 
 engaged in a game with an astute old Yankee on 
 board an American steamer. Playing cautiously 
 the Englishman did pretty well, until he suddenly 
 found himself, to his great satisfaction, in possession 
 of a full hand. 
 
 The players alternately doubled the stakes until 
 they were raised to /^loo. The Englishman then
 
 BARNATO ON POLITICAL POKER 105 
 
 called the American's hand, and the American 
 deliberately put down a pair of deuces, a four, a 
 seven, and a nine. The Englishman with a 
 triumphant smile put down his full hand, and pro- 
 ceeded to gather up the stakes. " Stop," said the 
 Yankee ; " the stakes are mine ; yours is only a 
 full hand, mine is a ' Colley Thumper ' ; it beats 
 everything." The Englishman had never heard 
 of such a hand before, but he determined not to 
 show his ignorance, and reluctantly relinquished the 
 stakes. The game then proceeded until at length 
 the Englishman found himself in possession of a 
 pair of deuces, a four, a seven, and a nine. Betting 
 went on freely until the stakes were raised to ;!^5oo. 
 The Englishman again called, and the Yankee put 
 down a straight. "Ah," said the joyful English- 
 man, " Mine is a ' Colley Thumper.' " " True," 
 said the American ; " but you forget the rules. 
 It only counts once in an evening."
 
 APPENDIX 
 
 Letter to the Secretary British South Africa 
 Select Committee appointed by the House of 
 Commons. 
 
 40 Weymouth Street, 
 Portland Place, W., 
 
 March 2,0th, 1897. 
 
 Dear Sir, — In reply to your request that I should give 
 some account of my connection with the Reform Move- 
 ment in Johannesburg, I may state that I became a mem- 
 ber of the Reform Committee at the end of last year, and 
 was subsequently imprisoned and jfined with the rest of that 
 body in Pretoria. . 
 
 I was actuated in joining the movement — not so much 
 from a sense of the burdens placed upon the gold mining 
 industry by the Government as by a desire to obtain some 
 liberal instalment of reform, and if possible a remodelling 
 of the constitution of the country — especially dealing with 
 the Franchise, Education, and the Courts of Justice. 
 
 I was for some years in medical practice in Johannesburg 
 with no special desire nor leisure for public work ; but I 
 was placed upon the Council of Education and other 
 public committees, and thus came gradually to realise the
 
 io8 APPENDIX 
 
 hopelessness, by simply constitutional means, of obtaining 
 redress from the Government. 
 
 Resolutions at public meetings embodying civil requests 
 to the Government were not even vouchsafed an answer, 
 e.g. the combined meeting of the Chambers of Commerce 
 and of Mines in September, 1895. 
 
 Petitions were jeered at and deputations insulted. 
 
 Under these circumstances I with many others felt some 
 action to be a public duty, and on this ground we joined 
 the Reform Movement. 
 
 Should the British South Africa Committee desire to 
 hear my evidence, I will submit a precis of such evidence 
 at the earliest opportunity. 
 
 I am, Sir, 
 
 Yours very truly, 
 Alfred P. Hillier, B.A., M.D.
 
 TWO ESSAYS ON THE ANTIQUITY 
 OF MAN IN SOUTH AFRICA
 
 THE ANTIQUITY OF MAN IN SOUTH 
 AFRICA, AND EVOLUTION. 
 
 "While we have been straining our eyes to the 
 East, and eagerly watching excavations in Egypt 
 and Assyria, suddenly a new light has arisen in the 
 midst of us ; and the oldest relics of man yet dis- 
 covered have occurred, not among the ruins of 
 Nineveh or Heliopolis, not on the sandy plains of 
 the Nile, or the Euphrates ; but in the pleasant 
 valleys of England and France, along the banks 
 of the Seine and the Somme, the Thames and the 
 Waveney." Thus wrote Sir John Lubbock in his 
 Prehistoric Tii7ies twenty years ago. The 
 " new light," a very dim and flickering flame 
 at first, was kept burning for several years almost 
 entirely by the zeal and determination of one man, 
 M. Boucher de Perthes. In 1841, this discoverer, 
 at Menchecourt near Abbeville, first found a rudely- 
 fashioned flint buried in some sand. The flint, so 
 he surmised, had been intended for a cutting 
 instrument. For some years in the same neigh-
 
 112 THE ANTIQUITY OF MAN 
 
 bourhood he continued searching, and found at 
 intervals several other similar weapons and several 
 so called stone hatchets. At length, in 1846, he 
 published his first work on the subject. In this he 
 announced that he had found human implements 
 in beds unmistakably belonging to the age of the 
 Drift. On the strength of the discovery he con- 
 tended that man had existed on the earth contem- 
 poraneously with many now extinct mammals whose 
 remains are found in the drift, and that the period 
 of man's existence upon the earth must be pushed 
 back far beyond the limits hitherto assigned to it by 
 antiquaries. His astonished readers, with that 
 hostile incredulity which in all times has assailed 
 new truths, regarded him as a rash enthusiast, if not 
 indeed a madman. For many years he made few 
 converts. At length some of the less sceptical men 
 in the scientific world began to investigate the 
 matter for themselves. In their wake followed 
 many others ; until at length the verdict, an almost 
 unanimous one, was given. The implements, rude 
 though they seemed, were recognised as of human 
 origin : no process in nature could account for them. 
 Rough and ill shapen they were, but nevertheless 
 unmistakable were the indications of the skill 
 of man. 
 
 The co-existence of the makers of these imple- 
 ments with extinct mammals, and the antiquity of
 
 IN SOUTH AFRICA 113 
 
 the beds in which the implements were found, still 
 remained, however, to some extent open questions. 
 To these questions — questions of the very deepest 
 interest to the theological, scientific and thinking 
 world generally — geological experts, notably Sir 
 Charles Lyell, now turned their attention. In his 
 work on the " Antiquity of Man " Sir Charles Lyell, 
 in a clear, comprehensive and impartial style, lays 
 before his readers the mass of evidence he has to 
 adduce on this subject. His conclusions, supported 
 as they are by the researches of experts of all 
 nationalities, are to any unbiassed mind convincing. 
 Man's co-existence in Europe with species of large 
 pachydermatous mammals long since extinct, and at 
 a time when the climate in what are now temperate 
 latitudes was as severe as in Northern Russia to- 
 day, has gradually come to be regarded as a 
 scientific fact. Man's appearance upon the earth 
 would seem to have occurred, not as was generally 
 supposed a few odd thousand years ago, but at a 
 far more remote period amongst those aeons of time, 
 the vastness of which the science of geology has 
 revealed. Prior to the discoveries of M. Boucher 
 de Perthes it is only fair to say that one or two 
 other discoverers had called attention to similar 
 stone implements, but without avail. M. de Perthes 
 was the first to secure public attention and scientific 
 conviction. After him followed others ; and stone 
 
 I
 
 114 THE ANTIQUITY OF MAN 
 
 implements were discovered in several parts of 
 the world. 
 
 The age in which stone implements were used 
 by man is that known as the Stone Age, and is 
 divided roughly into two periods, though in some 
 parts of the world the distinction between the two 
 is very uncertain, the one merging imperceptibly into 
 the other. The two periods are: (i) Palaeolithic 
 or age of the Drift, " when man shared the 
 possession of Europe with the mammoth, the cave- 
 bear and other extinct mammals." (2.) The later 
 or polished Stone Age ; a period characterised by 
 beautiful weapons and instruments made of flint 
 and other kinds of stone ; in which, however, we 
 find no trace of the knowledge of any metal, 
 excepting gold, which seems to have been some- 
 times used for ornaments. This is called the 
 Neolithic Period. It is with the former of these two 
 periods, and with what we believe corresponds with 
 this period in South Africa, that I purpose chiefly 
 to deal in this paper. To this period it is that 
 M. de Perthes' implements from the valley of the 
 Somme belong. As the river drift or alluvium of 
 the Somme valley is peculiarly rich in implements 
 of an antique type, and as in its general ap[)earance 
 and structure it closely resembles numbers of other 
 river valleys in England and France, a brief descrip- 
 tion of it and its implements culled from the pages
 
 IN SOUTH AFRICA 115 
 
 of Lyell and Lubbock will perhaps enable us the 
 better to appreciate the sort of evidence adduced on 
 this subject. The prevailing forms of these imple- 
 ments are : firstly, those of spear-headed form, from 
 6 to 8 inches in length ; secondly, those of oval 
 form, not unlike some stone implements used to this 
 day as hatchets and tomahawks by the Australian 
 natives, but with this difference, that the edge in 
 the Australian weapons, as in the case of those so 
 called "celts" in Europe, has been produced by 
 friction ; whereas the cutting edge in the old tools of 
 the valley of the Somme was always gained by the 
 simple fracture of the flint, and by the repetition of 
 many dexterous blows. Some of these tools were 
 probably used as weapons both of war and of the 
 chase, others to grub up roots, cut down trees, and 
 scoop out canoes. Between the spear-head and 
 oval shapes there are various intermediate grada- 
 tions, and there are also a vast variety of very rude 
 implements, many of which may have been rejected 
 as failures, and others struck off as chips in the 
 course of manufacturing the more perfect ones. To 
 describe without the aid of diagrams the structure 
 of the alluvial deposits in the valley of the Somme, 
 in which these implements are found, is not so 
 simple a task as to describe the implements them- 
 selves. I will, however, briefly endeavour to make 
 clear the main features. The chalk hills which 
 
 I 2
 
 ii6 THE ANTIQUITY OF MAN 
 
 bound the valley are 200 or 300 feet in height. 
 The masses of drift or alluvium lie in the bottom of 
 the valley, and on the sides of the hills. For the 
 sake of proceeding from the known to the less 
 known, Lyell makes his survey of these deposits 
 retrospective, and beginning with the most recent, 
 proceeds backwards to the more ancient. Of all 
 these geological monuments, the most recent is the 
 peat. This substance occupies the bottom of the 
 valley from some miles inward to the sea. It is in 
 places 30 feet thick. All the embedded mam- 
 malia and shells are recent and belong to species 
 now inhabiting Europe. Gallo-Roman works of 
 art are found in the peat near the surface, and, at 
 a greater depth, Celtic weapons. But the depth at 
 which Roman works of art occur varies in different 
 places, and is no sure test of age ; because in 
 some parts the peat being fluid, heavy substances 
 sink in it from their own gravity. In one case 
 M. de Perthes found several large flat dishes of 
 Roman pottery, which, lying in a horizontal position, 
 were prevented from sinking through the under- 
 lying peat. Allowing about fourteen centuries for 
 growth of the superincumbent matter, he calculated 
 that the thickness gained in a hundred years would 
 be no more than three French centimetres. This 
 rate of increase, if one could fairly adopt such a 
 chronometric scale, would demand many thousands
 
 IN SOUTH AFRICA 117 
 
 of years for the formation of 30 feet. " Small as is 
 the progress hitherto made in interpreting the pages 
 of the peaty record, their importance in the valley 
 of the Somme is enhanced by the reflection that 
 whatever be the number of centuries to which they 
 relate, they belong to times posterior to the ancient 
 implement-bearing beds which we are next to con- 
 sider, and are even separated from them, as we shall 
 see, by an interval far greater than that which divides 
 the earliest strata of the peat from the latest." Im- 
 mediately underlying the peat in the bottom of the 
 valley and recumbent on the chalk is a gravel bed, 
 believed to be the most recent of the gravel de- 
 posits, formed from the wreck of older gravels to be 
 described presently, and formed during the last hol- 
 lowing-out and deepening of the valley immediately 
 before the commencement of the growth of peat. 
 
 We come now to the implement-bearing deposits, 
 the older gravels formed on the sides of the hills 
 bounding the valley at different heights. The first 
 series of these is found at levels slightly elevated 
 above the present river. The lowest bed of this 
 series in which the implements are found consists of 
 gravel mixed with marl and sand, and contains 
 fresh water, land, and in some of the lower sands 
 marine shells, showing that the river at this part 
 was sometimes gained upon by the sea. This bed 
 is about 12 feet in thickness. Overlying this is
 
 ii8 THE ANTIQUITY OF MAN 
 
 about 15 feet of loam, containing fresh-water and 
 land shells, and the bones of elephants. Of the 
 shells found in this series a small proportion are of 
 extinct species. The species of gravels next de- 
 scribed, and the oldest in which flint implements 
 are found, is a series similar in structure to the 
 above, and found at a height one kmidred feet above 
 the present level of the river. In the fluviatile 
 deposits overlying both these gravel beds remains 
 of the mammoth, rhinoceros, and reindeer are found. 
 The age of these implements found in the second or 
 oldest series of gravel is represented by the time 
 which it has taken the river to cut out its channel to 
 the depth of 100 feet, added to the time necessary 
 for the formation of the peat, the age of which has 
 already been alluded to. One striking feature in com- 
 paring the relative ages of the peat and the older 
 gravels is, that whereas in the very deepest layers 
 of the former not one single specimen of any extinct 
 species has been found, in the latter a number of 
 extinct species both of shells and of mammals have 
 been discovered. The above is a condensed and 
 brief sketch of this branch of archaeology as given by 
 Sir Charles Lyell and Sir John Lubbock. 
 
 In South Africa, as we press northwards among 
 the primitive Bushmen tribes, we find the Stone Age 
 in some measure still existing, though even amongst 
 the wildest tribes it is dying a sure but a lingering
 
 IN SOUTH AFRICA 119 
 
 death. Throughout the whole of the Cape Colony, 
 wherever the observant traveller has set foot, stone 
 implements have been found. Some of them, 
 notably those from the Cape flats, the more perfect 
 in form and finish, lie in recent deposits round 
 existing vleys, or lightly buried in sand, probably 
 the products of an age in the immediate past. 
 Others again of more antique and ruder mould are 
 found in deposits, at least in one instance with 
 which we shall shortly deal, as ancient as those 
 which they so much resemble, found on the banks 
 of European rivers. Compared with the carefully 
 accumulated mass of evidence collected in Europe, 
 our stock of evidence is necessarily slight — never- 
 theless, such as it is, so nearly does it coincide with 
 that more carefully collected evidence in Europe, 
 that we may fairly offer at least a probable inter- 
 pretation. That interpretation, which we have 
 already somewhat anticipated, may be thus broadly 
 stated. What evidence we have oa the subject 
 distinctly goes to show that a Stone Age has existed 
 in South Africa from a period in all human proba- 
 bility as remote, or approximately so, as that from 
 which it existed in Europe ; that for ages men in 
 Europe and in South Africa co-existed, using almost 
 identically the same weapons, following closely the 
 same mode of life ; finally, that centuries after the 
 genius of the hardy northern tribes, developing
 
 I20 THE ANTIQUITY OF MAN 
 
 slowly at first, but afterwards more rapidly, had 
 swept away the stony relics of a barbarous age, and 
 placed those tribes on the paths of civilisation and 
 progress, the Stone Age in this southern land 
 continued to exist, and to this day still lingers, 
 dying a hard death in the deserts of the interior. 
 
 Having thus ventured, in the hope of more surely 
 enlisting your interest, to offer at the outset the 
 interpretation of what phenomena, what evidence 
 we have to hand, let us turn to the evidence itself. 
 On the Cape flats, at Kimberley, on Modder River, 
 in the Peddie and East London districts, and 
 doubtless in many other parts of the country, stone 
 implements have been found, resembling generally 
 the two leading types from the valley of the Somme, 
 viz., that of the spear-head and oval shape. For 
 directing^ attention to and collectintr these stone 
 implements so abundant in South Africa, we have, 
 as far as I have been able to gather, been princi- 
 pally indebted to Colonel Bowker, Mr. E. J. Dunn, 
 Mr. Mackay of East London, and Sir Langham Dale 
 of Capetown. These implements have been found 
 not merely by twos and threes and as rarities, but 
 in many sites they have been found in abundance. 
 Here, as in Europe, it is usual to find, in addition to 
 more or less well-formed implements of the shapes 
 above described, numerous fragments and abortions 
 — failures we might call them. Stone was plentiful
 
 IN SOUTH AFRICA 121 
 
 and ready to hand ; a bad instrument could always 
 be thrown aside without much loss. The mode of 
 forming these implements is pretty obvious. The 
 surface of some hard stone or rock, specially selected 
 for the purpose, had flakes chipped off it by blows 
 probably given by a rounded pebble. In many 
 cases "cores" of hard stone from which flakes have 
 been chipped ofl^ are found lying near a collection of 
 implements and fragments. The best formed and 
 probably one of the most modern implements which I 
 have seen, and which is at present in my possession, is 
 one of the spear-headed type found on the Cape flats 
 by Sir Langham Dale. It bears the marks on its 
 surface of numerous successive chippings, and has 
 been shaped with considerably more skill than the 
 ruder weapons of greater antiquity found in old 
 deposits. A very good collection of implements of 
 different shapes and sizes, and from different parts 
 of the colony, may be seen in the Albany Museum 
 at Grahamstown. The interest of stone implements 
 from an archaeological point of view, depends, 
 however, more upon the geological evidence in 
 reference to the deposits in which they are found, 
 than upon anything else, as it is by this we are 
 principally enabled to form a probable estimate of 
 their antiquity. With this object, I will now deal 
 with those implements, which, thanks principally to 
 the guidance of one of our silent workers, Mr.
 
 122 THE ANTIQUITY OF MAN 
 
 Mackay of East London, I have been enabled to 
 collect myself. Never was there a site better adapted 
 to the wants of primitive man than the mouth of the 
 Buffalo River and its neighbourhood. It is there- 
 fore not strange that in this locality abundant 
 evidence of its having been the abode of man from 
 a remote period of time is to be found. A very 
 interesting and carefully constructed map of the 
 locality round the mouth of the river has been 
 prepared by Mr. Mackay, showing the sites of 
 numerous " kitchen-middens," or shell mounds, 
 exactly resembling those " Kjokkenmodding " or 
 ancient kitchen refuse heaps, described by Sir 
 Charles Lyell as relics of the prehistoric age on the 
 shores of Denmark ; and further, showing the 
 probable sites of still more ancient habitations in the 
 Stone Age, those spots in fact where stone imple- 
 ments have been found in such abundance as to 
 justify the presumption of the existence of habita- 
 tions. With reference to the shell mounds so freely 
 scattered round the mouth of the river, I will here 
 merely say that they bear evidence of considerable 
 age; they are buried in many instances under sand 
 and vesretable mould, and are in some cases over- 
 grown with thick bush, only having been dis- 
 covered by cuttings for railway and other purposes. 
 Nevertheless, whatever the antiquity of these shell 
 mounds, and in some cases it is considerable, we shall
 
 IN SOUTH AFRICA 123 
 
 presently see that they came into existence ages after 
 stone implements were first used in this locality. 
 
 Turning now to the stone implements themselves, 
 we find that those the antiquity of which, from their 
 position, we are best able to estimate, are found in a 
 well-marked gravel deposit on the western bank of 
 the Buffalo. It lies about half way between Fort 
 Glamorgan and the Post Office, and runs in a well- 
 marked line about 70 feet above the present level of 
 the river and parallel to the present course. It has 
 been exposed in several places by cuttings for roads 
 and by quarryings for building-stone, road-mending, 
 and other purposes. It lies buried under a well- 
 defined layer of black river mud, this being again 
 covered with sand of wind-drifted origin, which in 
 its turn is in places covered by a layer of vegetable 
 mould on which grass and bush were at one time 
 growing. The implements found in this gravel are 
 the types found in the valley of the Somme. They 
 are not, however, made of flint, which substance is 
 nowhere to be found in this district, but of a hard 
 sub-crystalline rock, found in the immediate vicinity 
 of the greenstone dykes so numerous in South 
 Africa. One of these dykes, half a mile in width, 
 which crosses the river obliquely, is traversed by 
 the Buffalo from the " ebb and flow " to the second 
 creek, a distance of about 2 miles. From the 
 second creek the edge of this dyke passes Fort
 
 124 THE ANTIQUITY OF MAN 
 
 Glamorgan to Point Hood, so that abundance of 
 this stone is obtainable in the immediate neighbour- 
 hood. Several of the implements taken from this 
 gravel have been sent to the Jermyn Street and 
 British Museums ; and their genuineness has been 
 recognised by Sir Roderick Murchison and Sir J. 
 Lubbock, The rock from which these implements 
 have been flaked off is not only extremely hard, a 
 property which gives to the implements their sharp 
 cutting edges, but is tough and durable ; and for 
 these qualities it was selected by the troops as 
 material for buildingr Fort Glamororan and the 
 Commissariat Stores. These buildings have now 
 been in existence forty years. The weather-exposed 
 surface on the stones in these buildings is as fresh 
 in colour, the merest scratch with the chisel as clear, 
 and every edge as sharp, as if the buildings had 
 been completed yesterday. The implements made 
 of this same stone have lost all semblance of their 
 original colour, their edges are blunted, they have 
 an outer decomposed crust one-sixth of an inch in 
 thickness. The implements are found scattered 
 throu<):hout the whole line of orravel whenever it is 
 exposed. At the time when this line was the river's 
 edge, as we shall presently see we have good reason 
 to believe it once was, these implements were probably 
 dropped on or near the bank, and were subsequently 
 washed and rolled into their present position along
 
 IN SOUTH AFRICA 125 
 
 with the surroundinor aravel. In some instances 
 they have evidently been manufactured and left on 
 the very spot where they are now found. " Cores " 
 of blocks from which weapons have been flaked off 
 have in several cases both by Mr. Mackay and 
 myself been found surrounded, not indeed by well- 
 formed implements which would naturally be carried 
 off by the maker, but by numerous fragments and 
 ill-formed weapons which were probably thrown 
 aside as useless. It is not irrational to suppose 
 that the water's edge with its open stony margin 
 would afford a convenient site to which the savage 
 hunter mig-ht bring" his block, and hammer off with 
 the aid of stones and pebbles his uncouth weapons. 
 But, however that may be, whether dropped by 
 accident or left by design, there in their gravel bed 
 they lay, until in due course a black muddy deposit, 
 of from I to 3 feet in thickness, covered them in. 
 
 That this gravel line, now so far above the river, 
 was once the river's edge, is, from its nature, 
 position, and appearance, as well as from the history 
 of similar old gravel deposits on the banks of 
 carefully explored European rivers, almost a matter 
 of certainty. But for further evidence bearing on 
 this subject let us turn to the configuration of the 
 sea coast near the river's mouth. Assuming that 
 then as now the river was tidal at this point, and 
 that this gravel line, now so far above the tidal level,
 
 126 THE ANTIQUITY OF MAN 
 
 was then the river's edge, we are left to the con- 
 clusion, either that the coast has been raised or that 
 the sea has receded. The evidence afforded by a 
 study of the coast itself affirms this conclusion. To 
 the south-western side of the mouth of the river the 
 land runs out into a rocky low-lying promontory, the 
 termination of the large ironstone dyke already 
 alluded to, and known as Point Hood. High- water 
 level all round this point is at present marked by a 
 line of huge rounded boulders, and rising above this 
 line are no less than three other well-marked lines 
 of similar boulders, each line undoubtedly showing 
 the level at which the sea once stood. The highest 
 of these tiers of boulders lies about 30 feet above the 
 present sea level. Following round the coast in this 
 direction, immediately beyond Point Hood, stretches 
 a wide open vale some 20 feet above sea level. All 
 over the surface of this vale marine shells are found, 
 and there can be little doubt that it is the site of an 
 ancient bay. Assuming that the sea once stood at 
 the level of the highest tier of boulders on the Point, 
 this vale, now divided from the beach by a series of 
 low wind-drifted sandhills, would have been sub- 
 merged. The marine shells found on its surface, 
 taken together with the fact that the low sand-hills 
 which now divide it from the beach are of more 
 recent date than those larger masses which line the 
 coast beyond, justify the conclusion that it was so.
 
 IN SOUTH AFRICA 127 
 
 Clear and distinct evidence that the sea has at one 
 time stood some 30 feet above its present level is 
 thus to be found by the most superficial observer. 
 But as the gravel line representing the river's 
 ancient edge near its present mouth is 70 feet above 
 that level, a somewhat interesting geological question 
 arises : Was this portion of the river at the time 
 when it stood at this high level tidal, or was it not 
 possibly a land-locked reach of the river, with the 
 river's mouth lying some distance further out than it 
 now does ? Either of these conditions would 
 account for the gravel bed, and its superincumbent 
 layer of mud ; but, as I have above stated, such 
 indications as we have been enabled to find incline 
 me to take the former view, viz., that then as now 
 the river was tidal at this point. It is true that 
 above the 2)0 feet level of boulders at Point Hood 
 there is no such clear evidence of the sea's former 
 presence, but some is nevertheless to be found. 
 The topmost tier of boulders is already partially 
 buried in sand and soil, and from this point the land 
 rises more gradually. In an artificial cutting made 
 some few hundred yards from the beach, and 
 standing some 70 feet above the present sea level, 
 distinct traces of a buried layer of rounded boulders 
 are to be found, boulders in all respects resembling 
 those on the beach. 
 
 Still, whichever view be the correct one, a point
 
 128 THE ANTIQUITY OF MAN 
 
 which further investigation may yet decide, the 
 broad fact remains, that from the time when the 
 river stood at the height of this gravel Hne it has 
 gradually worn away the present channel. To 
 accomplish this has been no slight, nor short-lived 
 task, for we have already seen that for two miles 
 the tidal portion of the river runs through a large 
 greenstone dyke. This igneous greenstone rock is 
 one of the hardest in existence ; nevertheless, since 
 the time when the river stood at the old gravel line 
 it has worn away its channel through this rock to 
 the depth of 70 feet. To sum up a tolerably clear 
 case. The age of the stone implements found in 
 this gravel bed may fairly be computed to be that 
 period of time which has elapsed since this bed was 
 the river's edge, a period which has consisted of the 
 time necessary to allow the river through 70 feet of 
 solid greenstone rock slowly to wear away for itself 
 its present channel. To estimate the period of time 
 necessary for such a change as this is as difficult as to 
 estimate the time which has elapsed since man shared 
 a half-frozen Europe with the woolly-haired rhino- 
 ceros and the mammoth. Taken in connection with 
 the geological evidence, however, there is one other 
 point which is of great interest in assisting us to form 
 some rough idea of the great antiquity of these 
 implements. 
 
 The shell mounds found round the moulh of the
 
 IN SOUTH AFRICA 129 
 
 Buffalo are in many instances situated close to the 
 river banks. Sections of some of these mounds 
 have been made in cuttings for roads and for the 
 railway, thus exposing their structure, and affording 
 every facility for their investigation. They consist 
 of sand, shells, and bones of animals, while 
 scattered through them are found rude pieces of 
 pottery. Large hearth-stones surrounded by ashes 
 have been found in one or two instances. The 
 largest of these mounds, situated on the eastern 
 bank of the river, is of considerable magnitude. It 
 has been cut completely through, and amidst the 
 ddbris a human skull was found, and subsequently 
 given to me by Mr. Mackay. It is a small round 
 skull, with a low contracted brow, and is of great 
 thickness. It is like the skull of a Bushman or 
 Hottentot, and in all probability is the skull of an 
 individual of one of these races, or of some race 
 very nearly allied to them. These shell mounds 
 very closely resemble the shell mounds, " Kjokken- 
 moddings," or kitchen refuse heaps, found on the 
 shores of Denmark, but they differ in one important 
 particular. The shell mounds in Denmark contain 
 a considerable number of polished stone-cutting 
 implements ; the mounds round the ■ mouth of the 
 Buffalo have, although carefully explored, yielded 
 nothing but bone implements, no cutting-stone 
 weapons of any sort having been discovered. The 
 
 K
 
 I30 THE ANTIQUITY OF UAN 
 
 mounds differ considerably in size, and although 
 similar in structure some are evidently more recent 
 than others. The largest, and in all probability the 
 oldest, is the large mound on the eastern bank, 
 from which the skull was taken. As this mound 
 shows a vertical section throughout its entire depth, 
 and as it possesses several features of interest, we 
 will briefly consider it. It originally formed a 
 mound some 300 feet long and 25 feet high, 
 standing on the slope which runs down from the 
 signal hill to the river. Quarrying in connection 
 with the harbour works was the original cause of its 
 being cut through. The portion nearest the river 
 was entirely removed. The inner portion is still 
 remaining, and shows the vertical section above 
 alluded to. The topmost layer consists of shells, 
 bones, ashes, etc. A layer some two or three feet 
 in thickness is covered by three feet of sand and 
 vegetable earth, on which thick bush is now 
 growing. In fact the whole of the mound was 
 completely covered with thick bush, there being no 
 sisfn of its existence until the cutting^ was made. 
 Besides shells, hearth-stones, ashes and bits of 
 pottery, bones of the elephant and hippopotamus, 
 as well as those of smaller animals and fish, have 
 been found. Most of the larger bones have been 
 split open, probably for the sake of their marrow. 
 Below the topmost layer of shells another layer of
 
 IN SOUTH AFRICA 131 
 
 sand some two feet in thickness exists, separating 
 the top layer from the shells immediately below. 
 After the second layer, although in places there 
 seems to be an interstratification of sand, the 
 separation of the layer of shells is not so distinctly 
 marked, and towards the centre they all seem to 
 form one block. In this mound a very well-formed 
 bone implement, some four inches in length, was 
 found. It is spindle-shaped, with a point at one end 
 and a blunt square termination at the other. It 
 might have been used as the head of a small spear. 
 Besides the hearth-stones and some large shapeless 
 stones with fire marks in their immediate neigh- 
 bourhood, there is one other kind of stone found, 
 and one which has evidently been artificially shaped. 
 It is like the half of a rounded pebble. The flat 
 or rather slightly concave surface is perfectly 
 smooth, and has obviously been brought into this 
 condition by friction. Mr. Mackay is of opinion 
 that these stones were used for dressing skins of 
 animals with. In accordance with this interpre- 
 tation we may call the one stone implement hitherto 
 found in these mounds the "rubbing stone." The 
 evidence as to the age of this mound all points to 
 its being considerable. No one can stand opposite 
 the vertical section, and note the accumulation of 
 sand and vegetable earth, with thick bush ten feet 
 high growing on its surface, without this idea forcing 
 
 K 2
 
 132 THE ANTIQUITY OF MAN 
 
 itself upon him. Yet before the bush could have 
 begun to grow, sand and earth drifted by the wind 
 had covered in the abandoned mound to the depth 
 of several feet. Grass and bush have crept over its 
 surface and the whole mound has thus been com- 
 pletely buried and hidden for how many years no 
 one can say. Moreover, the accumulation of this 
 mass of debris 300 feet long and 25 feet high was 
 in itself the work of no brief space of time. The 
 outer marofin of the mound at its base was within a 
 few feet of the river's edge before this portion of it 
 was removed ; so that when the original founders 
 first made their homes upon this spot the river 
 cannot have stood at any appreciably higher level 
 than it does now ; hence, whatever the age of this 
 mound, and no unprejudiced observer will deny that 
 it is considerable, it is but a thing of yesterday 
 compared to the antiquity of those implements left 
 on the water's edge when the river stood 70 feet 
 higher than it now does, or than it did when the 
 foundation shell of this huge mound was laid. 
 
 It is not on an isolated case of this sort, but on a 
 collection of such cases more or less similar from 
 different parts of the world, that the claim to the 
 high antiquity of man upon the earth is made by 
 scientific men. To state the actual age of the old 
 implciiKiU hearing bed on the bank of the Buffalo 
 is bcNond our power. But while on this point I
 
 IN SOUTH AFRICA 133 
 
 cannot refrain from quoting Sir Charles Lyell on 
 the probable age of the oldest implement-bearing 
 gravel of the Somme. In doing so I do not wish 
 to claim for the opinion, any more than the author 
 would himself, anything but a certain speculative 
 value. Yet from the most brilliant geologist the 
 world has yet known, even a speculative opinion of 
 this sort must have some weight. Sir Charles Lyell, 
 on data which we have not here space to discuss, 
 estimated the age of the Mississippi Delta as being 
 about 100,000 years ; and he considered that " the 
 alluvium of the Somme containing flint implements 
 and the remains of the mammoth and hyasna " was 
 no less ancient. Whatever the antiquity of the 
 oldest Somme implements may be, there can be 
 little doubt that those forming the oldest implement- 
 bearing beds of the Buffalo are fully as old, if 
 indeed, as there are good reasons for believing, they 
 are not considerably older. For while the Somme, 
 a large constantly flowing river, has had a chalk 
 formation through which to cut its bed, the Buffalo, 
 with a stream not one-twentieth part its volume, has 
 had to wear its way through two miles of solid 
 greenstone rock. To cut a channel to the depth of 
 70 feet under the latter set of circumstances is on 
 the face of it a far greater task than to cut one to 
 the depth of 100 feet under the former. 
 
 Such then is the history of these implements as
 
 134 THE ANTIQUITY OF MAN 
 
 far as I have been able to interpret it. For such 
 opinions as I have offered I have endeavoured as 
 clearly as possible to furnish full data, while my 
 motive throughout has been a desire to arrive at a 
 true understanding of the question, rather than to 
 support any particular theory. But, looking to the 
 laborious researches of scientific men in Europe on 
 this question, to the lucid exposition^of the subject 
 by Sir Charles Lyell and Sir John Lubbock, and 
 lastly to the startling parallel between the position 
 of the South African implements and those found 
 in the ancient gravels of the Somme, two broad 
 conclusions with reference to them are forced upon 
 us : firstly, that they are undoubtedly the handi- 
 work of man ; secondly, that they belong to an age 
 of high and remote antiquity. Admitting then the 
 high antiquity of man upon the earth, in what way 
 does it affect that vast problem of evolution as 
 applied to the origin of man ? To this question 
 Darwin himself makes answer. He says in his 
 introduction to The Descent of Man : — " The high 
 antiquity of man has recently been demonstrated by 
 the labours of a lot of eminent men, beginning with 
 M. Boucher de Perthes, and this is the indis- 
 pensable basis for understanding his origin." The 
 crudeness of design and rudeness of execution of 
 the older stone implements often excites the ridi- 
 cule of the curiosity critic. But what degree of
 
 IN SOUTH AFRICA 135 
 
 skill would he be inclined to attribute to the fore- 
 fathers of the Bushmen or Australian aboricrines 
 20,000 years ago? Prof. Huxley, one of the 
 greatest authorities on Biology, has expressed it as 
 his opinion that the remains of the immediate 
 progenitors of man will eventually be found in the 
 pliocene or even in the miocene strata. In several 
 parts of the world by different geologists the 
 post-pliocene formations have been estimated to be 
 considerably over 200,000 years old. Taking these 
 opinions, then, with, as far as it goes, the con- 
 firmatory evidence of the Stone Age, we may fairly 
 assume that in all probability man's immediate 
 progenitors existed upon the earth considerably over 
 200,000 years ago. Amongst Englishmen, the 
 third generation of descendants from any son of 
 the soil is considered capable of producing under 
 favourable circumstances the most polished courtier. 
 I therefore trust that 200,000 years will be sufficient 
 to remove the prejudices of the most fastidious as 
 to their ancestors at that period. 
 
 Some time ago an interesting paper on the 
 " Races of South Africa and the Question of 
 Evolution " was read to the Eastern Province 
 Literary and Scientific Society by the Bishop of 
 Grahamstown, and was subsequently published in 
 the Grahamstown JotLvnal. The question of how 
 far the facts, adduced in reference to these races,
 
 136 THE ANTIQUITY OF MAN 
 
 bear upon the question of evolution, is treated by 
 the Bishop in a spirit of fairness and moderation. In 
 fact, on this great problem he expresses himself as 
 in accord with the Duke of Argyll when he says 
 *' that the difficulties involved by evolution are more 
 scientific than theological." With this liberal 
 avowal the Bishop proceeds to deal with the 
 question in a critical manner. In reference to these 
 races he says : " Two answers may clearly be given 
 when we are asked how we account for the South 
 African races as they meet us here. First, we may 
 say that they have been developed from beneath, 
 having been during all their period of humanity 
 from the beginning utter savages, with a suspicion 
 that in some types we may alight upon specimens not 
 far removed from the " missing link" ; or, secondly, 
 we may reply that we have good ground for the 
 conclusion that they have been evolved by degrada- 
 tion and deo^eneration from a hioher estate in the 
 scale of humanity." The Bishop then states that 
 his observation has led him to favour the latter 
 hypothesis. To my mind neither of these answers 
 fully meets the case ; while the rejection of the one 
 surely does not, as the Bishop would apparently 
 imply, involve the acceptance of the other. There 
 is probably a measure of truth in both. The 
 answer I should make would be that the evidence 
 hitherto collected on the subject seems to point to
 
 IN SOUTH AFRICA 137 
 
 the conclusion that the Bushmen are the true 
 aboriorinal inhabitants of Central and Southern 
 Africa, while the numerous Kaffir races have 
 migrated from more northern latitudes, destroying 
 and driving before them the feebler aboriginal 
 tribes. A considerable portion of the paper is 
 devoted to showing that numerous Kaffir races have 
 probably come in successive tides of migration from 
 some more northern part of the continent, probably 
 from the north-east. That tides of migration 
 have swept southwards across the continent, at any 
 rate, during the last lOO years is almost a matter of 
 history ; and there is doubtless evidence of this 
 movement having gone on for some time previous 
 to that. The Arab strain in some of the Kaffirs 
 seems strongly marked. That these races may also 
 to some extent have degenerated, looking to 
 numerous similar instances in history, is possible ; 
 though the evidence in favour of this view adduced 
 by the Bishop, even if it had all the significance 
 which he attaches to it, would only point to a 
 position but slightly inferior to their present one. 
 The evidence on this point which he considers of 
 the greatest value is that afforded by their language. 
 He says : " Instead of the languages of these 
 uncivilised races being in a state of development 
 towards fulness and complexity, we find the 
 tendency of the language is to degenerate, to get
 
 138 THE ANTIQUITY OF MAN 
 
 worn down, simplifying conjugations and losing 
 inflexions." Surely the inflexional decay of a 
 language, a stage through which all languages pass 
 to a greater or less extent, is no sign of the 
 degeneration of that language. It is, as I under- 
 stand, the science of language, a stage in develop- 
 ment rather than in degeneration. On Darwin's 
 speculations as to the probable origin of language 
 the Bishop is somewhat severe. After quoting a 
 few extracts from Darwin's speculation on this 
 subject, he says : "It is curious to quote the very 
 hypothetical tone of this enunciation of his theory, 
 'probably,' 'might have,' 'does not appear alto- 
 gether incredible.' We search in vain for data in 
 support of it. Dr. Darimn gives us none.'' As 
 the most distinguishing quality of Darwin's vast 
 luminous mind is his careful impartiality and 
 studious avoidance of overstating anything, his 
 hypothetical tone on this question is not to be 
 wondered at. The data in support of Darwin's 
 views as to the probable origin of language are 
 given in his third chapter of the Descent of Man. 
 
 But returning to the wider question of evolution, 
 let us admit for the sake of argument, not only that 
 the orreat mass of Kaffir races have come from some 
 centre in the northern portion of Africa, but that 
 they have in some measure degenerated. How 
 does this fact bear upon evolution ? As far as I
 
 IN SOUTH AFRICA 139 
 
 can see it has little or nothing to do with it. The 
 whole history of the human race has been one of 
 migrations ; and instances of retrogression have not 
 been wanting. Still, looking to the great mass of 
 mankind, as far as we know its history from the 
 earliest times, the broad tendency has been to 
 travel forward like a rising tide, on the wide paths 
 of development and progress. The case of the 
 Bushmen still remains to be considered. That they 
 are the descendants of any really higher race is a 
 hypothesis with absolutely nothing to support it. 
 According to Theal their condition when the Dutch 
 first came to the country 200 years ago was very 
 much what it is to-day, certainly no better. 
 Without stock of any kind, without agriculture, 
 dependent on their knowledge of roots and herbs, 
 which like that of monkeys is considerable, and on 
 what carrion they can find or what animals they can 
 kill, they eke out a miserable existence. The 
 words of ^schylus in writing of primitive man 
 seem most applicable : — 
 
 But first, though seeing, they did not perceive, 
 
 And hearing heard not rightly. But like forms 
 
 Of phantom dreams throughout their life's whole length, 
 
 They muddled all at random ; did not know 
 
 Houses of brick that catch the sunlight's warmth, 
 
 Nor yet the worth of carpentry. They dwelt 
 
 In hollowed holes like swarms of tiny ants. 
 
 In sunless depths of caverns. 
 
 Their knowledge of painting is certainly a curious
 
 140 THE ANTIQUITY OF MAN 
 
 and in some respects a redeeming trait in their 
 character ; but that it is evidence of any previous 
 higher condition I cannot see. Without cattle, 
 crops, or even houses, it would be curious indeed if, 
 possessed of any human intelligence at all, it should 
 not find expression in something. Regarding the 
 Bushmen, and probably also the Hottentots, as the 
 aborigines of the country, it is not unreasonable, 
 taken with the discovery of the skull in the East 
 London shell mound, to regard them as the lineal 
 descendants of the men of the Shell Mound Age in 
 this country ; very probably also of the older Stone 
 Age. The pigmy races of Africa, of which the 
 Bushmen are a branch, are at the present moment 
 attracting a good deal of attention. Stanley's 
 description of the numbers which inhabit the great 
 forest show them to be very widespread in the 
 interior. There can be little doubt, moreover, that 
 these same pigmy races were known both to the 
 ancient Greeks and Romans. Still, whatever the 
 origin and history of the pigmy races may be, no 
 rational student of evolution would contend that the 
 difference between the highest ape and lowest 
 Bushman is, scientifically speaking, a slight one. 
 
 The evidences of the existence of the progenitors 
 of man on the earth, as I have endeavoured to 
 point out, are not to be looked for a few hundred 
 years back, but hundreds of thousands of years ago.
 
 IN SOUTH AFRICA 141 
 
 Evidence of the remote antiquity of man in this 
 country we have fully discussed. We have seen 
 that it points to his existence here many thousand 
 years ago, when his implements were ruder than the 
 lowest Bushman uses now ; for the only stone 
 implement of the Bushman of to-day of which I 
 can find any authoritative record, is the rounded 
 digging stone with a hole in the centre, used for 
 weighting sticks with in digging up roots. Living- 
 stone in his Last Journals, after making special 
 enquiry as to the use of the implements, only 
 mentions the " digging-stone " among the Bushmen, 
 and stones used as sledge hammers and anvils in 
 the forging- of iron among-st other tribes. I have 
 also consulted such works on African travel as I 
 have been able to obtain by Stanley, Cameron, 
 Pinto, Grant, Schweinfurth, and Du Chaillu on this 
 point, but can find no record of stone hatchets being 
 in use now. The lowest Bushman is thus in 
 all probability in a stage of development consider- 
 ably beyond that of the men of the old Stone Age. 
 For how long even before the old Stone Age period 
 man in some type may have existed no one can say. 
 But to put the most moderate construction on this 
 evidence as to man's high antiquity upon the earth, 
 it is just what we should expect to find were the 
 evolution theory as to his origin the true one, and 
 as far as it goes it is confirmatory of that theory.
 
 PRE-HISTORIC MAN 
 
 AND THE 
 
 PARALLELISM IN DEVELOPMENT BETWEEN THE 
 
 PRIMITIVE RACES OF EUROPE AND THE 
 
 NATIVE RACES OF AFRICA 
 
 The knowledge of pre-historic man has been 
 greatly increased and almost revolutionised during 
 the last fifty years by the aid of the comparatively 
 young science, Geology. What is known is indeed 
 little enough, but it at least establishes man's con- 
 temporaneous existence with many now extinct 
 animals, and at a time when the geography and 
 climate of Europe were very different from what 
 they are to-day ; when the silver streak had not 
 crept in between England and France, which in 
 historic times has played such an important part in 
 the history of the British race. Geology has also 
 shown that through the long pre-historic ages of 
 man's existence on the earth his condition was 
 always gradually changing, in Europe through stone, 
 bronze and iron ages, and in nearly all other explored
 
 PRE-HISTORIC MAN 143 
 
 parts of the world, at least through stone and iron 
 ages. These changes are slow indeed compared to 
 the march of intellect through historic times, but 
 very appreciable from a geological and archaeological 
 standpoint. Let us then for a short time consider 
 the history of this new science Geology, imperfect 
 and crude though it still be, which has wrought so 
 momentous a change in the general ideas of human 
 origin on the earth, and of the whole history of 
 human thought. 
 
 Who shall tell what did befall, 
 Far away in time when once 
 Over the lifeless ball 
 Hung idle stars and suns ? 
 What god the element obeyed ? 
 Wings of what wind the lichen bore, 
 Wafting the puny seeds of power. 
 Which, lodged in rocks, the rocks abrade. 
 
 — Emerson. 
 
 In the middle of the last century, curiously enough, 
 we find Voltaire, in his hostility to revealed religions, 
 scornfully ridiculing all that was then known of 
 fossils, because they were regarded as evidence of 
 the deluge. " Are we sure," he enquired, " that the 
 soil of the earth can produce fossils ? " " One never," 
 he says elsewhere, "sees among them true marine 
 substances." And more in this strain. But not so 
 long afterwards the great German poet and thinker, 
 Goethe, with a deeper insight than Voltaire, felt that 
 these fossils were records of the history of the past
 
 144 PRE-HISTORIC MAN 
 
 not to be liorhtlv cast aside. Writino- in his auto- 
 biography of Voltaire, he says : " When I now 
 learned that to weaken the tradition of a delude he 
 had denied all petrified shells, and only admitted 
 them as ' lusus naturae,' he entirely lost my con- 
 fidence, for my own eyes had on the Baschberg 
 plainly enough shown me that I stood on the bottom 
 of an old dried up sea, among the exuviae of its 
 ancient inhabitants. These mountains had certainly 
 once been covered with waves, whether before or 
 during the deluge did not concern me ; it was 
 enough that the Valley of the Rhine had been a 
 monstrous lake, a bay extending beyond the reach 
 of eyesight ; out of this I was 7iot to be talked, I 
 thought much more of advancing in the knowledge 
 of lands and mountains, let what would be the result." 
 
 Coming from a man in the eighteenth century, 
 these words are of great interest. They seem to 
 breathe the very spirit of modern science. Since, 
 these words were written, the knowledge of lands 
 and mountains, and the buried history they contain, 
 have advanced with rapid strides. 
 
 To attempt in ever so brief a manner to give a 
 sketch of the revelations of geology would be beyond 
 our scope. We will merely take some of the leading 
 truths which have been brought to light, and note 
 the wide effect they have had on the thought and 
 culture of their day. Geology, if such knowledge of
 
 IN EUROPE AND AFRICA 145 
 
 the subject as existed a little over a hundred years 
 ago is worthy of the name, from having in those 
 days been adduced as evidence of a universal deluge, 
 has come in later days to be taken as overwhelming 
 testimony to the fact that no such tmiversal deluge 
 ever occurred. Forty years ago that doughty 
 Scotch Free Churchman, Hugh Miller, while being 
 a; staunch supporter of his religion and of his church, 
 maintained that the idea of a universal deluge, and 
 of a creation which lasted six days of twenty-four 
 hours each, could, in the face of the revelations of 
 geology, no longer be maintained. The six days he 
 maintained were periods extending over ages, the 
 deluge and the consequent destruction of animal 
 life were both of a local character. In fact, he oroes 
 so far as to attempt to show how, in a portion of 
 Asia, by what he terms an "economy of miracle," 
 this deluge might have been brought about. 
 
 The evolution theory deals with the origin and 
 course of existence of vegetable and animal life upon 
 the globe ; but, before we give any attention to this 
 or any other theory, let us endeavour, as far as we 
 can, briefly to enumerate what leading facts with 
 regard to the existence of living forms upon the 
 earth the science of geology has brought to light. 
 
 From the most remote ages, in fact in the very 
 earliest stratified or sedimentary rocks, remains of 
 low organic life, both vegetable and animal, are 
 
 L
 
 146 PRE-HISTORIC MAN 
 
 found thus establishing the antiquity of organic life 
 upon the globe. Ascending in the series of stratified 
 deposits, higher forms of life, both vegetable and 
 animal, are discovered, until fish, reptiles, birds and 
 mammals, are all found co-existing. The most 
 striking feature in fossil remains, perhaps, is the 
 change in the species which is found in successive 
 formations. While some few species, especially 
 among the shells, remain unchanged from remote 
 down to present times, the great majority of species 
 exist through a few formations and then die out, 
 being replaced by other closely allied species. So 
 widely indeed is this fact recognised that in the 
 popular mind the one epithet which can safely be 
 applied to a fossil is the word " extinct." 
 
 Of all the records of her past which the earth has 
 to reveal to the patient student of nature, none 
 are more enduring, none more vast, none more 
 profoundly interesting than this imperishable history 
 of the myriads of living forms which have had their 
 brief day in the ages that are gone. On the weather- 
 beaten cliff, on the rocks worn by the endless turmoil 
 of the sea, or where " the wild water" of an inland 
 lake "laps upon the crag," there to him who seeks 
 will some fragment of this history appear. 
 
 And well the primal pioneer 
 
 Knew the strong task to it assigned, 
 
 Patient through Heaven's enormous year 
 To build in matter home for mind.
 
 IN EURORE AND AFRICA 147 
 
 Towards the close of the series of these vast silent 
 records, graven in stone for all time, we come on the 
 first traces of man. To better comprehend what 
 these series of records are, we may consider them as 
 being roughly divided into those of three phases of 
 life upon the earth. 
 
 The first, or Prmiary, in which are found fishes, 
 amphibians, and towards the top of the series some 
 few reptiles. 
 
 The Secondary Age, in which reptiles had the 
 mastery, walking on the land as great flesh and 
 vegetable feeders, flying in the air as huge reptilian 
 bats, and swimming in the sea and rivers in various 
 forms. Also reptilian birds with teeth in their 
 beaks. This age is of special interest to us, inas- 
 much as the greater portion of the sedimentary rocks 
 of South Africa belong to it, and have furnished 
 many hitherto unknown species of huge, as well as 
 of smaller, reptilian forms. 
 
 The third, or Tertiary Age. — In this age the 
 mammalia first appear gradually taking their place 
 as masters on land and sea, displacing the reptiles. 
 The birds lose their reptilian characters. 
 
 Of these phases of life Boyd-Dawkins, in his work 
 on Early Man in Britain, very truly says : " The 
 succession of living forms has been uninterrupted, 
 although from errors of observation, as well as from 
 the fragmentary nature of the evidence, it appears 
 
 L 2
 
 148 PRE-HISTORIC MAN 
 
 to be broken. Each break may be likened to places 
 from which pages, or chapters, or whole volumes, as 
 the case may be, have been torn out from the 
 record by the hand of time, or not yet discovered 
 by man." 
 
 The Tertiary Period is the one which most nearly 
 interests us, and it has been divided into the follow- 
 ing- six stages : — 
 
 /. Eocene, or that in which the mammalia now 
 on the earth were represented by allied forms 
 of species extinct but belonging to existing 
 orders and families. 
 
 //. Meiocene, in which the alliance between the 
 living and fossil mammals is more close than 
 before. 
 ///. Pleiocene, in which the living species of mam- 
 mals begin to appear. 
 
 IV. Pleistocene, in which the living species are 
 more abundant than the extinct. Man 
 appears. 
 V. Pre-historic, in which domestic animals and 
 cultivated fruits appear, and man has multi- 
 plied exceedingly upon the earth. 
 
 VI. Historic, in which events are recorded in 
 history. 
 
 The point of peculiar interest in ihis table, in 
 regard to the origin of man upon the earth, is, that
 
 IN EUROPE AND AFRICA 149 
 
 in the stage preceding the one in which man appears, 
 namely, the Pleiocene, existing species of other mam- 
 mals are rare in comparison with the number of ex- 
 tinct forms, and only, as it were, begin to show 
 themselves. 
 
 In the Pleistocene, where man appears, while the 
 number of extinct species is still large, living species 
 become more numerous, and even exceed the ex- 
 tinct species. In the two succeeding ages, with 
 a few exceptions, all the species found are still 
 livinor. 
 
 It will thus be seen that traces of man are found, 
 in the first instance, in precisely the position, from a 
 palseontological point of view, which on the doctrine 
 of evolution he would be expected to occupy. He 
 appears, that is for the first time, contemporaneously 
 with several of the higher species of existing mam- 
 mals. Of the nature of the evidence in the shape 
 of stone implements, which is found in the Pleisto- 
 cene age in Europe, I dealt at some length in the 
 foregoing paper entitled The Antiquity of Man in 
 South Africa and Evolution. In this paper, before 
 going on to consider the social condition of man in 
 pre-historic times, and the overlap of history, I 
 should like briefly to refer to some human bones 
 found in relation with some of the stone weapons. 
 
 " In 1869 a portion of a skull was found at 
 Eginsheim, near Colmar, by M. Faudel, along with
 
 I50 PRE-HISTORIC MAN 
 
 mammoth and other animals, in the loam, proving 
 that the paleolithic hunter in the upper Rhine pos- 
 sessed a skull of the long type. In the following 
 year in the valley of the Seine, a human skull and 
 bones were obtained by M. Eugene Bertrand from 
 a gravel pit, underneath undisturbed strata of loam, 
 sand, and gravel, at a depth of 5 '45 metres, along 
 with the mammoth, woolly rhinoceros, horse, ox, and 
 stag." 
 
 The men of the Stone Age in Europe have been 
 divided into " Men of the River Drift," and " Men 
 of the Caves." 
 
 Man of the River Drift was a poor nomad 
 hunter, poorly equipped for the struggle of life, with 
 no knowledge of metals, or even of grinding his 
 stone weapons. 
 
 Boyd- Dawkins describes some interesting deposits 
 in the old gravels of the river Wily, in Wiltshire, 
 near Salisbury, 100 feet above the river's present 
 bed, where, with the rudest forms of stone weapons, 
 are found many bones of mammalia. 
 
 He says : 
 
 " In the spring, summer, and autumn, there were 
 stags, bisons, uri, horses, pouched marmosets, woolly 
 rhinoceroses, and mammoths, and in the depth of 
 winter, lemmings, reindeer, and musk sheep. Wild 
 boars were in the woodlands and hares in the glades. 
 The hunter had, however, formidable beasts of prey,
 
 IN EUROPE AND AFRICA 151 
 
 the lion and the spotted hysena, as his competitors 
 in the chase." 
 
 Traces of man in this stage with only the very 
 rudest implements have, as I pointed out in my last 
 paper, been found in great abundance in South 
 Africa. Indeed, man in this stage was spread over 
 vast portions of the globe, and existed in this con- 
 dition for a very great length of time, a greater 
 length of time probably than all the subsequent 
 stages of his existence put together. We are un- 
 able to refer the men of this time to any branch of 
 the human race now living, and they are as extinct 
 in Asia as in Europe, as extinct as their contem- 
 porary, the woolly-haired rhinoceros. 
 
 The Cave Men, found in old buried rock shelters 
 throughout Europe, used stone implements of a 
 more advanced type than the old hunters of the 
 river drift. These caves and shelters in the rocks 
 were probably places of periodic resort, similar to 
 certain resorts used by the Eskimos in certain 
 seasons of the year at the present day. 
 
 Many of the Bushmen caves of this country are 
 splendid examples of what, with a few trifling modi- 
 fications, the caves of the ancient cave-dwellers were 
 like ; and from these Bushmen caves some good 
 specimens of the higher types of stone weapons 
 have been obtained. Dr. Kannemeyer, of Burghers- 
 dorp, has an excellent collection. Some striking
 
 152 PRE-HISTORIC MAN 
 
 carvings on bones and ivory have been obtained 
 from the old European caves, and we all know the 
 Bushman's passion for drawing and even painting 
 on the rocks the various animals with which he was 
 surrounded. At Klipfontein, a farm owned by the 
 Hon. William Ross on the Vaal River, are some 
 wonderful carvings on the rocks round the fountain. 
 
 o 
 
 I was able readily to recognise the elephant, ostrich, 
 giraffe, wildebeeste, hartebeeste, blesbok and koodoo, 
 all cut out on the solid rock. 
 
 From the River Drift and Cave Men we pass on 
 to the men of the Neolithic Age ; that is, men using 
 highly polished stone weapons, appearing after 
 Britain was separated from the Continent, and bring- 
 ing with them some live stock and some knowledge 
 of cultivation. In this age, also, we find the shell 
 mounds in Denmark, and the lake dwellings in 
 Switzerland, both phases of life represented in 
 Africa. Round the coast of South Africa we have 
 numerous shell mounds, partially buried, and un- 
 doubtedly old habitations, containing, at any rate 
 in some cases which I carefully explored, and de- 
 scribed in my last paper, polished stones used in 
 dressing skins, ashes, split bones, and other unmis- 
 takable evidence of human origin. Again, in some 
 of the lake regions of the interior of Africa are 
 found tribes living in lake dwellings, constructed on 
 piles driven into the lake bottom, almost identical
 
 IN EUROPE AND AFRICA 153 
 
 with the ancient lake dwellings of Switzerland. In 
 the Neolithic Age in Britain, and on the Continent, 
 men first adopted the custom of burying their dead, 
 and from the old barrows or tombs of that age 
 human skeletons of a distinct type and in consider- 
 able numbers are found. They are skeletons of men 
 of sm.all stature, averaging about five feet three inches 
 in height, with long, or what is known as the " doli- 
 cocephalic," type of skull. Numbers of these skele- 
 tons have been investigated by Thurnam, Huxley, 
 Burk, Virchow, and others, and they have come to 
 the conclusion that the race to which they belong is 
 still to be numbered among the living races of 
 Europe. There can be little doubt from examina- 
 tion of numbers of skeletons from Basque cemeteries 
 that they are identical with the Iberian race of 
 history, — a race most nearly represented to-day by 
 the Basque tribes dwelling in and near the Pyrenees. 
 This identification by Huxley and others of the neo- 
 lithic with the Basque races has received most inter- 
 esting and unexpected support from the philological 
 researches of the Abbe Inchauspe into the dialects 
 of the Pyrenees. He points out that the Basque 
 names for cutting tools are as follows : — 
 
 Axe is aizcora ; composed of aitz-aitza, a stone ; 
 gora, high, lifted up ; pick is aizurra, aitz, and urra to 
 tear in sunder, that is, a stone to tear in sunder the 
 earth; knife is aizttoa — aitz, and ttoa little, little stone.
 
 154 PRE-HISTORIC MAN 
 
 Thus, where the anatomical evidence as to the 
 identity of the race is strongest, or where the abori- 
 ginal population is presumably in its greatest purity, 
 distinct traces of the Stone Age are found in the 
 language. 
 
 After the Iberic came the Celtic race, and with 
 the Celtic race came the bronze weapons, the Celts 
 driving out or subduing the old Iberic races in Gaul, 
 Spain, and, finally, in Britain. In all these countries 
 weapons of the Bronze Age, a comparatively short 
 era, are found. The typical weapon of the Bronze 
 Age is the axe. During this age the axe, so im- 
 portant in the dawn of civilisation, went through 
 three stages. The first was that in which the axe 
 was simply let as a wedge into the handle. Of this 
 type we have a splendid example in the iron axes 
 used by the Mashonas to-day. In the second stage, 
 a flange was fashioned on the axe to minimise the 
 splitting effect on the handle. The third stage is 
 that where the handle is let into the head as in the 
 modern axe. This was developed in the Iron Age 
 in Europe. 
 
 To the Bronze Age belong the circular stone 
 temples found at Stonehenge, in Wiltshire, and 
 scattered over Europe and Asia. After the Bronze 
 came the Iron Age, extending over the later portion 
 of pre-historic and the whole of historic times. 
 
 During the heroic age in Greece iron was still
 
 IN EUROPE AND AFRICA 155 
 
 a rare metal, and Homer describes his heroes as 
 fighting with weapons of bronze. In the time of 
 Hesiod, who lived 850 B.C., iron had superseded 
 bronze, though bronze long remained in use for 
 helmets and shields, and remains to-day for orna- 
 mental purposes. Overlapping the pre-historic ages 
 in Northern Europe were the ancient civilisations of 
 Egypt, Assyria, Etruria, Phoenicia and Greece. How 
 ancient these civilisations are we sometimes overlook. 
 The history of Egypt begins with the reign of Menes 
 about 4,000 B.C., and is thus more than three times 
 as old as that of Britain. The modernness of the 
 dominant races of the earth to-day is ably described 
 by Boyd-Dawkins, who says: "When we reflect 
 that the history of Gaul begins in the seventh, and 
 that of Britain in the first century before Christ, and 
 when we consider further that the civilisation of 
 Egypt dates back to more than 4,000 B.C., it must 
 appear obvious that the historical overlap is very 
 great. It is very probable that a large portion of 
 northern Europe was in the Neolithic Age, while 
 the scribes were compiling their records in the great 
 cities on the banks of the Nile, and that the neoli- 
 thic civilisation lingered in remote regions while the 
 voice of Pericles was heard in Athens, or the name 
 of Hannibal was a terror in Italy." 
 
 It is of great interest that the latest ruins dis- 
 covered in South Africa, namely, those of Zimbabye,
 
 156 PRE-HISTORIC MAN 
 
 recently explored by Mr. Bent, are believed to 
 belong to one of these ancient civilisations, probably 
 the Assyrian or Phoenician, and the fact goes far to 
 establish the theory that in Mashonaland we have 
 the Ophir of the Old Testament. 
 
 The whole continent of Africa undoubtedly pos- 
 sesses the most interesting . facts in connection with 
 the study of the origin and history of man's exist- 
 ence on the earth, and illustrates most strikingly the 
 parallelism of the lines of development in the early 
 stages of his existence. There are traces of men 
 of the River Drift Age, Cave-dwellers and Lake- 
 dwellers, the Shell Mound, and early Iron Ages, all 
 to be found in Africa. And indeed there are still 
 races living who to-day are cave-dwellers, as some 
 of the Bushmen ; certain central African tribes who 
 are lake-dwellers — and the interior Bantu tribes who 
 are in the early Iron Age. The historical overlap 
 in Africa is greater than anywhere else, for, while it 
 possesses the oldest civilisation and history in 
 Egypt, there still linger in the south and central 
 regions those pigmy races, the lowest known type of 
 humanity, only just emerging from the Stone Age. 
 
 KICHAKU (.LAV AND SONS, tlMlTEl), LONDON ANU BUNCAV.
 
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