SOUTH AFRICAN REMINISCENCES, 
 
 BY 
 
 R. W. MURRAY, SEN. 
 
 A SERIES OF SKETCHES 
 
 OF PROMINENT PUBLIC EVENTS WHICH HAVE OCCURRED 
 IN SOUTH AFRICA WITHIN THE MEMORY OF THE 
 AUTHOR DURING THE FORTY YEARS SINCE 1854, AND 
 OF THE PUBLIC MEN, OFFICIAL AND UNOFFICIAL, 
 WHO HAVE TAKEN PART IN THEM. 
 
 DEDICATED BY PERMISSION TO 
 
 SHIR, KXOIEIJLIEaiD SOTJTIEHE^ST. 
 
 . PUBLISHERS: 
 J. C. JUTA & CO., 
 
 CAPE TOWN, PORT ELIZABETH, AND JOHANNESBURG. 
 
 1894. 
 
 OPYRIQHT REdl'TFRBB.]
 
 CAPE TOWN : 
 
 "CAPE TIMES" PIIISTINC WOI.KS. 
 PRINTKKS AND BINDERS, ST. GEORRK'S STREET. 
 
 1894.
 
 -
 
 TO 
 
 8IH RICHARD SOUTHEY, K.C.M.G., 
 
 THESE 
 
 REMINISCENCES ARE DEDICATED 
 
 IN TOKEN 
 
 Of esteem and admiration, for the great and undoubted talents you 
 have displayed through a long official life, for the integrity, 
 consistency, unflinching firmness and loyalty which has charac- 
 terized your career as a Colonial Statesman, Administrator, and 
 Legislator, 
 
 From your obedient Servant, 
 
 RICHARD WILLIAM KU3SAY, Sen.
 
 ERRATA. 
 
 In page (>, for year 1S4O read 1 854,
 
 PRKFACE. 
 
 rominently before the public for so many years, and 
 ^ 5 *^ J taken as I have an active share in the work done for the general 
 welfare of the country since 1854 forty years a great many of thoae 
 who have been readers of my writings, had for a long time been 
 constantly urging me to pen and publish an autobiographical sketch of 
 my South African career. A busy man all my life, I have never had 
 'time for such work, and if I had had the time I should have lacked $he 
 inclination. Without any undue affectation of modesty, I have always 
 felt when called upon, as I have frequently been to speak, or write of 
 work I have done that has found favour, more of pain than of pleasure 
 in doing it, but in recording or commending the successful achievements 
 of others, whether as patriots, poets, politicians, or of those who labour 
 in any of the many walks of life that come within the scope of 
 journalistic review or public platform comment. J have felt more 
 pleasure in doing it than I can express. 
 
 The repeated suggestions and requests about my writing my own 
 biography led to a train of thought which has resulted in the Remini- 
 scences which are contained in this publication. It had been many 
 times pointed out to me that there must have been much that has come 
 within my knowledge ; through the number of years I have laboured in 
 this country, which few of the wielders of the pen of the present day, 
 .however much more able they may be to write, which I alone could be 
 sufficiently informed upon to make the record of it accurate and reliable , 
 as a matter of history. However that may be, I was brought at last 
 .to the conclusion that there are many events in tke past history of the 
 country, within my memory, of interest and importance, which ought 
 mot to bo lost, and that I might be spending my time more unprofitably 
 than in writing them down and getting them printed and published. 
 AB there was no indication of any one else entering upon the work, and 
 ae some one ought to undertake it, I felt it better that I should do it 
 .than that it should be left undone.
 
 VI 
 
 Th method I decided upon adopting was to write down every 
 reminiscence as it was recalled to my mind by recurring to an event, 
 or to the name of some distinguished public man who had been 
 conspicuous, either for initiating, or assisting in the measures and 
 movements which have quickened the progress of the Colony, developed 
 its resources, and improved its status in the Colonial Empire during the 
 period before mentioned. I felt this to be more within my powers, and 
 more likely to bring out interesting incidents in the lives of our 
 esteemed public men, than if I were to attempt to write a history 
 chronologically as the events occurred. It appeared to me that this- 
 would be more interesting to the reader and serve a better purpose, and 
 to test it I published each Reminiscence as written in the columns of the 
 colonial Press. If I may judge by the commendations I have received, 
 orally and verbally, for the Reminiscences already published, I was right 
 jn my judgment. I have been rewarded with nothing like the approval 
 awarded to me for these Reminiscences since my Pen and Ink Sketches 
 in Parliament in 1855 and 1864. Since the original Reminiscences 
 appeared in the newspapers, I have received from all parts of South 
 Africa letters by the score, advising, urging, and requesting me to 
 repnblish them in book form. 
 
 In order to make them still more acceptable, I have revised the 
 originals, corrected typical errors, and have filled in details which did 
 not occur to me in my first drafts, and have added others which I thought 
 unnecessary to hand over to the newspapers. They are now presented to 
 the public in as full and perfect a collection as the limits of the book 
 will admit of. It has been in the hope, and I may say conviction, that 
 some of the records to be found in this book relative to our Governors, 
 Lieut. -Governors, Judges, Bishops, Parliamentarians, politicians, Adminis- 
 trators, and patriotic public men, may be of service in guiding, directing, 
 and warning those in charge of the affairs of the country, that I have 
 written it, and here I may say that I consider the Cape Colony has been, 
 generally speaking, most fortunate in its public men, especially in its 
 Governors, from the time of Sir George Grey to the present hour. A* 
 far as the nominees of the Crown are concerned, there has been very 
 little to find fault with. They have, as a rule, whilst officially repre- 
 senting the Queen's Government in South Africa, taken more interest 
 in the Colony than their Imperial masters, because they knew the 
 country and its people better. This I think is conveyed by the plain 
 unvarnished facts relative to the action taken by our Governors at 
 important crises in our Colonial history. It has only been when 
 Governors have been appointed with hands and feet tied to carry out 
 Imperial policy without regard to the Colonists or Colonial interests, 
 that the people of the country have been impatient of them. There
 
 have been of them men who have refused to do the Imperial bidding, even, 
 when threats of recall have been resorted to, and when their offending 
 Excellencies have been unyielding and not influenced by the threats, 
 the threats have more than once been put into effect and the recalls have 
 taken place. There is much material for study in these pages of 
 Reminiscences not for the study of Governors merely, but for statesmen 
 to ponder over in common with the general reader. 
 
 And outside of official life there are records here of public works 
 carried out, and others projected but not carried out, of promises made 
 of public works needed, made only to be broken, which taken together, 
 should make readers interested in the welfare of the Colony pause 
 whilst they read. And the chapters on the subject of Irrigation may, 
 perhaps, now when that most vital subject has been revived, be of 
 aervice. They might be, if the facts related be well studied, prove to 
 be most instructive in the way of warning and guidance. Should the7 
 but stir the Government to take up the Salt River Poort scheme again 
 and bring it to a practical issue, the time devoted to the penning of 
 these pages will not have been spent uuprofitably. A perusal of these 
 pages will not only bring back the memories of many men who have 
 laboured earnestly and wisely for the advancement of the Colony, but 
 will throw much light upon the material advancement made and shew 
 the many changes which have taken place in the political life of the 
 country. 
 
 The ox-wagon and the post-cart were the only means of transport for 
 merchandize, produce, mails and men when Sir George Grey arrived to 
 take the reins of government. Steam has superseded the ox-wagon and 
 cart, telegraph lines cross and recross the whole face of the country, and 
 there is not a town, or even a village, which has not an electric 
 communication with the centres of trade and commerce. Our ports, 
 which were dangerous for shipping in 1854 and avoided as far as possible, 
 are now harbours as safe and sheltered as any in the known world, and 
 the wrecks which took place in Table Bay with the ever-recurring winter 
 gales are no more known. The Cape Colony may well be satisfied with 
 the progress it has made during the last forty years, and especially during 
 the last twenty, since the diamond and gold industries have been in full 
 swing. We are now in close connection with all neighbouring Colonies 
 and States, and the day of an United South Africa seems to be rapidly 
 approaching. What remains to be done to make our prosperity perma- 
 nent and secure, is to make our lands produce the necessary articles of 
 consumption, to raise our own food by our own labour, farm our own 
 oil, and when we set about doing that South Africa will be abreast with 
 the foremost of Her Majesty's Colonial possessions. 
 
 I have, as it will be seen, carefully avoided in all my Reminiscences
 
 introducing any matter calculated to provoke political controversy or to 
 etir party strife, and have in no case, as far as I can see, even in the 
 slightest degree alluded to any matter calculated to awaken the remem- 
 brance of any circumstance that is better forgotten. 
 
 The permission of Sir Richard Southey to me to dedicate the Remini- 
 scences to him will be, I am confident, as gratifying to those who will 
 possess them as it is to myself. It was the more acceptable that it was 
 given unhesitatingly, frankly, and cheerfully. Sir Richard Southey is 
 the oldest official in South Africa, and held office for very many more 
 years than any other servant of the Crown. Her Majesty was never 
 more loyally served than by him, nor the Cape Colony better. He held 
 office under four Governors, commencing with His Excellency Sir Harry 
 Smith, and only retired from office when he disapproved of the policy of 
 the Imperial representative; holding it to be detrimental to the best 
 interests of those whom it would affect. As Lieutenant-Governor, he so 
 shaped the government of Griqualand West, as to secure the rights of 
 property to its legitimate owners, prevent mining monopolies, keep the 
 mining industry extended upon broad principles, that the whole indus- 
 trial population might share in its benefits, thwarted every effort made to 
 extort exorbitant rents and claim charges, protected the rights of natives, 
 and secured the good-will and friendships of neighbouring native chiefs. 
 Without troops or an armed force of any kind, by his own moral power 
 alone, he maintained law and order throughout the camps where 
 turbulent spirits were panting to defy both, and although his cessation 
 from office was occasioned by the unseemly action of the Imperial 
 authorities, his name is never spoken in the Diamond Fields but with the 
 greatest respect, and will ever be cherished there. He had proof when 
 he recently paid the Fields a visit, that no man, either in or out of office, 
 is more welcomed and respected in the Diamond Fields than he is 
 himself. Throughout South Africa, wherever the name of Richard 
 Southey is uttered, it is honoured.
 
 No. I. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 "The Cape Town of Forty Years Ago The Anti-Convict Straggle The 
 First Parliament Election of Speaker " House " Praying in 
 Private Reporters Disposed of The Speaker Loses the Prayer 
 and is Nonplussed Mr. Solomon comes to his Rescue ... ... 1 
 
 No. II. 
 
 ' Territorial Representation Mr. Solomon's Voluntary Bill introduced 
 Mr. Fairbairn moves for Responsible Government Mr. Solomon 
 opposes and the Motion lost A Word for the Buchanans Paper 
 War between Sir Andreas Stockenstrom and the Hon. Robert 
 Godlonton Mr. Scanlen's First Attempt to amend the Law ot 
 Inheritance The Namaqualand Copper-mining Mania and its 
 ruinous Results ... ... ... ... ... ... 10 
 
 No. III. 
 
 More about the Mines Salem's Veritable Table Mountain Gold 
 Swindle Merchants and others sold by an Australian Jew 
 The Race up the Mountain for Wealth Refreshers on the Moun- 
 tain Side Mr. Fairbairn's Great Public Services Ruffianly 
 Attack on Mr. Fairbaim at his Residence Impounding the Press 
 by Lord Charles Somerset The Press Set Free and the Liberty 
 of the Press ensured .. 20 
 
 No. IV. 
 
 Agricultural Development The First Agricultural Exhibition Mr. 
 T. B. Bayley's Services Live-stock More Ploughs and Machi- 
 nery Imported The Caledon of the Past-^Arrival of Sir George 
 Grey His Excellency's support to Agricultural Societies His 
 Wise Administration The Settlement of British Kaffraria-^f 
 Simon's Town Patent Slip Mr. Solomon on Territorial Expan- 
 sion Storm in Table Bay Loss of the R.M.S. " Athens " and 
 Crew Pen and Ink Sketches of 1855 Harbour Works ... 26
 
 No. V. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 English and Dutch Governors Periods of Office Sir G. Grey and 
 Sir H. Darkly Fouudation-stone Laying Mr. C. Bayley Cox 
 and Sir G. Grey Languishing Airs How Cox got the Humans- 
 dorp Magistracy Arrival of Prince Alfred and his Reception 
 throughout South Africa ... ... ... ... ... 33- 
 
 No. VI. 
 
 Sir George Grey's Splendid Gift to the Cape Town Public Library 
 The Opening Ceremony Prince Alfred's First Public Appear- 
 ance Unveiling Her Majesty's Portrait A Royal Gift from the 
 Queen to the Colony Mr. Porter's Grand Speech The Public 
 Excitement on Sir George's Recall The Scenes in the Streets, 
 at the Leve'e and in Table Bay His Excellency's Magnificent 
 Reception on his Return with the Prince in his Company 
 Public Balls and Rejoicings Sir George leaves for New Zealand 
 General Wynyard acts Divisions in the English Channel Small- 
 pox in Cape Town, d-c. ... ... ... ... ... 38 
 
 No. VII. 
 
 Periods of Governors' Rule Sir Philip Wodehouse Hot for Sir Philip 
 Rectifying the Colonial Balances Sir Philip's Taxing Measures 
 opposed and rejected The Parliament convened in Graham's 
 Town Easterns in High Glee Cape Town holds Public Meeting 
 and Protests " Argus " changes hands Graham's Town Press 
 strengthened... ... ... ... ... ... ... 44 
 
 No. VIII. 
 
 Having the Parliament " No Vagary " Cape fortunate in its Gover- 
 nors Grand Reception of Governor and Executive at Port 
 Elizabeth Banquet and Leve'e Governor visits Uitenhage 
 Well Received Enters Graham's Town with Lieutenant-Governor 
 Sir Percy Douglas Met by Sir Walter Currie, the Cape Frontier 
 Police, and Cape Mounted Rifles Banquet at the Town House 
 Opening Speech delivered at the Shaw College Hon. S. Cawood 
 entertains the Parliament at Luncheon City Illuminated in the 
 Evening Chabaud's Caprices The Speaker Censured ... ... 61 
 
 No. IX. 
 
 The Customs Rumpus The Members of both Houses visit the Kowie 
 The Wynberg Railway gets Running Powers Exorbitant 
 Demands of Landowners on the Wynberg Line 5,500 reduced to 
 350 and the Clay Prince of Wales's Marriage Fetes A 
 Magnificent Carnival Fetes in the Government Gardens Oxen 
 Roasted whole on the Parade Parliamentary Banquets and Balls 
 in Graham's Town-^kreli Troublesome, is Whipped by Major 
 Gawlerl . 58
 
 PAGE 
 
 The Retrenchment Bubble Sir Philip Wodehonse The Eastern Dis- 
 tricts Court Conservatives and Liberals and their Distinctions 
 Conservatives divided on the Retrenchment Policy of Mr. W. 
 Foster, M.L.A. Annexation of Kaffraria^Basutoland and Free 
 State War Closing of Law Courts in the Orange River Free 
 State Eastern Obstruction in the Assembly Basutoland becomes 
 British President Brand a Federalist Allegation that Water- 
 boer's Country was annexed solely for the sake of the Diamond 
 Fields 65- 
 
 No. XI. 
 
 Sir Philip Wodehouse's offer to the Parliament to get a Railway 
 Engineer and to become security for his Efficiency Parliament 
 accepts the offer Mr. Bourne, C.E., procured from Demerara 
 His trip through the Country Railway Engineering Department 
 Formed and Broken up Engineer Dismissed Unregistered Hard- 
 ships Sir Henry Barkly's visits to Kimberley Mr. (now Sir) 
 Richard Southey's Defection with the Colonial Government His 
 Appointment as Lieut. -Governor of Griqualand His Reception on 
 Arrival Banquet and Fireworks How Responsible Government 
 was won ... ... ... ... ... ... ... 74 
 
 No. XII. 
 
 Early Days of the Diamond Fields The River Diggings Habits and 
 Manners of the Pioneers Sabbath Observance Service rendered 
 by Bishop Webb and the Clergy of the Free State Resident 
 Chaplain appointed The Rectory Building First Wedding in 
 the Diamond Fields Bride turns up a " Mama " Scene on the 
 River Banks Buried under the Three Kameeldoorns The End 
 of the Romance 8t 
 
 No. XIII. 
 
 A Word about Mr. Paterson and the Press Mr. George Impey The 
 " Midland Herald " Treatment of the Gem of the Desert 
 Mr. Godlonton and the " Graham's Town Journal "The Altered 
 Aspect of the South African Press " Interviewing " Extraor- 
 dinary ... ... ... ... ... ... ... 90 
 
 No. XIV. 
 
 Old Cape Town Magistrates Mr. P. B. Borcherds and Baron Lorenz 
 Mr. John Montagu, the Secretary and Administrator The Road 
 across the Cape Flats " President " Stafford Parker Mr. John 
 Campbell An Aspect of the Land Question at Klipdrift 
 A Gold-field Episode Balance on the Wrong Side Slave Dealers 
 and Slaves A Visit to the Hatherly Distillery... ... ... 97"
 
 Xll 
 No. XV. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Ths Discovery of Diamonds Cape Town 1869 Crisis Banks and 
 Bankruptcies Sir Philip Wodehouse purchases the First 
 Diamond Mr. Wollaston Manager of Telegraphs The Messrs. 
 Lilienfeld and the Star of South Africa The Rush to the 
 Diamond Fields The River Diggings in 1869 and 1870 The 
 Natal Party's Luck at Starting Apathy of Bloemfontein ... 104 
 
 No. XVI. 
 
 How Diamond Fields Society formed itself Nobility, Gentry and 
 Mechanics pour in England doubts the Genuineness of the Cape 
 Diamond Mr. Streeter comes to the Rescue The Immortal 
 Thunderer won't be convinced 110 
 
 No. XVII. 
 
 Sir Bartle Frere and the Diamond Fields in London The English Press 
 and Public Uninformed The " Daily News " won't be told My 
 Interviews with the City Editor of the " Times "Sir Bartle 
 Frere at the Geographical Society and at Wimbledon My Lecture 
 at the Society of Arts Colonel Crossman at the Lecture The 
 Liberal M.P. on the Colonies. .. 116 
 
 No. XVIII. 
 
 How Yank bit Yank No Pendulums to the Clocks No Seats to the 
 Chairs How an American Consul's " Independence" cost him his 
 Berth The " Alabama " arrives in Table Bay Capture of the 
 " Sea Bride " Captain Semmes and his Consul The " Alabama " 
 Captures Fourteen Merchant Ships on the Coast ... ... 123 
 
 No. XIX. 
 
 The Cape Press then and now The Pressman of Forty Years Ago My 
 
 First Press Work at the Cape An Odd Scene in Court ... ... 130 
 
 No. XX. 
 
 Reporters and Reporting A Devon Incident First Shorthand Report- 
 ing in the Eastern Province " Great Eastern " " Advertiser and 
 Mail "Mr. John Noble Mr. J. B. Glanville as Missionary, 
 Journalist and M.L.A. Her Majesty becomes Patron of his 
 "Home and Abroad "... 137 
 
 No. XXJ. 
 
 The Diamond Fields Press A Race for Precedence Pressmen turn 
 
 Diggers ... ... 144
 
 No. XXII. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Strange Case of Mistaken Identity The Parson swears and the Magis- 
 trate believes him Wrongful Imprisonment of a Bride-Elect 
 Bishop Webb comes to the Rescue Bride becomes a Wife and ia 
 Happy ever after Magistrate's Wife Arms and Hunts Law 
 Court Matters Attempt to set up Jantje as Paramount Chief ... 150- 
 
 No. XXIII. 
 
 Mr. and Mrs. Rogers and Mr. Jenkins An Odd Story from Real Life ; 
 given away by her Husband The Unger Case at Klipdrift The 
 First Bank on the Diamond Fields ... ... ... ... 1ST 
 
 No. XXIV. 
 
 . 
 The Indian Remount Agency A fine Haul for Cape Horse-breeders 
 
 400,000 divided amongst Horse-breeders and Forage-growers 
 Men of Mark Bayley, Reitz, Blake, Joubert, Foulkes, Charles 
 Bayley Cox, George Hull, Veale, Vigne, Wescott Morris, Duncan 
 Macfarlane, George Chapman and J. C. Bourhill ... , . 16? 
 
 No. XXV. 
 
 Flockmasters and Diamond Diggers, Sheep-stealers and I.D.B.'s 
 Government Promises The King William's Town Party The 
 Macintoshes and the Barbers 3,500 a Month Captain Gordon 
 and Bill Shine War Declared against the Chief Jantje O'Reilly 
 Arrested and Discharged ... ... ... ... ... 17t 
 
 No. XXVI. 
 
 Cape Governors and Judges Four Colonial-born Judges and Seven 
 English Mr. Justice Watermeyer in Parliament Mr. Justice 
 Ebden as a Newspaper Correspondent ... ... ... ... 177" 
 
 NO. xxvi r. 
 
 The Dead Past and the Living Present The Founders of Firms and 
 
 Institutions ... ... ... ... ... ... ... 18<r 
 
 No. XXVII [. 
 
 Political Apathy of Kimberley Administrator Lanyon's time The 
 Rowe in the Legislature The Council Smashed up The Annexa- 
 tion moves Death of the Hon. Mr. flalkett, M.L-C. ... ... 190- 
 
 No. XXIX. 
 
 Diamond Fields Gaieties Colonial Receptions of Distinguished Men 
 The Festivities in Honour of the Lieut.-GoTernor The Draft 
 Consitution and the Election* ... ... ... ... ... 197"
 
 No. XXX. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Theatricals at Home and Abroad Amateurs and Professionals The 
 Drama and Christy Minstrels G. V. Brooke Sefton-Parry , 
 Captain Disney Roebuck Harvey, Dougherty, and the rest ... 203 
 
 No. XXXI. 
 The Late Bishop Ricards His Life and Death ... ... ... 209 
 
 No. XXXII. 
 
 Old Memories The Bishops, Roman and Protestant High and Low 
 Church Divisions and Disturbances Parliament Revokes Land 
 Grant given to Bishop Gray The Long Trial The Colenso Con- 
 troversy Bishop Gray Defeated ... ... ... ... 216 
 
 No. XXXIII. 
 
 Municipal Advancement Old Peter The Dwelling-places of the Poor 
 A Slave's Story Opening of Meiring's Poort Press Privileges in 
 Parliament ... ... .. ... ... ... ... 222 
 
 No. XXXIV. 
 
 The First of the River Diamond Industry Robinsonia How Society 
 Formed Itself Early Days of the Kimberley Mine Interesting 
 Incidents ... ... ... ... ... ... ... 232 
 
 No. XXXV. 
 
 Men of Mark in East and West Public Stoeps and Scenes ... ... 238 
 
 No. XXXVI. 
 
 A Voice 'from Beaufort West on Irrigation Dam-making and Dam- 
 bursting Promises to Irrigate the Lands near the Vaal still 
 Uflkept The Barkly Hospital ... ... ... ... 244 
 
 No. XXXVII. 
 
 A Grand Lesson on Irrigation Dedicated to whoever it may concern, 
 
 and to the Commissioner of Public Works especially ... ... 249
 
 REMINISCENCE. 
 
 No. I. 
 
 THE CAPE TOWN OK FORTY YEARS AGO THE ANTI-CONVICT 
 STRUGGLE THE FIRST PARLIAMENT ELECTION OF 
 
 SPEAKER " HOUSE " PRAYING IN PRIVATE REPORTERS 
 
 DISPOSED OF THE SPEAKER LOSES THE PRAYER AND IS 
 NONPLUSSED MR. SOLOMON COMES TO HIS RESCUE. 
 
 No man can spend forty years in any country, as I have done 
 in South Africa, taking fairly prominent parts in public affairs,, 
 political, social and physical, without gathering a store of 
 incidents and adventures worth remembering and relating.. 
 Such reminiscences, when fairly well detailed, are not only 
 interesting, but instructive, throwing light as they do upon 
 historical events, the characteristics of the men who have 
 helped to make history and the circumstances out of which 
 existing institutions, material advancement and the changes of 
 Government, in its forms and personalities, which have occurred. 
 
 T have been many times urged to write the history of South 
 Africa over the period of the forty years or thereabouts that I 
 have known it, but the task would need much more leisure than 
 I have ever had or an? likely to have, and few men who have 
 completed the allotted span of three score years and ten care, 
 unless they have nothing else to occupy their time, to commence 
 a work involving so much responsibility and which in the 
 ordinary run of things, the chances are as ten to one that they 
 will never complete. 
 
 Writing reminiscences in a series of articles and compiling a 
 full, perfect and reliable history of a country are two very 
 different things. Every article in this series will be perfect in 
 itself, and the whole series taken together will, I hope, serve to- 
 make the facts of history whenever they shall be compiled,. 
 
 B
 
 'better understood than they would otherwise be. There is a 
 humour in everyday occurrences which historians seldom care to 
 preserve, and incidents in political, commercial and general 
 movements are quite as instructive and valuable as the plain 
 unvarnished facts which the historian regards as the only 
 material for his manipulation. The South Africa of forty 
 years ago was no more like the South Africa of to-day than a 
 street Arab is like an accomplished gentleman fresh from the 
 hands of his tutor. It has not only grown in size, as from 
 youth to maturity, but all its features are completely changed, 
 
 -and unquestionably changed for the better, and when I hear 
 people saying, as too many have a habit of saying, that the 
 
 ; Cape is a God-forgotten place, and a country only desirable to 
 .leave, I know they are ignorant of what they are talking. 
 
 Forty years ago even the metropolis of the Cape hadn't a 
 
 pavement on which you could walk twenty yards without 
 
 running against a flight of stone steps that led up to an un- 
 
 ;gainly stoep. There was a broad open drain, about six feet 
 wide, running from the Government Gardens through Adderley- 
 
 street to the Bay. This drain was the main sewer of the city 
 into which all the dirt and offal were emptied, and with dead 
 
 cats and dogs, and occasionally the remains of a deceased 
 glandered horse thrown into it, sent forth an odour which 
 
 diffused itself throughout the city an odour to which all 
 who lived in town had become so accustomed that they 
 did not find it unpleasant, and never dreamt of its being 
 
 unhealthy. There were no docks, nor wharves in Table Bay, 
 and only three planked platforms at the edge of the Bay (called 
 jetties generally) beside which nothing drawing more water 
 than a cargo boat does could lie. There was not a shop with 
 w show front in the place ; the retail stores closed from about 
 twelve to three every day, that the shopkeepers and their families 
 might take their siesta undisturbed. Slaughtering shambles were 
 
 attached to the butchers' sale stores, and the drainage from 
 the shambles blood and offal coursed along the margin of the 
 Bay, and a good deal of it was left in a state of putrifaction, 
 
 :and on hot days the smell was nauseating to every living thing 
 but blue-bottle flies, who regaled themselves without stint and 
 who buzzed away in delight as musically as the drone of the 
 
 doodlesack. This was the state of " the seat of wealth and 
 
 intelligence " when I saw it on my way to the Parliament of
 
 1854, that being the period when the Cape first experienced the 
 delight of Parliamentary Government. Sir Henry Darling 
 (lieutenant-governor) was the then acting Governor, he having 
 succeeded Sir Harry Smith, who had been recalled in couse- 
 quence of his action in regard to the anti-eonvict ship Neptune, 
 which led to the uprising of the Cape Town people in rebel- 
 lion against the Government for attempting to land convicts in 
 Table Bay. Sir Harry Smith, the " Hero of Aliwal, " was a 
 fine soldier, but he was just as qualified to administer civil 
 government as military men usually are. His brusqueness gave 
 mortal offence one day to the " popular party," and the next he 
 won their affection by weakly yielding to them. The only 
 staunch support he ever had was from the merchant class, but 
 .at last they could not stand his shilly-shallying and capricious 
 wheeling and turning about, and they dropped him. 
 
 The tactics of the popular party will be understood when it is 
 stated that the Anti-Convict Association had resolved to starve 
 all the officials out Governor, Executive and all, and had dared 
 .anyone to supply them with food, under the penalty of being 
 maltreated and driven out of the country. But Captain Stan- 
 ford, a long-standing and plucky officer in Her Majesty's Army, 
 came forward and procured whatever meat, bread and other 
 necessaries of life were needed for official circles during the 
 whole of the struggle, and was afterwards rewarded for it by 
 being knighted by Her Majesty the Queen. This was but a 
 poor reward for the work he did and the risk he ran. The 
 anti-convict struggle was an exceedingly violent one, and the 
 merchants and their belongings were denounced and tabooed 
 because, although against having convicts landed, they held 
 .that the Association was going too far, and refused to join or 
 support it. The places of residence of some of them were 
 attacked, and one of their party Mr. Benjamin Norden, was 
 severely injured. The outcome of it all was the recall of the 
 Neptune and the granting of Parliamentary Government, for 
 which if thanks were given to any one it should have been to 
 Mr. John Fairbairn, but, alas ! for the stability of the vox 
 populi. Mr. Fairbairn had been the idol of the people 
 up to the time of the first assembling of the Cape Parlia- 
 ment, and with no thought of self had dissipated his sub- 
 stance in advancing the popular cause, and he and his friends 
 .had counted on his; being elected the first Speaker of the Hous ;
 
 of Assembly of which he was a member, but on his being 
 nominated he found himself deserted by his oldest and most 
 attached friends, and Mr Advocate Brand, sen., afterwards Sir 
 Christophel was elected in his stead. The popular party 
 being dominant in Cape Town, none but their own men were 
 sent to represent that constituency the commercial com- 
 munity had not the shadow of a chance of getting a candidate 
 returned for four years, nor would they at the end of that 
 time, but that in 1858 it was discovered that the Constitu- 
 tion Ordinance had no bribery clause, and the merchants on 
 the discovery of that, to them, cheering fact resolved to 
 make a push for it. They bad the wealth, and as Cape 
 Town votes were as purchaseable as snoek or rice they in 
 1858 succeeded in getting Mr. John Stein, of Hamilton Ross 
 & Co., returned to the Legislative Council at the head of 
 the poll, although he was reduced to second place by the 
 scrutineers, who were of the Barry party. This was followed 
 by the return of Mr. J. D. Thomson, of the firm of Thomson,. 
 Watson & Co., to the House of Assembly. The Council 
 elections then were spread over fourteen days, and I think 
 the -Assembly elections over three, but of the latter I am not 
 quite sure. The popular party were nowhere from that time. 
 The return of members for Cape Town and the Western 
 Province fell completely into the bands of what was called 
 the Conservative party, and this was the case in the Eastern 
 Province, as the motto of the Easterns had been from the 
 arrival of the 1820 Setllers " Conservative yet Progressive." 
 I mentioned before that Sir Charles Darling, who held the 
 office of Lieut.-Governor after the recall of Sir Harry Smith,, 
 was appointed Acting Governor and he thinking his bread 
 would be better buttered by countenancing the popular or 
 anti-convict party, showed such a decided leaning to that 
 side, and gave the party so much encouragement that the 
 merchants declined to put in an appearance at Government 
 House, and on the occasion of Her Majesty's Birthday Bali 
 but few of them were seen there, and when His Excellency 
 was called Home in 1854 the farewell manifestation accorded 
 him was anything but brilliant. He had not only lost caste by 
 supporting what the wealthier and more respectable called 
 " the unwashed rabble," but he had suspended Mr. Southey,. 
 now Sir Richard Southey, for some imaginary offence, but
 
 really because that official was supposed to have Conservative 
 ieanings. la this ill-advised move Sir Harry got worsted. 
 Mr. Southey was never the man to give in to popular clamour 
 nor to permit "the powers that be" to do him an injustice, 
 without asserting himself. Immediately the Acting Governor 
 suspended him he packed his portmanteau and made off for 
 England, waited upon the Secretary of State for the Colonies, 
 laid his case plainly and fully before him, was found to be 
 blameless, was reinstated, and returned to the Cape, accompanied 
 by an instruction to Sir Henry Darling to reinstate him and 
 that the instruction was accompanied by an Imperial rebuke 
 was known, and as is always the case, those who disliked and 
 condemned him before came to hold him in utter contempt. 
 Sir H. Darling's rule became an unhappy one both for him- 
 self and those whose destinies he was appointed to control, 
 and his removal was as acceptable to him as to the Colonists. 
 He was sent to Australia, where he was immensely 
 popular, but it has been before remarked that no popular 
 Australian Governor has ever been a popular Governor in 
 South Africa. Of this I could give instances in proof. 
 
 The race feeling between Dutch and English which the 
 anti-convict conflict increased and hardened became very strong, 
 and between the Boers in the Free State and the English it 
 became intensified by the hanging of an Euglish gentleman 
 .named Cox on a charge of poisoning his wife without evidence 
 to support the charge, and of which crime his countrymen knew 
 he was not guilty. The unfortunate gentleman had married the 
 comely daughter of a Free State Boer, an uneducated and 
 uumannered girl. He, an accomplished educated gentleman, 
 soon surfeited of her comeliness, paid her but little attention, 
 although he provided more home comforts for her than she had 
 ever known in her father's home. She became dissatisfied, 
 complained of his neglect, and ultimately poisoned herself. 
 That she died by her own act was incontestably proved after 
 .her husband had been hanged, but that only went to show that 
 the proverb of " better late than never " does not, like many 
 other proverbs, always' hold good. Her relatives and partisans, 
 who had great influence with the then existing Government, 
 got Cox arrested, tried, found guilty, and sentenced to be hung, 
 .and the Government of the day were too ready to hang him. 
 At that time Englishmen had but a poor show in the Free
 
 State, a condition of things happily no longer existing. A- 
 number of English and some of the fairer-minded Boers got 
 horses and made all arrangements for taking Cox out of the 
 gaol in which he was confined, and setting him free. They 
 went to him on the night before the day fixed for his execution, 
 but he refused to be released. He persisted as at the trial that 
 he was entirely innocent of the crime, and that the Government, 
 who knew he was, ought to set him free. " But they will hang 
 you," said the Squire of Baines' Vley, who was one of the 
 rescuing party. Cox's reply was, " If I run away they will- 
 say it is a proof of my guilt, and rather than live with the 
 blasted character of murderer, I much prefer being hung." 
 And hung he was. The Englishmen in the Free State and the 
 Colony were greatly exasperated, vowed that Cox had been 
 sacrificed to the inborn hatred of the Boers to everything 
 English and to Englishmen, and it became war to the knife 
 between the two races, and remained so for years, but since 
 then circumstances have occurred which have greatly modified 
 the feeling, to which modification, no doubt, Parliamentary life 
 has much tended until lately. Of all the changes effected in 
 Cape Colonial life in the last forty years, none are so marked as 
 those which have taken place in Government and Legislative 
 circles. The history of the Cape is indeed a strange eventful 
 history, and if those who have not seen the Cape since 1840 
 were to return to it to-day, it would seem to them that they had 
 come to another world, and the contrast would be nowhere more 
 striking than in the Houses of Parliament. There were no- 
 such buildings as the edifice in which the two Houses of 
 Parliament now sit, nor anything like it, in 1840. Out of all the 
 members who have seats in Parliament now, I can but remember 
 one who can recall the features of the House of Assembly of 
 1854, and that one is Sir David Tennant, the Speaker of the 
 House, and even he was not at that time a member. He was a 
 frequenter of " the House," and will remember it when the 
 House of Assembly met in the old Cape of Good Hope Lodge 
 at the top of Grave-street, and the Council in an upstair front 
 at the back of the old Public Buildings facing the Dutch 
 Reformed Church in Adderley-street. Two buildings no more 
 suitable for Legislative Halls, either in outward appearance or 
 interior accommodation, than a Kafir hut is suitable for the 
 residence of the Royal Family of England, and the contrast
 
 between the Parliament House of the present time and th- 
 Parliamentary shanties of 1854 is about the same as between- 
 our Government House and Windsor Castle, and the contrast 
 between the living portion of the Legislature of that date with 
 that of the present is about the same in favour of the earlier 
 date. The House of Assembly occupied an oblong hall: 
 capable of accommodating about fifty members, seated in double 
 rows around its sides, and a railed-off gallery the railings of 
 rough, Dnpainted pine ; the bar of the House of the same- 
 material, unpainted and unpolished. There had been many 
 long discussions out of doors before the House was opened, a- 
 to whether the proceedings should be opened with prayer ; the 
 members, as well as lay folk, being divided upon the point. 
 One set held that these formal Christian prayers parrotted by the 
 Speaker to an audience which might be of Jews, Turks, infidel* 
 and heretics, was but a mockery of prayer, others went so far 
 as to denounce it as blasphemy. The more religiously, or 
 p'ously inclined, contended that nothing ever prospered without 
 being prefaced by prayer, but when the committee appointed te 
 draft the rules brought up their report with prayers to start 
 with, there was not a member of the House who ventured t- 
 demur, and prayers won. Then came the question, whether the 
 public should see the House in its attitude of prayer, and tho 
 answer to that was " Certainly not." Should the press repre- 
 sentatives look on ? and it was a decided " No " to that also, so- 
 ft red curtain was swung across the gallery to shut out th 
 public, and there was no admittance for reporters until after 
 prayers, the attendance to which was a bare quorum made up> 
 for the duty outside, with much chaff and laughter. When the 
 House opened for " the despatch of business," the bewigged 
 Speaker was perched in his high-backed chair, the Sergeant-at- 
 Arms, at that lime Major Longmore, in uniform, with a sword 
 by his side, in his low back chair in a corner close to the bar of 
 the House and to the little door that conveniently led to the bar 
 outside, where the most cheery of the spirits connected witlv 
 the House were frequently to be found. The Clerk of the 
 House had a deal table covered with green baize, at which h 
 sat the present clerk was not in office, nor in the Colony then.. 
 Mr. Le Sueur, nephew to the then Postmaster-General, filled 
 the^office, but he, like many and much else that was then, 
 conspicuous in the House, passed away many a year ago. The-
 
 8 
 
 Executive of that period are all dead (with the exception, 
 I believe, of Sir Rawson W. Rawson, the first Colonial 
 Secretary, who brought messages from the Governor " to this 
 Honourable House "), and so is the Speaker, the Serjeant-at- 
 Arms, and I believe every member present at the first opening, 
 ;and addressed by His Excellency Sir Charles Henry Darling, as 
 " Gentlemen of the House of Assembly." 
 
 The press was represented in the first Assembly by three 
 Teporters, Mr. William Buchanan and his son James, then a hid, 
 but since that time Mr. Justice Buchanan, of the High Court 
 of Griqualand West and the Eastern Districts Court, who 
 has departed this life since I commenced writing these reminis- 
 cences, and myself. 
 
 There was no press gallery in those days. The Messrs. 
 Buchanan and myself had each a little round table and a 
 chair and we sat on either side of the Speaker and just under 
 the shadow of a green baize screen, which was erected 
 to keep up the delusion that there were no " Strangers in 
 the gallery '' a Parliamentary sham of the House of Com- 
 mons which the English public has ridiculed, and the comic 
 papers caricatured for more years than I can count, but which 
 our Colonial magnates imitated after their own fashion under 
 the fond impression that they were aggrandizing themselves. 
 It was ridiculed by a number of the members, who refrained (it 
 was said irreverently) from taking their seats until prayers were 
 over, and by those of the public assembled within the precincts 
 of the House. A very laughable incident occurred about that 
 very same prayer. The Speaker, after reading it for years, 
 took the chair one day and opened his portfolio in which he 
 kept the copy of the prayer he read, but after turning over all 
 the papers in it found the prayer missing. Pie turned and 
 turned again, and grew redder in the face than ever ; the House 
 in waiting all the time when at last Mr. Saul Solomon rose 
 and asked " What's the matter, Mr. Speaker ? " " I've lost the 
 prayer," was the reply. " Repeat it without the copy," said 
 S.S. " I can't remember it," said Mr. Speaker, so that after 
 reading it solemnly for at least four years he could not recall 
 the contents ! " Then," said Mr. Solomon, " say the Lord's 
 Prayer." "I can't say it in English," replied the Speaker, 
 with a moan. " The Lord's Prayer is in the New Testament," 
 .said S.S. The clerk handed up the New Testament, but Mr.
 
 Speaker was not sufficiently acquainted with the inspired book 
 to put his hand upon it in St. Matthew's G-ospel. After turn- 
 ing over the leaves for some time he handed the book to Mr. 
 Solomon, who instantly returned it with the right 
 page open. The Speaker read the Lord's Prayer with 
 due solemnity whilst the House was convulsed with repressed 
 laughter.
 
 REMINISCENCE. 
 
 No. II. 
 
 TERRITORIAL REPRESENTATION MR. SOLOMON'S VOLUNTARY 
 
 BILL INTRODUCED MR. FAIRBAIRN MOVES FOK 
 
 RESPONSIBLE GOVERNMENT MR. SOLOMON OPPOSES AND 
 
 THE MOTION LOST A WORD FOB THE BUCHANANS 
 
 PAPER WAR BETWEEN SIR ANDREAS STOCKENSTROM 
 
 AND THE HON. ROBERT GODLONTON MR. SCANLEN's 
 
 FIRST ATTEMPT TO AMEND THE LAW OF INHERITANCE 
 
 THE NAM A.QU ALAND COPPER-MINING MANIA AND ITS- 
 
 RUINOUS RESULTS. 
 
 THERE was but one prominent question disturbing and dividing 
 the country when the House of Assembly met in 1854, and 
 that was " Mr. Saul Solomon's fad " (as it was then regarded 
 and called), the Voluntary Principle, and to that principle the 
 then leader of the House (for that Mr. Solomon undoubtedly 
 was for years) was wedded. He was the only regularly attend- 
 ing member who had any claim to be considered an orator. 
 Mr. John Paterson, one of the representatives of Port Elizabeth, 
 was a speaker of rare ability and excellence, but he was too 
 erratic and unpunctual in bis attendance and too unreliable in 
 his politics ever to have much hold upon the House, or to be 
 the leader of a party for any length of time, or certainly not 
 long enough to consolidate any combination which he might 
 hold together by any popular proposal. The Eastern Districts 
 were fairly of one mind on the subject of Parliamentary 
 Government. They did not believe in it, and would have none 
 of it if they could have avoided it. Under the nominee system, 
 the Easterns had always a fair, and the Westerns said more 
 than a fair share of the loaves and fishes which the Govern- 
 ment had to distribute they had the Lient.-Governor and staff
 
 11 
 
 with a fixed establishment centred in Graham's Town. They 
 were for the most part British settlers, with British proclivi- 
 ties. They had brought the Eastern lands into profiatble 
 occupation, had driven out the barbarian, and for the civilisa- 
 tion of the Eastern Province they alone had to be thanked. 
 They had always prided themselves on their loyalty to the 
 Crown and with just reason. They had shed some of their 
 best blood in defence of the country, many of their relatives 
 had been sacrificed in repelling Kafir incursions, and, worse 
 than all, they had been derided by the Western Press. Mr. 
 Fairbairn, the leader of the popular party, had taunted them 
 with being ' frightened at the sight of a natural man," and had 
 written contemptuously of them as " Brummagem pin makers." 
 The Parliament was his, and they would have none of him. 
 When the Parliament met in 1855, Mr. Solomon's Voluntary 
 Principle was no longer the only prominent question before the 
 country. The Easterns had formed themselves into a compact 
 party contending for a separation of the Provinces and a 
 Government of their own, holding and not without reason 
 that what was sauce for the Western goose was not sauce for 
 the Eastern gander. To those not familiar with the position of 
 affairs at that time, the cry for Separation is unintelligible, as 
 was plainly illustrated by some remarks of Sir Henry Loch,, 
 made at a Port Elizabeth Agricultural dinner. At any rate,. 
 Separation became a burning political question, but Mr. Paterson 
 having no sympathy with the Frontier party, set to work to 
 divide the Eastern Districts, and started a Midland party.. 
 Beyond mischief, he never did much with the Midhinders. 
 Graaff-Reinet and surrounding districts were caught by the 
 notion of a Midland party in Parliament, joined the Westerns 
 against the extreme Easterns, and became instrumental to their 
 own injury, without being Patersoniaus at heart. Their 
 antagonism to their Eastern neighbours originated in race 
 feeling, and was fostered by Paterson and the Westerns, who 
 availed themselves of Midland votes, but never voted the 
 Midlanders anything in return. 
 
 Mr. Solomon with rare persistency kept the Voluntary 
 principle before the public. At first his Voluntary party con 
 sisted merely of himself, the Missionaries sent out by the 
 London Missionary Society, and the members of Independent 
 congregations. The clergy and elders of the Dutch Reformed.
 
 12 
 
 Church, a tremendous body ramifying every portion of the 
 Western and Midland and some of the Frontier districts, with 
 the whole of the laity and clergy of the English Church, the 
 Roman Catholics, and the Wesleyans, who combined for no 
 other purpose, Christian or unchristian, secular or religious, 
 were arrayed against him. He fought the battle like a hero 
 from 1854 to 1867 thirteen years when he carried it through 
 both Houses of the Legislature. The Dutch Reformed Church, 
 the recipient of the lion's share of the ecclesiastical grant, and the 
 English Church, who fattened on it, were in combination ; a 
 gigantic power to contend against, and I remember that in one 
 cartoon Mr. Solomon was depicted as Jack the Giant Killer in 
 armour righting the giant, a burly and big ecclesiastic in full 
 canonicals, who was well armed, and defending himself with a 
 shield of State grants. 
 
 Mr. Solomon enjoyed the reputation of being an orator 
 which he never was. He was a fluent and a fascinating 
 speaker, and always logical, beyond any man who ever sat in the 
 House of Assembly, even to this day. He was irresistible in 
 argument and he seldom spoke upon any subject which he did 
 not exhaust. His speeches on the Voluntary principal were 
 masterpieces, attracted full galleries on each occasion of their 
 delivery, and brought converts to the cause year after year. 
 Whenever Mr. Solomon moved for the introduction of the 
 Voluntary principle the leading clergy and ministers of every 
 church were present, and on several occasions the Jewish Rabbi 
 -and the Malay Priest were also with the crowds in the galleries. 
 Soon after the session of 18oo had commenced Mr. Fairbairn, 
 who then represented the Swellendam constituency with Mr. 
 Watermeyer afterwards Mr. Justice Watermeyer moved for 
 the introduction of Responsible Government. At that time the 
 members of the Executive had seats in both Houses, but none of 
 them had a right to vote ; the Chief Justice, who was ex officio 
 the President of the Council, as is the case still, had alone of 
 all the officials the right of recording a vote. Mr. Fairbairu, 
 who had had always the support of Mr. Solomon in his conten- 
 tion for popular Government counted, although he had severed 
 his trade connection with that gentleman, upon having the same 
 support for his Responsible Government motion. Mr. Solomon, 
 instead of supporting him, immediately the motion was seconded, 
 . rose and opposed it, insisting that the people were not ripe for
 
 13 
 
 any further advance of popular Government and would not be 
 for a long time to come. This w>il correct the popular im- 
 pression that Mr. Solomon had always been a consistent advo- 
 cate for the introduction of Responsible Government. He was 
 not. He demolished Mr. Fairbairn's arguments and left him in 
 a woful minority, which galled the honourable member very 
 much. 
 
 A writer* whose name I could mention as confidently as if 
 he had signed it to the article, which was published in the 
 Friend of the Free State the other day, giving his experience as 
 a reporter and incidentally some of his historical reminiscences 
 of press experiences, took upon himself to say that R.W.M. 
 had not been long in the Colony before he completely revolu- 
 tionised the press, and by his continually irritating Mr. Fair- 
 bairn, drove that gentleman from public life into complete 
 retirement. There is no doubt that R.W.M. did effect a great 
 change in the plan and principle upon which the press had been 
 conducted, but of that hereafter ; but it was not true that he 
 drove Mr. Fairbairn out of public life through constant irritation. 
 The force of circumstances, the falling-off of support, his 
 severance of his connection with Mr. Saul Solomon, the untrust- 
 worthiness of those he had brought into prominence, and his 
 declining health, conspired to displace him. Mr. John Fair- 
 bairn never lost the respect of the public, but he had done the 
 work of a lifetime before the first Parliament was convened, and 
 had done it well. He was a most elegant, polished, and 
 charming writer, and those who remember his writings still 
 retain their admiration for the man and the work he did. 
 Domestic afflictions too aged him a good deal and shortened his 
 life. 
 
 Mr. Fuirbairn was no doubt galled greatly by the treatment 
 his Responsible Government motion met with at the hands of 
 old adherents of his. At that time Mr. Porter, who greatly 
 helped to carry Responsible Government at last, was dead 
 against it, as were the Colonial Secretary and all the 
 officials. Party Government from that time became a 
 political war cry, the Anti-Responsibles being a strong 
 
 * I should like in justice to say that the writer and his father were the best 
 shorthand reporters in South Africa up to 1857, were always marvellously 
 accurate and did the work of half a dozen men for many years, and up to the 
 time when the writer was called to the Bar of the Supreme Court.
 
 14 
 
 and intelligent party, which included the best part of the 
 
 English element in both East and West. The Hon. Robert 
 
 Godlonton, of the Graham's Town Journal, was the father of 
 
 the Separation movement and the Eastern leader of the 
 
 Anti-Responsible Government party, and the Journal in the 
 
 hands of Mr. Godlonton (the Hon. Mr. Meurant, now a 
 
 Member of the Legislative Council, was the founder of the 
 
 Graham's Toivn Journal, and was for many years a partner 
 
 of Mr. Godlonton), and the Advertiser and Mail, in the hands 
 
 . of Mr. Fairbairn, were pitted against each other for years ; 
 and then Sir Andries Stockenstrom, once Lieutenant-Governor, 
 who had been a sworn friend and ally of Mr. Godlonton, fell 
 
 . out with him over the Native question and there was a 
 " triangular duel," not confined to newspaper columns. They 
 took to pamphleteering. Many of the hits were a long way 
 
 -below the belt, and the feud, out of with the public got a 
 
 ; lot of amusement, was never healed. There is no doubt that 
 
 i the Hon. Robert Godlonton was a staunch and good friend to 
 the Eastern public, especially to the Settlers of 1820, and their 
 descendants. The Journal was called " the Settlers' Bible," 
 and the Settlers swore by it. There is a good story about this, 
 and it may be as well told here. 
 
 Appended to the death notices in the Journal, of every 
 Settler who died, was the epitaph in big letters " He " (or 
 she, as the case might be ) " was a British Settler, and his 
 (or her) end was peace." Messers. Blaine & Co., merchants, 
 
 . of Graham's Town, kept a large supply of tombstones in stock 
 for British Settlers, and every stone had this epitaph engraved 
 
 i upon it, with blank spaces for the name of the deceased 
 Settler to be inserted, with the date of birth and death ; it 
 
 i being taken for granted, in anticipation, that the end of every 
 Settler would be peace. This was much ridiculed by the 
 Western Press, and the Journal was nicknamed " Grand- 
 
 . mamma Grahamstown." The Editor of the Argus, in 1858, 
 
 ; set the Colony laughing by announcing the death of Grand- 
 mamma Grahamstown, with the following epitaph : " She 
 
 .was a British Settler, and her end was peace." In 1855, 
 party feeling ran high. There were Responsitiles and Anti- 
 Responsibles, Voluntaries and Anti- Voluntaries, a removal of the 
 
 . Seat of Goverment Party, and an Anti-Removal party, Negro- 
 philists and AntirNegrophilists, and a Separation and Anti-
 
 Jo 
 
 Separation party. There were prominent members at the 
 heads of all these party movements and they all 
 aired their vocabularies, but with little effect certainly 
 with no immediate practical effect. A good bit of the time 
 -of the session was devoted to inquiries about an 80,000 
 "Rest" which the Auditor-General, Colonel Hope, had 
 announced in Parliament to exist when the old nominee system 
 came to an end. Taking the Auditor's statement the 
 Parliament voted it away chiefly in pensions to popular 
 favourites whose offices had been abolished when the 
 change of Government was effected. " Where is the 
 80,000 where is the Rest ?" asked some of the members. 
 The Auditor-General, honest man, answered : " In the Chest " 
 (and holding a key in his hand) "and here is the key 
 of that chest." A year or two after the 80,000 had been 
 voted it was discovered that instead of there having been frit- 
 tered away an eighty thousand pound balance to the good 
 there wasn't a penny there and the Treasury balance was on 
 the wrong side. There was a fine hullabuloo and an enormous 
 expenditure of words, atul words was all that came of it if some 
 loans authorised by Parliament to cover the deficiency be 
 excepted. 
 
 The Parliament had spent 0,000 which it never had. 
 This is not the only case of the kind which has occurred in 
 South Africa. When Griqualand West was an independent 
 -colony and had a Legislature of its own presided over by the 
 Administrator Major William Owen Lanyon His Honour 
 was called away to be the Administrator of the South African 
 Republic and he in his farewell address told the Legislative 
 Council that there was 20,000 in the Treasury, a balance in 
 favour of the Colony of Griqualand West. The Council voted 
 for its expenditure at once, only to discover that they had 
 created a debt of jf.40,000. The Administrator, like the Edwin 
 Bray Gold Mining Company, had made the trifling mistake of 
 putting the balance on the wrong side. 
 
 Nearly all the working members had a speciality of their 
 own before the second session closed, and one that deserves 
 ; special notice was that 'of Mr. Charles Scanlen, the father of 
 the ex-Premier,. and that was the amending of the law of inherit- 
 ance. The old Cape Law of Inheritance was fast bringing the 
 Oolony to grief. There was not a vast amount of wealth in the
 
 16 
 
 shape of money in those days the wealth existed in the shape 
 of immovable property. The acquisition of land was the great 
 aim of everybody. The chief part of the original inhabitants 
 lived on the land. When the head of a family died any member 
 of the family could demand his share of the family estate ; and 
 farms in this way became so sliced up that no head of a family 
 (and the Boer families were generally extensive) with his- 
 belongings could after two or three of such divisions live upon 
 his portion. Testamentary disposition of property had no scope 
 like Sam Weller's vision it was limited the Law and not 
 the Owner willed away the property upon a fixed system, 
 Mr. Scanlen contended that the man who made the money or 
 acquired the land should will it away as he pleased and that 
 at any rate, if the Dutch liked the Cape Law of Inheritance,- 
 the English Colonist should have all the rights of property 
 which he would have had, had be remained in his native coun-- 
 try. After many years of hard fighting and the presentation of" 
 petitions from Englishmen and others Mr. Scanlen succeeded 1 
 in getting the law of inheritance somewhat modified, but not 
 altogether or anything like so much as he wished. The Eng- 
 lish Law of Inheritance has been greatly alteied since then,. 
 and I do not think if Mr. Charles Scanlen were alive now be 
 would ask the Parliament to follow the lead of England in 
 that matter at least, and he was too loyal an Englishman ever 
 to have been a member of the Afrikander Bond. No pay and' 
 no place that King Hofmeyr or the Bond could offer would 
 have won over Charles Scanlen to Bond manoeuvring. He- 
 was one of the first members for Cradock, and held his seat 
 from the opening of Parliament to the day of his death. He 
 was shrewd and staunch and difficult to drive out of the beaten 
 track, was a determined opponent of railways and Afrikander 
 politics. When I was the colleague of Mr. Scanlen in the 
 Assembly he was very angry with me because I voted for Rail- 
 way extension, but as Mr. Solomon and myself, with the Messrs- 
 Reid, solicitors, had originated the Cape Town and Wellington 
 Railway, it was not likely that I would stop short at Railway 
 extension to Beaufort West, especially as we had done our 
 utmost to get an Eastern Railway embodied in the Cape 
 Town and Railway Bill, and should have succeeded but for 
 the opposition of prominent Eastern members. The Easterns' 
 have since then been as eager to get railways as the Westerrs v 
 and Cradock as eager as we ever were.
 
 17 
 
 I have now given a good many reminiscences of what was 
 done in politics and Parliament in 1854 and 1855. Now let us 
 turn back and see what was being done outside Parliament in 
 those days. It was the time of the Namaqualand Copper-mining 
 mania, and I was reminded of it when the late Transvaal gold- 
 mining mania was at its height, and as seen from the Barberton 
 mountain range and the Band reefs, History was repeating 
 itself with great fidelity. The scrip thermometer showed about 
 the same degree of mad fever in both cases. In each case 
 prospectors, company promoters, and speculators went to- 
 work in the same way, sinking shafts to empty their own 
 pockets, raising capital on " centres " which were nowhere to be 
 seen but upon the diagrams of draughtsmen, drawn upon 
 broad sheets of drawing board, being fac-similes of nothing 
 that had the colour of metal. Every day in the week 
 in Cape Town, Sunday? not excepted, during the copper-mining 
 mania, vehicles of all sorts spring vans and Cape carts, well 
 horsed nothing short of a cart and a span of four wagons and 
 eight or ten horses, the vehicles crammed full of passengers, 
 prospectors, managing directors, captains of mines, speculators, 
 all well backed up with judiciously-selected supplies of the 
 necessaries of life, and many of the luxuries, all bound for the 
 Nacnaqualand mines the whereabouts of which they were left 
 to discover when they got into the land of the Namaquas . Besides 
 land journeys many went by sea to Port Nolloth and left it to 
 chance to direct the way of their going from port to mine. All 
 sorts and conditions of men set up as mining experts tinkers, 
 tailors, soldiers, and sailors. Men went about the streets of 
 Cape Town and other towns with pieces of rock which they 
 called " samples of copper," pointing out " indications " and 
 computing with marvellous celerity the weight of copper to the 
 ton of ore from the " mine" from which their samples were said 
 to have been taken. Men in business, and professional men, 
 shut up their shops and closed their offices and went off to see 
 for themselves, although they had never seen a copper for- 
 mation in their lives before, and would not have known what it 
 was if they had seen one. New companies sprung up more 
 suddenly than mushrooms scrip flew round with a swiftness 
 that no bird could have kept up with, and p.n.'s flew with all 
 the airiness of kites, promises to pay made in Stephens' jet 
 black ink and written with Gillot's steels passed as currency 
 with a readiness that Bank of England paper could not rival.
 
 18 
 
 Scrip changed hands at auction at high premiums. Auc- 
 tioneer Cauvin, the elder, shut up selling furniture and landed 
 properties, and held auction sales of scrip scrip and nothing 
 but scrip on the Parade. He drew immense audiences, es- 
 pecially on Saturdays, when members of both Houses were free, 
 and able to be in the auctioneer's front row of open-mouthed 
 speculators. The mania was as contagious as any other 
 disease. It infected every class, the clergy even were not more 
 exempt than they were here during the gold and diamond share 
 booms, officials of every department of the service were bitten. 
 Even that man of huge intellect Mr. Porter then Attorney - 
 General went into it ten thousand strong, became director of 
 companies which hadn't as much copperas would make a George 
 the Third penny piece. He of course thought everything was 
 :all right. His example encouraged others, and he came out of 
 his scrip spec, lighter in pocket by thousands of pounds than 
 when he went into it ; smaller men came out stumped. One or 
 two committed suicide. More than one army pensioner lost not 
 only his available property, but his pension into the bargain. 
 A crowd went through the insolvent court, and of the crowd of 
 miners and managers sent down by the companies, not a few of 
 them had to remain there with no neighbours but penguins and 
 ostriches, and nothing but ostrich and penguin eggs to subsist 
 on. 
 
 More than nine-tenths of the white population of Cape 
 Town dabbled in scrip. Shares were allotted to men who 
 had not a brass farthing to call their own, but they had 
 no difficulty in disposing of their allotment tickets at a good 
 figure. It was of no use to tell people they were scampering 
 rapidly on the road to ruin the Monitor newspaper, which 
 I at that time edited, told them that they were on the 
 road to ruin in its every issue : no one heeded ; but when 
 the re-action came it was as fine an illustration of the rocket 
 and the stick as was exemplified in Johannesburg when the 
 booming gold shares would boom no more. The fruits of 
 that Cape swindle were self-destruction and crime with all their 
 deplorable consequences. In using the word swindle as applied 
 to the starting of Namaqualand Mining Companies, I do not 
 for an instant mean that the projectors were all rogues who issued 
 their prospectuses knowing the statements therein contained to 
 be false and untrue, put forward for no other purpose than to 
 ntrap men of capital to take shares that they and their directors
 
 19 
 
 may bag the money. No such thing as that occurred, nor 
 anything like it. The directors and projectors were highly 
 respectable men holding good positions, and, as a rule, they were 
 the greatest losers. Many of them were dragged altogether to 
 the dogs and never recovered themselves again. They were as 
 much misled as the shareholders. The only people who made 
 money out of the mining furore were those who hired out 
 horses and carts for the journey to those who went down or 
 sent mining parties down to work, and the owners of boats and 
 sloops who took passengers on mining bent down to Hondeklip 
 Bay, but in the majority of cases, if not in all, these people 
 invested the money they made in business or drew from their 
 bankers in copper-mining scrip and went to the everlasting bow- 
 wows with those who had nothing to invest. 
 
 " This will be a warning," it was then said. It will take an 
 awful lot of warnings to deter men from taking a short road to 
 wealth when they think they see one. It does not matter much 
 whether gold or copper, wool, ostrich feathers, or diamonds 
 prod uce the " boom." When the madness for speculation sets 
 in the few who escape the infection are seldom enough in 
 number to save a Sodom and Gomorrah from destruction. 
 
 Scrip speculation has as voracious a maw as that which 
 absorbed 
 
 " An ox and a half 
 A cow and a calf 
 A church and steeple 
 And all the people." 
 
 The Namaqualand copper-mining mania levelled to the 
 ; ground to my knowledge several rows of fine buildings, a 
 palatial residence or two, and a whole fleet of ships. If it had 
 gone on much longer it would have swallowed up half the 
 Main-street merchants of Port Elizabeth and all their stocks ; 
 as it was it gulped down a few. East London had not sprung 
 into a port then or the Buffalo would have disappeared 
 altogether mouth, horns, and all. 
 
 C2
 
 REMINISCENCE. 
 
 No. III. 
 
 MORE ABOUT THE MINES SALEBl's VERITABLE TABLE MOUN- 
 TAIN GOLD SWINDLE MERCHANTS AND OTHERS SOLD* 
 BY AN AUSTRALIAN JEW THE RACE UP THE MOUN- 
 TAIN FOR WEALTH REFRESHERS ON THE MOl-NTAIN 
 SIDE MR. FAIRBAIRN'S GREAT PUBLIC SERVICES 
 RUFFIANLY ATTACK ON MR. FAIRBAIRN AT HIS 
 
 RESIDENCE IMPOUNDING THE PRESS BY LORD CHARLES 
 
 SOMERSET THE PRESS SET FREE AND THE LIBERTY 
 
 OF THE PRESS ENSURED. 
 
 ALTHOUGH the incidents arising out of the Cape copper- 
 mining mania were as a rule dispiriting and ruinous, and made 
 the latter part of the year 1855 and the whole of 1856 mourn- 
 fully numerable to the people of the Colony and to Cape 
 Town especially, some of the incidents which sprung out of the 
 maniacal excitement were ludicrous and laughable. One espe- 
 cially occurs to me at the moment. Whilst carts, wagons, and 
 yans were loading up in front of merchants' stores with supplies 
 for the copper " mines " the report suddenly burst out that gold 
 had been discovered on the Cape Town side of Table Moun- 
 taintwo-thirds of the way up. The " loading up " came 
 to a sudden standstill. The vehicles were sent back to the 
 coach-houses from whence they came and the horses to their 
 siables. As the story went a coloured man in the employ of a 
 Mr. 8alem, an auctioneer of Plein-street, had been up the 
 Mountain gathering "Afrikanders" (gladiolii), the bright 
 blooms of which cover acres of ground on the Mountain and 
 along its sides. In returning he had sat down to rest, when he 
 picked up a piece of rock with something yellow and shining 
 in its interstices. He brought a piece of the rock home to
 
 21 
 
 his master, who at once pronounced it to be one of the finest 
 specimens of gold ore he had ever seen. His master's story 
 was that immediately he saw that the piece of rock was 
 gold ore he set off with the man to the spot, and on arriving 
 there he found that there were acres and acres of the 
 same formation full of visible gold. He too brought down a 
 specimen of what he had found. Good-bye Nsmaqualand, 
 Namaquas, penguins, ostriches, copper, and all the lot. Gold 
 was better than copper any day in the week. The first rush 
 was made upon the ironmongers. In a few hours there was not 
 a shovel, pickaxe or crowbar, camp-kettle, tea-kettle, tea-pot or 
 pannikin left for sale at any shop between the Sir Lowry-road 
 and Strand-street and the top of Longmarket-street, nor at any 
 ironmonger's shop from Forde's in Strand-street to Long- 
 street. Not a man, merchant, lawyer, clerk, tailor, shopkeeper, 
 or cobbler who had a bit of " go " in him but was possessor of 
 some kind of tool and on his way to the "gold diggings." 
 Business in town was closed and the business men in procession 
 with working men of all sorts, shouldering their tools, were 
 following Salem to the gold region with golden prospects before 
 them. The weather was very hot, for it was the hottest season 
 of the year, and tramping up mountains is very exhausting to 
 human nature. By the time Platteklip was reached the crowd 
 of Cape gold seekers were done up, winded, and in a state of 
 perspiration that would have been distressing even to Mrs. Leo 
 Hunter's perspiring frog. They wanted rest and refreshment. 
 Mr. Salem, with a foresight that exceeded every one's expecta- 
 tions, said he had provided for that ; there under the shelter of 
 the clumps of pines on the banks of the flowing crystal stream 
 which courses between the Plattenberg boulders and fills the 
 City reservoir, were tents fitted up with tables laden with dishes 
 of good substantial ham and beef sandwiches, and surrounded by 
 casks of English ale and Cape wine. Welcome sight ! The 
 hungry crowd filled themselves regardless of cost, for it was no 
 part of Salem's plan to " stand Sam " for the lot. The beer, 
 the wine, and the sun between them produced a disinclination 
 for more climbing that day the gold seekers were tempted to 
 seek repose under the pine trees or in the shade of the Protea 
 bushes, and yielding to the temptation like the foolish virgins, 
 they slumbered and slept slumbered until the shades of even- 
 ing fell in. There was no use going further up at that late
 
 22 
 
 hour, and the gold would not run away, so the rest of the climb- 
 ing was postponed for ihe morrow, and the gold diggers on the 
 first day following the example of King John's Army went 
 up the hill and then went down again, Salem undertaking the 
 charge of their implements, Avhilst they went to their homes to 
 roost. The same sort of thing went on the second day only 
 the crowd got a little higher, too high to walk home for rest and 
 walk back again in the morning. About the end of the fifth 
 day they arrived in the vicinity of the "gold field." There was 
 none of the self-decial which the Californian, the Australian, 
 Barberton or Witwatersrand pioneer gold diggings had to under- 
 go. Mr. Salem had taken care of that. There were lots of 
 meats and drinks at every stage after reaching Table-Valley. 
 
 On arriving at the promised gold region, Salem, pretending that 
 having moved be had a difficulty in recognising the exact spot from 
 whence his gold specimen was taken. He made so many 
 excuses that be was distrusted and the crowd especially the more 
 respectable portion of it who, ashamed of the hoax played upon 
 them, became " small by degrees and beautifully less." Salem, 
 who bad perpetrated the hoax and made it pay him, chuckled, and 
 ultimately admitted it, for be was a shameless scamp, when it was 
 alleged against him that the specimen he showed was Australian. 
 He was a Jew who bad come in 1852 to the Cape from Austra- 
 lia, leaving behind him antecedents which he did not like to 
 hear about at least so it was alleged. His being a Jew did 
 not make him a scamp; he would have been just as bad had he 
 been a Christian. Many of our Christian scamps have " done " 
 the public quite as shamelessly before and since then, and a 
 good deal worse, as I shall by and bye in my reminiscences of 
 life in the South African Gold Fields show. Salem's South 
 African career was very eventful, and as profitable to himself as 
 eventful. He accumulated a good deal of property, and left 
 South Africa with money in both pockets. I should mention 
 that the hoax above related took place in the very earliest days- 
 of the !Namaqualand copper-mining mania. 
 
 I made some commendatory remarks in my last article of Mr. 
 John Fairbairn as a journalist. It is but due to bis memory 
 that some of the special services he rendered his adopted coun- 
 try outside his journalistic work should be plainly and distinctly 
 stated. He was a strenuous, earnest and able supporter of all 
 .the best educational measures that the Cape Colony had up to-
 
 1854, and to the day of his death he was rendering great service 
 to the cause. He was one, and the ablest, of those who laid 
 the foundation of the South African College, was a frequent 
 visitor to it. His advice was much sought for by those who- 
 had control of that fine institution, and was readily given and 
 valued. He was a mo&t prominent member of the College 
 Council and never absent from the annual examinations, in 
 which he took an active part. In his early life he laboured in- 
 cessantly to abolish, slavery in South Africa, which did not 
 contribute to hi.s popularity amongst the Boer population. He 
 loved liberty as he loved his life liberty of thought and speech, 
 and, of all other liberty, the liberty of the Press. 
 
 In the early days of his journalistic life the masses were not 
 easily restrained when they took offence at newspaper criticism. 
 On two occasions Mr. Fairbairn was personally attacked and ill- 
 treated by ruffianly mobs on one occasion the mob broke into- 
 his residence at Green Point and cruelly and cowardly assaulted 1 
 him with sticks whilst he was sittiug at his dinner table, and in 
 addition to inflicting personal injuries destroyed his furniture^ 
 The ringleaders, who were known, were arrested and punished, 
 but that did not compensate him for the indignity and injuries 
 he sustained. Mr. Fairbairn was at first in partnership with 
 Pringle, the Poet the author of " Alone in the desert 1 love to- 
 ride, " and volumes of other poems. When they started their 
 first paper, of which Mr. George Greig, the founder of the 
 printing office of Saul Solomon & Co., was publisher, Sir Charles 
 Somerset was Governor, and Sir Charles, who stood in great 
 dread of printing and newspapers, set on the Fiscal to gag the 
 press, and seal up the machinery, lock Greig out of his office, 
 and subject him to a heavy fine for daring to print without first 
 obtaining Royal Permission. Mr. Greig, as soon as Government 
 had impounded his press, went Home to the Secretary of State 
 for the Colonies, who ordered Sir Charles to release the press 
 and to keep his hands off Greig in future. And his lordship 
 did. 
 
 Officials since then have been as impatient of press criticism. 
 One instance occurred in 1855, when the Sub-Collector of 
 Customs at Simon's Town brought an action against The 
 Monitor newspaper, at that time edited by myeelf, and all 
 because I refused to give up the name of a correspondent, 
 " No Storeowuer," under the following circumstances : The
 
 24 
 
 sub-collector had refused to permit a store, purchased by 
 one Bowern over his head wheu he wanted to purchase 
 it himself, to be used as a bonding store. A letter on 
 the subject, charging the sub-collector with exerting undue 
 influence, was sent to the paper. I held that as there was a 
 head of the department, that the storeowner had his remedy in 
 an appeal to that officer, and until that appeal had been made I 
 would cot publish the letter. " Storeowner " went to the col- 
 lector, but m the meantime the sub-collector himself, seeing my 
 *' Notice to Correspondents " in respect of the letter, wrote to 
 the paper on the subject under the signature of " Fiat Justitia." 
 This altered the position of the paper altogether, inasmuch as 
 when both sides of a question is represented by parties and both 
 wish to avail themselves of the same paper the editor is bound 
 1 mean in all fairness bound to insert their letters. Both 
 the letters were inserted, and the sub-collector instituted an 
 action for libel damages 800. The Monitor pleaded " justifi- 
 cation," and it was the first time that justification had ever 
 been pleaded to a libel in South Africa, and it was not many years 
 before that that the law was passed in the Imperial Parliament 
 permitting defendants or prisoners, as the case may be, to 
 " justify" in libel cases. The old law was " the greater the truth 
 the greater the libel." The first case tried in England under the 
 new law was that of the Bishop of Exeter vs. Latimer, and the 
 defendant won, proving his assertion justified that Bishop 
 Philpotts was a liar. Tolerably stiff, but the charge was proved 
 to be justifiable. The judgment here in the case of Piuuey vs. 
 The Monitor was in favour of the defendant, with all costs, and 
 Judge Bell, who heard the case, paid the Editor a very high 
 compliment and wigged the plaintiff without mercy, speaking 
 of him as a little village official with an overweening conceit of his 
 own dignity. This cost the plaintiff a larger sum than he had 
 jsued for. It was a most expensive lawsuit, as The Monitor 
 people, secure of the result, gave all their Simon's Town sub- 
 scribers a treat at the sub-collector's expense, by summoning 
 everyone of them as witness. The libel case was the making of 
 The Monitor, which would have remained the leading paper, 
 but that the Argus, started by Darnell and Murray, killed it. 
 How this came about will appear when I come to special Press- 
 reminiscences, as I shall later on. 
 
 I am now writing of a time when there were no line of mail
 
 25 
 
 steamers, and no railways, and when " cables" from England were 
 .neither born nor thought of, when the Crimean war waa being 
 fought and news of the victories won by " our sailors and our 
 ships " came to hand before we knew that any battle had been 
 fought, when we were sometimes two months without any 
 English letter or paper, and were once as long as four months 
 without either. It was the time when you could not get to the 
 Paarl from Cape Town and back again by stage in one day 
 and were seven hours doing the distance one way. That 
 was a state of things which suited the Paarl people and 
 to which some of the ancient inhabitants look back, with 
 sighs of regret "the good old times" they call them. 
 .It was a time when travellers took their time on the road, 
 and did a little flirting or shooting as they went along. 
 There was no hurry picking grapes and oranges, taking 
 " soupies " with friends at wayside inns, or with wine-farmers 
 on their stoeps, was a deal merrier and more joyous than 
 whizzing along by steam, hurrying off to the Diamond or 
 Gold Fields in search of precious metal and precious stones. 
 Diamonds and gold in South Africa were undreamt of when 
 Salem led the way to the Mountain. We have gold and dia- 
 monds and Responsible Government. How much are we 
 the happier for it all? And how much better; better in morals, 
 in neighbourly feeling; better disposed towards the land we live 
 in and towards those who live in it? Is our Parliament or 
 Government better? Steam and gold and diamonds do not 
 appear to have improved our lawyers, nor our modes of dealing 
 with each other. In what some folks call "the good old times " 
 we heard nothing in Parliament about "jobbery " or corruption 
 as we do now ; and there was little of the barking and biting 
 across the floor of either House ; certianly no backbiting amongst 
 the members of " this Honourable House."
 
 REMINISCENCE. 
 
 No. IV. 
 
 AGRICULTURAL DEVELOPMENT THE FIRST AGRICULTURAL 
 EXHIBITION MR. T. B. BAYLEY's SERVICES LIVE- 
 STOCK MORE PLOUGHS AND MACHINERY IMPORTED 
 
 THE CALEDON OF THE PAST ARRIVAL OF SIR GEORGE 
 
 GREY HIS EXCELLENCY'S SUPPORT TO AGRICULTURAL 
 SOCIETIES HIS WISE ADMINISTRATION THE SETTLE- 
 MENT OF BRITISH KAFFRARIA SIMON'S TOWN PATENT 
 
 SLIP MR. SOLOMON ON TERRITORIAL EXPANSION 
 
 STORM IN TABLE BAY LOSS OF THE R.M.S. " ATHENS " 
 
 AND CREW PEN AND INK SKETCHES OF 1855 HAR^ 
 
 BOUR WORKS. 
 
 THE first determined effort to stimulate and improve the Agri- 
 culture of the Cape Colony was made iu 1855. Previous to 
 that time Agricultural Societic-s had existed but only existed in 
 name. In that year an Exhibition was advertised to take place, 
 and did take place on the Cape Town Parade, under the auspices 
 of the Cape of Good Hope Agricultural Society. I was 
 specially invited to attend and report it, and accordingly 1 
 started from The Monitor office with a brand new reporting book, 
 and armed with freshly pointed pencils. Prizes had been adver- 
 tised for all kinds of stock, produce, and machinery, and it was 
 but natural that I, a new hand at the bellows, should expect to 
 see an exhibition somewhat corresponding with the prize list. 1 
 never shall forget that Show. It took place in the open 
 on the Parade, no fencing in, and just near the spot where the 
 Cape Town Eailway Station now stands. I had for over ten 
 years been professionally attending the Agricultural Exhibitions 
 of the Royal Agricultural Society of England, the principal 
 County Shows from Yorkshire to Cornwall, and had written-
 
 27 
 
 accounts of as many ploughing and reaping matches as 1 had 
 accounts of horse races and regattas. Of course 1 did not anti- 
 cipate seeing an Agricultural Show at the Cape at all of the 
 same calibre or character as those of the Royal Agricultural 
 Society or of the County Societies of England, but knowing 
 that the Cape was an agricultural country or if not an agricul- 
 tural country, nothing I expected to find the Metropolitan 
 Show purely representative, and therefore worthy of attention. 
 i had some difficulty, at first, to find it at all. At last 1 saw 
 A couple of dozen well-dressed gentlemen standing round some- 
 thing at the corner of the Parade, and on getting there I found 
 one imported bull Dutch breed three cows in milk, and half- 
 a-dozen heifers, none of them showing breed of any sort, two 
 pairs of horses in harness, and three colts, a little pile of 
 turnips, about five cabbages, heartless but immensely leafy, and 
 some bundles of oatbay. There were about as many judges as 
 there were exhibits, and I overheard an exhibitor say to one of 
 the judges, whose name 1 did not then know "Don't forget 
 my cow ! " I remember well that there were present, also,. 
 Mr. T. B. Bayley, Mr. R. Hare, Mr. C. Manuel, the 
 Hon. Dirk van Breda, Mr. Matt. Blake, and the then 
 proprietor of Leliebloom, a man famous for his Dutch 
 dairy stock, Mr. Arderne, M.L.A., and the Librarian, Mr. F. 
 Maskew, who had slipped out of the Public Library, then 
 adjoining the Commercial Exchange, to see the show, Mr. R. D. 
 Jones and Mr. Venn, and Captain Arkoll of Messrs. William- 
 Dickson & Co. Nearly all these gentlemen who then formed 
 the bulk of the spectators, have since passed away, but the 
 memories which some of them left behind them will endure 
 whilst those who were connected with them in public and in 
 private breathe the breath of life. There are some of them 
 who rendered inestimable services to Cape agriculture which 
 ought never to be forgotten, and foremost amongst them all 
 was Mr. Thomas Butterworth Bayley. This gentleman came to 
 the Cape from India, where he had been many years in the 
 Government service, in search of health, and finding the Cape 
 climate agree with him he decided to settle in the Colony. He 
 was a gentleman possessing large means, highly cultured, 
 learned in literature and art, and passionately fond of agricul- 
 tural pursuits. To the advancement and improvement of Cape 
 agriculture he devoted a large portion of his fortune, his
 
 28 
 
 knowledge and his energy. For some years he farmed himself, 
 having become the owner of " The Oaks," in the district of 
 
 Caledon a district much favoured by English gentlemen 
 farmers of that period su^h as Mr. Cholmonley Morris, Dr. 
 Hutchinson, the Messrs. Carruthers Brothers, Mr. Alexander 
 Breda, the Messrs. Hull Brothers, Mr, C. H. Bourhill, the Hon. 
 Mr. Vigne, M.L.C., Mr. John Linde, Mr. Chiappiui, and others. 
 I am not sure that they were all there in 1855, but the most of 
 them were, and they were all farming in Caledon at the same 
 time, and whilst that was the case Caledon was one of the best 
 
 . farmed districts in the Colony, and certainly one of the best 
 wool-producing districts if not the best. 
 
 My readers may be sure that my visit to the Exhibition above 
 described did not furnish a large amount of " copy " for the 
 columns of The Monitor, but it undeniably led to better things. 
 
 There was no better judge of live-stock in the country than 
 Mr. Bayley. He had an eye for a horse that was never 
 excelled during his lifetime, and I do not believe has been 
 
 .since he died. He imported some of the finest cattle and horses 
 (thoroughbreds) that were ever seen in South Africa, and from 
 1855 he met with willing and able co-operators, which was 
 what he stood so much in need of, to assist him in making 
 Agricultural Societies as efficient as he wished them to be. Jt 
 was he who, with the aid of the Societies which he helped to 
 establish, first brought into use the iron ploughs of the Howards 
 and Ransomes and Sims, and the best reaping and threshing 
 machines, seed drills and zigzag harrows. Up to 1855 the 
 potatoes grown were wretched in quality and very dear, and one 
 might as well have eaten a cake of soap as a vegetable as a 
 
 -Cape potato. In that year he induced the Cape of Good Hope 
 Society to introduce the fluke kidney (then just brought out 
 by the Messrs. Sutton & Sons, of Reading) and other new and 
 approved varieties of that nutritious and esteemed esculent 
 the potato. It was difficult to get farmers to plant the seed, 
 although it was given them for nothing. But perseverance 
 did it as last, and the best known varieties of the potato 
 
 .have since been produced in the Colony in abundance with 
 
 -the best of other kinds of roots such as are valuable for 
 feeding and table purposes, and for which the present genera- 
 
 'tion ought to be thankful. Mr. Bayley obtained for the 
 parent Agricultural Society the patronage of His Excellency
 
 29 
 
 Sir George Grey, who certainly was a most generous patron. 
 Sir George induced the Parliament to vote an annual grant of 
 2,000, which enabled agricultural exhibitions to be held in 
 every agricultural centre. The agriculturists of the various dis- 
 tricts were brought to compete with each other, and shows of 
 produce, trials of machinery and ploughing matches became the 
 order of the day. Sir George encouraged the new order of 
 things and when he brought out His Royal Highness Prince 
 Alfred to South Africa, he was proud to take him to Mulder's 
 Vley to see a ploughing match in which ploughmen, both white 
 and coloured, did excellent work. We have had in times past 
 some first-class ploughing in both the Western and Eastern 
 Provinces, and many very ardent promoters of ploughing 
 matches, but we seldom hear of a ploughing match now-a-days. 
 I once saw five-and-twenty ploughs going at a match got up by 
 Mr. Henry Bayley Christian on his estate, Kraggakamma, near 
 Port. Elizabeth. Mr. Christian has been and still is the life and 
 soul of agricultural development in the neighbourhood of his 
 residence. 
 
 We hear a good deal about Agricultural Departments 
 Schools and Colleges of Agriculture, and organs of Agriculture, 
 and English experts at dairy management peregrinating 
 about but I cannot see that there is much being done for all 
 the money voted for agricultural development to make two 
 blades of grass, or two blades of anything, grow where only one 
 grew before. There are hands that want acres and acres that want 
 hands, and yet we go on importing tinned Swedish butter and 
 condensed milk, Dutch, Stilton, Cheshire cheese, York hams 
 and Berkshire bacon, all of which we could produce for our- 
 selves. 
 
 I never hear Cape Colonists glorifying themselves about the 
 expansion of territory that is going on, nor read newspaper 
 articles commending it and boasting of it, without having 
 the continual protests of the late Mr. Saul Solomon brought 
 to my mind. The late lamented member, in his place in 
 Parliament, was continually protesting against the tendency 
 of extending the .Colonial borders the craving which 
 existed for grabbing more land, whilst the land we had 
 was neither half occupied nor anything like half cultivated*, 
 and I remember too Dr. Tancred, who sat in front of 
 him, invariably saying " hear, hear " to his protestations. Yet
 
 30 
 
 ivego on expanding, denuding the Colony of the best of its popula- 
 tion, altogether too sparse for its own requirements, and neither 
 the Government nor the Parliament think of bringing in im- 
 migrants to fill up the Tanks thinned out by the expanders. 
 There is no party that has any sort of policy of which to 
 increase the fruitfulness of the land forms part. Past 
 Governors and Governments had. Even Lord Charles Somerset, 
 who was denounced without stint, brought out the best bloods 
 of horses then attainable, and anyone travelling through the 
 districts of George and Oudtshoorn, and especially through the 
 Long Kloof, can see how his lordship enriched the Colonial 
 orchard lands. Sir Benjamin Durban and Sir Lowry Cole, 
 Colonel Mitchell ( the Surveyor-General of nearly half a 
 century ago ), Mr. John Montagu when Colonial Secretary, 
 and even the old Dutch Government, directed their best 
 energies to the cultivation of the soil. In the old Dutch 
 times no Colonist could own a piece of land without he 
 planted. If anyone desires to ascertain how the Dutch 
 managed that let him get some copies of the Government 
 Gazette published between 1790 and 1800. The Parliament 
 of 1854 and 1855 was by no means a bad sample of a Colonial 
 Parliament. The speeches made by the members of the 
 House of Assembly compared most favourably with the 
 speeches made in the Australian, New Zealand and Canadian 
 Parliaments. Cape Colonists had then no occasion to blush 
 for its Legislature official and elected members had amongst 
 them men who could give expression to their opinions with 
 fluency, enforce their arguments in good English, and needed 
 no other language wherewith to convey their meaning. The 
 Attorney-General and Colonial Secretary were both good 
 speakers the former an orator of the first rank. He would 
 have been in the first rank in the House of Commons. Then 
 amongst the early speakers in the elected House of Assembly 
 were Messrs Solomon, Paterson, Meintjes, the Watermeyers 
 (there were two of them), Ziervogel, Probart, (Dr.) Tancred, 
 Molteno, Harris, and several others, who were never at a 
 loss for language in whic h to express themselves. The first 
 Parliament was the best we have ever had. There was no 
 scrambling for place for there was no place to scramble for, 
 and there were no accusations nor insinuations of jobbery for 
 there was nothing to job.
 
 31 
 
 " Pen and Ink Sketches in Parliament " were written in 
 1855, at least the first edition of them, and nothing that. 
 has been written of the Cape Parliament has met with more 
 favour or produced so much profit upon the capital invested 
 as they did in their publication. They were dashed off 
 with a black lead pencil in the House in leisure intervals. 
 Testimony to the accuracy of Limner's portraiture was accorded 
 by the members themselves. But one member complained 
 that he was sketched unfairly, and he was one of the members 
 for Graham's Town, the late Mr. Charles Pbte, the longest 
 winded and most tiresome speaker the Cape ever knew either 
 in the House or out of it. His protest against the sketch of 
 himself was otistici! bjyo.-ul precedent and brought down the 
 laugh on himself. He never regretted writing it but once, and 
 that was ever after. 
 
 The worst weather ever experienced at the Cape has 
 always been said to have been the north-western storm of 
 1854, but whether that is so or not it would be difficult 
 to decide. It is true that sixteen ships were driven ashore 
 during the first fortnight of the month of September in 
 that year, but I have seen, I think, as many ships ashore 
 in Table Bay since that and within the same period of 
 time, but I shall never forget the storm of 1854, although 
 the storm during which the Union Company's steamer Athens 
 was driren ashore was, I think, quite as severe. But it is 
 not worth while considering which storm was the worst, for 
 they were many and frightful, and few I think, but will 
 admit that the money spent on the harbour works of Table 
 Bay was well spent, and for that we have to thank the late 
 Mr. Solomon and Sir George Grey. The loss of ships and 
 lives before the docks were constructed was fearful, and ship- 
 owners trading with Table Bay must be greatly in pocket by 
 the landing facilities offered, and the safety of ships ensured 
 has been a great gain to shipowners, and the Colonists 
 of to-day who knew nothing of the shipping business in 
 Table Bay before the docks were built can never fully 
 estimate the benefits' which the harbour works con- 
 fer. Every one knows how uncertain the weather is 
 in the Bay, and the fearful seas which strong winds from 
 either the N.W. or S.E. occasions. Think of vessels 
 jying at anchor in the middle of the Bay having to dis-
 
 32 
 
 charge in cargo boats, anchors lost in heavy weather, 
 no boating to be done sometimes for weeks together. 
 Passengers unable to land sea-going-passengers unable to- 
 get on board ; Port Captain and crew drenched ; " home edi- 
 tions " detained with passengers on board. Newspaper readers,, 
 friends, and relatives irritated because the weather delayed the 
 giving pratique, boatmen swearing at the elements for being" 
 unpropitious, the Governor fretful because he could not get his- 
 despatches. Nobody taking things easy except Macauley, 
 Bain, and Horn, snugly sheltered in the little wooden Custom- 
 house on the central wharf waiting with saint-like patience 
 after the fashion of Matthew at the receipt of customs.
 
 REMINISCENCE. 
 
 No. V. 
 
 ENGLISH AND DUTCH GOVERNORS PERIODS OF OFFICE SIR 
 
 G. GREY AND SIR H. BARKLY FOUNDATION-STONE 
 LAYING MR. C BAYLEY COX AND SIR G. GREY LAN- 
 GUISHING AIRS HOW COX GOT THE HUMANSDORP 
 
 MAGISTRACY ARRIVAL OF PRINCE ALFRED AND HI* 
 
 RECEPTION THROUGHOUT SOUTH AFRICA. 
 
 CAPE GOVERNORS, under British rule, are not permitted to 
 remain in office so long as Governors were when the Dutch 
 were in possession. The longest period that any British 
 Governor has held office is seven years, and the average reign 
 of the seventeen British Governors who have come and gone, 
 has been tibout three years the remaining portion of the time, 
 since the Cape became British, a number of Acting Governors 
 and Administrators have filled the office. In the time of the 
 Dutch, Governors were not moved with such frequency ; many 
 of them held office for ten, eleven and twelve years. His 
 Excellency Simon van der Stell was twenty-one years in 
 office. 1 have myself knoAvn six Governors, seven Lieut.-Gover- 
 nors, and Heaven knows how many Acting Governors and 
 Administrators, for I don't. It may be that the old Dutch 
 Government was willing that their nominees should have time 
 enough, ex officio, to make a good haul for themselves, and, if idle 
 reports are true, they did. A British Governor now discovered 
 at that kind of work would soon get what is called " the sack " 
 his chances of re-employment would be gone for ever. Mr. 
 S. Solomon's idea was that Governors should be longer in 
 office, and Judges moved more frequently. He used to say, 
 just as a Governor knows the country, and the people and 
 their requirements, he is called away, and replaced by another 
 D
 
 34 
 
 who reverses his predecessor's policy, so mat no poucy gets a 
 fair trial. And this has been the case the Governor's policy 
 is not of so much account nowadays as is the policy of the 
 High Commissioner, and that is of more concern now than ever 
 it was, when " expanders " are grabbing land in all directions 
 and disturbing native tribes in possession, that they may them- 
 selves go in and possess the land. No High Commissioner 
 had ever greater need to be watchful than has Sir Henry 
 Loch, for indifference, neglect, or his too great readiness to 
 yield to expanders may involve the country in a native out- 
 break which would make His Excellency notorious, ruin his 
 name and fame, and bring ruin upon the country. 
 
 The two Governors who have held office for the longest 
 period since 1854, are Sir George Grey and Sir Henry 
 Barkly both were in office seven full years ; and having said 
 that of them, there the parallel ends. The difference between 
 the two men was as great in point of administrative ability as 
 in personal appearance. Sir George came out to administer the 
 affairs of South Africa, Sir Henry was sent out by the Imperial 
 Government to force Responsible Government upon the Cape 
 Colony without consulting the people, and he would have failed 
 in accomplishing that had not the Sultan of Turkey qualified 
 that bold political pretender De Roubaix to sit in Council 
 by the gift of a gold snuff-box, which turned out to be a snuffy 
 sort of recognition of services rendered, after all. Had Sir 
 Henry Barkly had the difficulties to contend with that fell to 
 the lot of Sir George Grey, he would never have been here 
 one-half the time he was, not that Sir Henry was without 
 difficulties but they were of a different kind and more within 
 the scope of Sir Henry's genius than reclaiming new territory, 
 ridding it of its barbarism, and settling it with people of 
 European descent, chiefly, but certainly with an energetic and 
 intelligent population. Sir Henry Barkly had the settlement of 
 the Diamond Field dispute, the arranging for the purchase of 
 the Diamond Fields through the medium of the Earl of 
 Carnarvon, and establishing the government of Griqualand 
 upon a totally different principle and plan, and then the ever 
 memorable annexing business. Then the '' revolutionary out- 
 breaks " which must have cost him some anxiety, although the 
 brunt of that difficulty was borne by the Lieutenant-Governor 
 and his Executive, backed by loyal and true men of many
 
 35 
 
 nationalities. Then came the unfortunate land dispute with 
 the Lieutenant-Governor, which I feel tolerably sure was a 
 matter of regret to His Excellency in after years. He was 
 not without his troubles, but they were chiefly the outcome of 
 -the Imperial policy forced upon him. Sir George Grey was one 
 of our Governors who declined to act upon any Imperial policy 
 which he thought detrimental to the best interests of the people 
 of the country. He faced his difficulties boldly and disposed of 
 them with a masterly hand. Difficulties to Sir George were 
 opportunities for bringing his genius into play. Who else 
 would have turned the wholesale Kafir cattle-killing to such 
 good account as he did ? He preserved the peace of South 
 Africa in that crisis by a policy as humane as it was effective. 
 The Kafirs were the uncompromising and bloodthirsty enemies 
 of the country, and he fed them. Never did a Governor's 
 policy, founded upon gospel principles, bring a richer reward. 
 Never was a grander practical illustration of a recognition of 
 the Divine precepts of the Sermon on the Mount. It was 
 during Sir George's time that the Cape commenced to make its 
 advance in material progress. It was under his Government 
 that the first Railway Bill was passed, and the first fifty miles 
 of railway constructed. He turned the sod of the first railway, 
 and laid the foundations upon which British Kaffraria was 
 built laid them solid and sure, turning territory which had 
 heretofore been a battle ground on which the lives of thousands 
 -of Her Majesty's subjects had been sacrificed into a land of 
 peace and plenty. No one who remembers how His Excellency 
 set to work to locate the British German Legion, found homes 
 for them upon lands that never before knew spade or plough, 
 and converted wastes into corn fields and gardens, dotted with 
 towns and villages, will fail to admit that His Excellency 
 converted a wilderness into a civilised Colony, and colonised it 
 with an energetic, frugal and industrious people, who have 
 produced as large a quota to the wealth of the country as any 
 section of our population living on the same area. There is 
 hardly a district in the Cape Colony in which Sir George did 
 not lay the foundation of some public undertaking, either 
 institution, bridge, library, or other kind of work few districts 
 in which the name of Grey does not still identify him with 
 something of which the district is proud and which is of great 
 : aa well as of special benefit. Cape Town will never forget, 
 
 D2
 
 36 
 
 nor will the Colony, the work he did in connection with the 
 Table Bay Harbour Works, nor will Simon's Town cease to- 
 remember how well he backed the company that laid down the 
 first patent slip there. His Executive, urged by His Excellency, 
 helped the Bill through Parliament, Sir George himself without 
 hesitation backed the gift of the land, be went to Simon's Town 
 to open the slip, and at his invitation he was attended by the 
 President of the Legislative Council, the Speaker of the House 
 of Assembly, and all the members of both branches of the 
 Legislature, and His Excellency was the guest of the day at, the 
 banquet. The attendance of the members of both Houses was 
 the more remarkable just then as the two branches of the 
 Legislature were in conflict, the Upper House refusing to 
 entertain the measures sent to them from the Lower House. 1 
 remember well the hearty laugh of Sir George at the banquet 
 when the band played " Oh dear, what can the matter be," after 
 the toast of the Legislature was proposed. Sir George was 
 never wanting in humour. There is a capital story of His 
 Excellency and Mr. Charles Bayly Cox. Cox, who was in the 
 Colonial Service, was as full of humour as an egg is full of 
 meat, and wrote Home some sketches of Sir George's 
 peculiarities and this came to His Excellency's ears. One 
 morning about nine o'clock Cox was going down Grave-street to 
 the Colonial Office, and meeting Sir George coming up, gave 
 him the top of the morning with becoming courtesy, Sir George 
 responding with " Good morning, Cox." Cox was rushing off, 
 when His Excellency asked : " Why such hurry, Cox ? " " Ju.st 
 time to be in office," was the reply. " You write funny letters, 
 Cox aye ? " Cox knew what was coming. " And so I have 
 ' languishing airs,' aye, Cox ? " said His Excellency, laugh- 
 ing ; " languishing airs, aye, Cox ?" And Sir George went off 
 laughing, and Cox was glad to get off with his blushes. 
 
 Some time after this the Magistracy of Humansdorp bacame 
 vacant, and Cox was desirous of getting the appointment, but 
 knew that he had no chance of getting it from the Colonial 
 Secretary, so he made a bolt for it to Government House to see 
 His Excellency. On being shown into the Governor's 
 library he was greeted by Sir George with, " To what am I in- 
 debted for this visit, Cox ? " Cox told him that the Magis- 
 tracy of Humansdorp was vacant, and adding, " If your Excel- 
 lency has no one else in your eye, I should be glad to get the
 
 37 
 
 Appointment." His Excellency, putting his forefinger to his 
 right optic, said, " In my eye ! You know it's all my eye, 
 Cox, and languishing airs." Cox thought it was all U.P. 
 with his chance of the appointment. Then Sir George 
 -" wanted to know " what he very well knew before, why Cox did 
 not apply to Mr. Rawson, the then Colonial Secretary, and 
 Cox, admitting that he had no chance in that quarter, was told 
 that he should have the appointment. 
 
 Of course the Colonial Secretary knew of the appointment at 
 that morning's Executive meeting, and on his return to the 
 Colonial Office sent for Cox. On Cox being admitted to the 
 Secretary's sanctum Rawson wanted to know why he had been 
 passed over, saying, " I fear you have been a very bad boy, 
 Cox ; you have been getting beer iutothe Colonial Office, Cox, 
 you know you have." There was no denying the fact the 
 Colonial Office was a bit beery in those days. " Never mind," 
 said the Colonial Secretary, " but it is heart-breaking to think 
 of losing you. Cox. How I shall survive it I don't know. 
 Your vacant desk, Cox, your vacant desk ! " and then putting 
 his handkerchief to his eyes and putting out his hand for a 
 shake, added, " Go, Cox, go and spare a strong man in tears." 
 
 Life in the Colonial Office was pleasant in those days, and 
 anecdotes were related of it which gave amusement to the 
 million. 
 
 It is true that in some respects Fortune favoured Sir George 
 Grey more than any other Governor that ever held the reins 
 of power at the Cape, and circumstances helped him greatly 
 in securing popular favour. He had a Parliament ever ready 
 to authorise loans, and Sir George knew how to apply the loans 
 with the best possible effect. He had 40,000 a year of 
 Imperial money to help him to settle and advance British 
 Kaffraria, through the influence of the Prince Consort, and he 
 was the first Colonial Governor entrusted with the guardian- 
 ship of a member of the Royal Family. Sir George was 
 re-called by the Home Government, as nearly all our best Gover- 
 nors have been, but the re-call in Sir George's case wa& a piece 
 of exceptionally good, fortune to him. He was reinstated by 
 Her Majesty, and when he returned to the Cape he had the good 
 fortune to have Prince Alfred for his companion. That visit 
 of Prince Alfred was a grand stroke for Sir George and 
 the Colony.
 
 REMINISCENCE. 
 
 No. VI. 
 
 SIR GEORGE GREY's SPLENDID GIFT TO THE CAPE TOWN" 
 
 PUBLIC LIBRARY THE OPENING CEREMONY PRINCB 
 
 ALFRED'S FIRST PUBLIC APPEARANCE UNVEILING HER 
 MAJESTY'S PORTRAIT A ROYAL GIFT FROM THE QUEEN 
 
 TO THE COLONY MR. PORTER'S GRAND SPEECH THE 
 
 PUBLIC EXCITEMENT ON SIR GEORGE'S RECALL THE 
 SCENES IN THE STREETS, AT THE LEVEE AND IN TABLE 
 BAY HIS EXCELLENCY'S MAGNIFICENT RECEPTION ON 
 
 HIS RETURN, WITH THE PRINCE IN HIS COMPANY 
 
 PUBLIC BALLS AND REJOICINGS SIR GEORGE LEAVES FOR 
 
 NEW ZEALAND GENERAL WYNYARD ACTS DIVISIONS IN 
 
 THE ENGLISH CHANNEL SMALL-POX IN CAPE TOWN, 
 
 etc, etc. 
 
 IF I failed to remember Sir George Grey's gift to the Cape 
 Town Public Library my reminiscences of His Excellency's 
 connection with the Cape would be very imperfect. Sir 
 George's illustrated manuscripts in the Library were presented to- 
 the institution after he had left the Colony, and was the Gover- 
 nor of New Zealand. They must be worth a good round sum 
 of money, and to my mind, one of the most attractive 
 features in the Library cases. A good deal of the art 
 work in the manuscripts was the work of the old monks ;. 
 it is exquisite in design and finish, and the colours 
 are rich beyond compare. Many a single embossed capital 
 letter in the manuscripts must have been the work of weeks, 
 and the colours are as fresh as on the day the letters were 
 embossed. The old painters knew a secret about paints which 
 our modern painters have not discovered yet. 
 
 The Public Library and Museum were pet institutions of
 
 Sir George. If he could have had his way the building would 
 have been of marble instead of plaster. The ceremony of 
 opening the Library, that was, unveiling the portrait of 
 the Queen, presented by Her Majesty, by Prince Alfred* 
 and at which Sir George presided, was the grandest and 
 most imposing ceremony that ever took place in South Africa, and 
 the speech delivered by the Attorney-General on the occasion- 
 was at the time said to be the honourable gentleman's masterpiece 
 of oratory. I have in my mind's eye now the picture of the 
 priucipal group upon which all eyes were centred. Upon a 
 raised dais, and sitting under the veiled portrait was Sir George 
 Grey in an antique armchair ; His Royal Highness, now the 
 Duke of Edinburgh, sitting on his right. The speech of the 
 Prince was modest, delivered with remarkable distinctness for 
 a youth of his age, for the now Duke aud Admiral was theu> 
 but a boy, and the language eloquent and remarkably so for 
 one so young. 1 remember Sir George assuring me that the 
 composition was altogether the Prince's own, not a line of it 
 was suggested to him. The building was crowded in every 
 part, all " the beauty and fashion," and all the people of culture 
 and taste, the whole of the professions, the commerce and trade 
 of Cape Town, were represented, and the cheering when the 
 Prince drew the veil from the picture of his mother and our 
 Queen, burst forth simultaneously from every part of the 
 building. The men cheered frantically, and the waving of 
 handkerchiefs in the gallery (which was set apart exclusively 
 for the ladies) was a sight to behold. The ladies for the most 
 part joined in the cheering, waving their handkerchiefs, the 
 band playing the National Anthem. It was an expression of 
 loyalty and devotion that had never been equalled and never 
 will be surpassed. Here is one little incident connected with 
 this which I have never forgotten, and at the remembrance of 
 which 1 have often had a quiet smile. I was as much carried 
 away by the Attorney-General's speech as anyone present, and 
 like all the rest, thought it extempore and impromptu. 1 was at 
 the time proprietor and editor of the Cape Argus, and had a 
 staff of first-class reporters in my employ, and the best of them 
 was present. I was anxious that there should not be a word 
 of the speech lost, and said when overtaking the Attorney- 
 General passing out of the library door, " Mr. Porter, I have 
 
 no doubt that Mr. (mentioning the reporter's name) will 
 
 report you accurately, but I am anxious that there shall not be
 
 40 
 
 an error either by printer or reporter in a single v/ord of your 
 speech, and I am going to ask you a favour. The proof will 
 not be ready until late to-night, but if I send it out to you will 
 you kindly look through it." He immediately answered, " My 
 dear Murray, I will make no secret of it with you, man. Here 
 it is in my hat," and he took off his hat and handed me a plain 
 opy written on foolscap. I felt very much obliged to him, but 
 that written copy took the gilt off the gingerbread, but why it 
 should have done so I don't know. It was delivered splendidly, 
 and speeches of great import are none the worse for being well 
 considered, and if written and committed to memory are not less 
 effective. That speech was a masterpiece of oratory. Mr. 
 William Porter not only spoke his speeches like an orator, but 
 he looked the orator too. He was a handsome man of splendid 
 proportions, standing fully six feet in his stockings, with the 
 face of a god. He was a fine sample of a man and as good as 
 he looked. His splendid bequests to Cape institutions and 
 charities prove how generous he was and how much he was 
 attached to this country. 
 
 When Sir George left the Cape on the occasion of his recall, 
 the people were so exasperated with the Home Government at 
 the withdrawal of their favourite Governor that they determined 
 upon a demonstration which should convey to the Imperial 
 Ministers what the Cape thought of them. The farewell levee, 
 which took place in the State-room of Government House, was 
 attended by thousands of metropolitans, and the people from the 
 Paarl and Stellenbosch, as well as from Malmesbury, Mowbray, 
 Rondeboscb, Claremont, Newlands, Wynberg and Simon's 
 Town, crowded into the metropolis by thousands. The levee 
 took place on the Saturday, as the steamer was to leave on 
 Sunday morning. That levee was the last opportunity the 
 Cape people had of seeing Lady Grey, who was as great a 
 favourite as Sir George himself. Her ladyship stood by the 
 flide of His Excellency in the State-room in Government House 
 and shook hands cordially with every colonist who passed 
 through, with whom she had been intimate. When the carriage 
 arrived at the entrance to the Government residence, the horses 
 were unharnessed by the foremost of the crowd, and eight stout 
 fellows inspanned themselves and ran the carriage down Grave- 
 street, through Adderley-street and on to the Central Wharf, 
 where the port boat, manned by the Port Captain, waited to 
 take Hie Excellency off to the steamer. It was with difficulty
 
 41 
 
 .that a passage way could be found for the Governor's carriage 
 to be dragged through, so dense was the crowd in the streets. 
 
 Table Bay was alive with sailing and rowing boats, freighted 
 with metropolitans, ladies as \vell as gentlemen, waiting to 
 escort Sir George off to the steamer. All the boats waited until 
 
 the port boat was well away from the wharf, when they fell 
 into their places behind it, and the procession formed by the 
 boats was most picturesque, and reached half across the Bay. 
 There never were so many boats manned and afloat in Table 
 Bay before nor since. It was a glorious sight, some boats sail- 
 ing others being rowed, and nearly all with gay flags floating in 
 the breeze. The crowds on the wharf and in the streets kept 
 up their cheering incessantly until His Excellency and Lady 
 
 Grey were seen to have reached the deck of the steamer. Sir 
 George responded to the cheering by bowing, hat in hand, from 
 the deck of the steamer, Lady Grey waving her handkerchief. 
 
 Scores of parlies went off during the day to have a last shake 
 of the hand with His Excellency and Lady Grey. In the 
 evening, after dark, Sir George and Lady Grey came on shore 
 and went out for the night to their country residence ( Wood- 
 lands ) and slept there, thinking that they were doing it on the 
 quiet; but when they drove into town in the morning there 
 were crowds assembled and they cheered again. This was no 
 breach of the Sunday Observance Act, and if it had been the 
 Public Prosecutor would not have been so vigilant in running 
 the transgressors in as he is when he finds old women selling 
 penny oranges or a box or two of matches, or catches a licensed 
 dealer letting a man have a drink (without eating) on "the 
 
 .Lord's Day by Act of Paiiament." 
 
 When Sir George returned to the Cape he landed at Simon's 
 Town, and the road from Cape Town to the Naval Station was 
 thronged the whole distance, while at Rathfelder's Halfway 
 House the Grand Hotel the way was blocked with carriages, 
 and there was no miblorking until the healths of His Royal 
 Highness and His Excellency had been drunk with nine times 
 nine and another. There were triumphal arches erected in the 
 streets of Wynberg, CJaremont, Rondebosch, and Mowbray, and 
 .at the principal hotels in each place there were toasts and cheer- 
 ing. The metropolitans turned out en masse and filled the 
 leading thoroughfares. From the corner of Sir Lowry-street to 
 the entrance of Adderley-street the crowd was fairly packed, 
 
 .and the Malavs and Volunteers, mixed with ordinarv citizens,
 
 42 
 
 gave to the picture brightness and variety of colour which was- 
 likened in the description given in the Argus the next morning to 
 a bed of sea anemones. The branches of the trees on the Parade 
 were as thick of boys as a kameeldoorn ever was with birds. 
 
 The principal business places and residences in the city were 
 illuminated at night and up to the last stroke of twelve bands 
 of music paraded the streets and the licensed houses were 
 crowded. The Attorney-General of that period had better and 
 bigger work to do than enforcing local option bills and invent- 
 ing traps for canteen-keepers. It used to be said then that 
 we should never see his like again, little thinking how true It 
 was going to turn out to be. 
 
 The Cape had a sorry time of it for a spell after Sir George 
 was transferred to the Governorship of New Zealand, although 
 kinder-hearted people than Lieutenant-Govemor Wynyard and 
 Lady Wynyard never occupied Government House. But the 
 General, who was Acting Governor during the interval between 
 the departure of Sir George and the arrival of Sir Philip 
 Wodehouse, was circumscribed in hip action. He represented 
 Her Majesty with becoming dignity, signed all the documents 
 the Colonial Secretary set before him for his signature, re- 
 ceived and disposed of callers at Government House with 
 courtesy, and when asked for his patronage for concert or ball 
 gave it without fuss or much ado and attended the entertain- 
 ments he patronised. Government House dinners were excellent 
 in the Wynyard interval, and as Mrs. Gamp observed to Betsy 
 Prig, " the liquors were all good, " the balls were frequent, 
 music charming, and never a ball without a good substantial 
 supper. Lady Wynyard gave no " At Homes, " for they had nof 
 been invented then, but her afternoon teas drew to them all the 
 well-dressed and fashionable of metropolitan society. Politics 
 hadn't enough life in them to disturb society and to provoke 
 revolutionary feelings. It was the calm before the storm, but 
 beneath the calm the storm was brewing. The political 
 agitators who were aspirants for place determined amongst 
 themselves that they would worry the life out of Sir George 
 Grey's successor, whoever he might turn out to be, but it was 
 of no use to fight General Wyuyard, because he was only 
 acting, and had no policy nothing that a Lieutenant-Governor 
 could do would affect the permanent way of Cape politics. 
 Parliamentary proceedings were as lifeless as the loads which" 
 were taken to Green Point iu Stigant's hearse.
 
 43 
 
 The Church was then the only disturbing institution in the- 
 country, and Paddy Lamb, of Trinity, the only bone of con- 
 tention. There was hot work in that quarter, and it was kept 
 hot. The reverend gentleman wouldn't go to Synod, which 
 bothered and irritated Bishop Gray, and for which the Evan' 
 gelical Lamb was glorified by the Trinitarians and denounced by 
 the Bishop and the Church party. I remember being at a 
 church meeting in Caledou-street on one occasion, when Captain 
 Sampson and Mr. Broadway were the lights of Trinity,, 
 and who were both engaged in u wrangle with a clerical repre- 
 sentative of St. George's, which ended in Paddy and one of his 
 churchwardens being hustled out of the room and down the 
 stairs. The meeting was held in an upstair room. Anyone 
 who would like to read a report of that meeting, can read it in 
 The Monitor, of which paper there is a file in the Public 
 Library. It will be found under the heading of " Oh what a 
 row, what a rumpus and a rioting! " 
 
 The reverend incumbent of Trinity was a true Irishman, and 
 would have been an attractive character at Donnybrook Fair. 
 A story was once extant in Cape Town, illustrating the reverend 
 gentleman's dread of small-pox. When the small-pox, on 
 one occasion, broke out in Cape Town, the clergy at St. 
 George's did their duty bravely to the sick and suffering, 
 never leaving town an hour whilst the disease raged. Not 
 so parson Lamb. Immediately the outbreak was reported, - 
 he packed up and left with his family for Kalk Bay, and 
 remained there. On his return to his duties be (I give it 
 as told at the time) preached a sermon from the text 
 " Flee from the wrath to come," and commenced his sermon 
 with " Flee, me britherin, flee ! Flee from the wiaath to 
 come. Shall oi tell ye how to flee from the wraath to come ? 
 Well then, this is how you should flee from it. The 
 other day I was at Mr. Calf's store in the Buitenkant. I got 
 off my horse and said to a little boy on the pavement ' Here, 
 my little man, hould me hor&e. I looked at him his face was 
 covered with pimples. ' I said ' What's the matter with your 
 face, little man ? ' ' It'g the small pox,' says he. I caught the 
 bridle out of his hand, jumped on my horse, and rode off as- 
 hard as my horse could go. And that's the woy, me britherin,. 
 yon should flee from the wraath to come. "
 
 KEMINISCENCE. 
 
 >so. VII. 
 
 PERIODS OF GOVERNORS' RULE SIR PHILIP WODEHOUSE 
 HOT FOR SIR PHILIP RECTIFYING THE COLONIAL 
 BALANCES SIR PHILIP'S TAXING MEASURES OPPOSED 
 AND REJECTED THE PARLIAMENT CONVENED IN GRA- 
 HAM'S TOWN EASTERNS IN HIGH GLEE CAPE TOWN 
 HOLDS PUBLIC MEETING AND PROTESTS ARGUS 
 CHANGES HANDS GRAHAM'S TOWN PRESS STRENGTH- 
 ENED. 
 
 ON recurring to the periods (hiring which Cape Governors 
 held office from 1854 I remember now that I was not quite 
 right in stating that Sir George Grey and Sir Henry 
 Barkly, each of whom was at the Cape a full seven years, were 
 the most exceptionally long in office, for Sir Philip Wode- 
 house came to the Cape in 1862 and remained until 1870. 
 Sir Philip had a more trying time than almost any other 
 Governor. In the first place, he was the successor of the most 
 popular Governor that the Cape had had within the 
 memory of any man then living, and as I said before, the most 
 prominent of the people in public life were predisposed to 
 make it hot for Sir George Grey's successor, no matter who 
 or what kind of man he turned out to be. And then Sir 
 George had won a good deal of his popularity by a large 
 public expenditure in the country, never once hinting at a 
 taxing bill, even using money raised by big loauo to balance 
 the annual revenue and expenditure to avoid the infliction of 
 a tax, leaving it to whoever might succeed him to let the Par- 
 liament know that the Colony was on the very verge of bank- 
 ruptcy and to take upon himself the task of retrieving the
 
 45 
 
 Colony from that position. Sir George knew well enough- 
 that no Governor who proposed to tax the people could ever be 
 popular especially with what is called the Africander section. 
 He had before him the example of Boer treks to escape from 
 taxation ; he knew that there would never have been any 
 Orange River Sovereignty or Free State, but for the attempt 
 of previous Governments to tax the people. No people take 
 kindly to taxation, but the horror of the Dutch to anything 
 that savours of taxation is, I was going to say, "a caution 
 to snakes," but it is snakes and nothing but snakes. They 
 run from tax-gatherers as they run from cobras or puffadders. 
 Sir Philip was a sound and most skilful financier, and none 
 was ever more so than the Treasurer-General in office when 
 he arrived, and afterwards his Colonial Secretary, Mr. Richard 
 (now Sir Richard) Southey. That gentleman had been 
 viewing the lavish and excessive expenditure of the Grey 
 Administration with grave apprehension for a long time. 
 During Sir George's time, Mr. Rawson (now Sir Rawson 
 W. Rawson) held the office of Colonial Secretary, and he was 
 as desirous of being popular as Sir George himself, although 
 he never succeeded. Mr. Rawson was a courteous and accom- 
 plished gentleman, but as a financier he was a mistake, and 
 always had been. He had been in office at the Mauritius, 
 and had helped to get the Government of that " isle of the 
 sea " as nearly bankrupt as it is possible for a British depen- 
 dency to be. Whilst he was there the wife of the Governor 
 of that island said : " Mr. Rawson has the largest feet and 
 the least tact of any man I ever met." She was most 
 decidedly within a foot of his measure, but then Sir George 
 Grey had tact enough for two. 
 
 Sir Philip Wodehouse started by informing himself first 
 of the exact financial position of the Colony, and then to 
 ascertain for himself what the resources of the country were, 
 that he might know to what he had to look to enable him 
 to put the country upon a sound financial footing. Before 
 he met the Parliament the first time he had mastered the 
 whole position, and .with a frankness which was anything 
 but pleasant to the Legislature or the public, he in his 
 opening speech explained the unsatisfactory state of affairs, 
 and soon made the Parliament understand that they would 
 have to equalise revenue and expenditure and that ordinary ex-
 
 46 
 
 penditure was no longer to be met by loans. He pointed out that 
 loans were only warranted when invested in reproductive public 
 works and those he was prepared to encourage to any extent. 
 Taxing bills, he told them, were imperatively necessary in the 
 circumstances in which the Colony found itself, and if the Colony 
 was to be placed in a solvent and thriving position, there 
 must be " a complete change of principle and plan." No 
 nest of hornets was ever more thoroughly stirred than the 
 diest of Western politicians. He went further. He told 
 them that they had been taking to desperate courses, and 
 raising loans in England to pay interest on loans raised 
 in that country was not honest, and must inevitably lead the 
 ^Colony into irretrievable bankruptcy, and it must be put a 
 stop to. Cape politicians of the popular order held that the 
 Colonists had a right to do as they liked with their own, as 
 they called it, but Sir Philip made them understand that the 
 credit of the Colony was not their own to destroy, and that it 
 was his duty to prevent their doing so and that his duty he 
 would do. The Responsible Government Party fancied they 
 saw their opportunity in this and, inflated with their own 
 -power and importance, felt if they could only disgust the Colony 
 with the Wodehouse Administration they would get Sir Philip 
 recalled, arid become the Government themselves. Sir Philip 
 Wodehouse was not a man to be driven from the course which 
 was, to him, plainly right and the only one for him to steer, by 
 any amount of popular clamour. He had resolved that the 
 -Colony should pay the debts it had contracted in an honest and 
 legitimate manner, and he also knew that he would be backed 
 by the Imperial Government, who would care something for the 
 English creditors as well as for the Colony. 
 
 The Eastern Party regarded his position as unassailable, but 
 .the Western Conservatives got split up through the specious 
 reasoning of some of their party, who contended that the 
 'Government must get rid of the debt by retrenchment. The 
 cry for retrenchment became most popular. From all sides, 
 east and west, north and south, that cry came loud and strong. 
 There were few Western papers, but that re-echoed the cry ; 
 ome of the Easterns, nearly the whole of them, in fact, did 
 the same, and the Midland journals, always strongly impregnated 
 with Western politics, went with the rest. The Cape Argus 
 was the only paper that backed the Governor through thick and
 
 'thin. That paper, although bearing the imprint of Darnell anil 
 Murray, had at that time become my own property, and was as 
 intensely Conservative as I was myself. What Cape Conserva- 
 tism meant I shall explain before I have done, and to the 
 'majority of the Colonial newspaper-readers of the present day 
 it will be informing, and it will amuse them too, for the general 
 impression has been that the Conservative party were anti- 
 . progressive, whereas it was that party who led the way in most 
 of the measures for material development. However, that can 
 stand for the present. Cape Conservatism was no more like 
 English than chalk is like cheese. Mr. Saul Solomon, who 
 ranked himself as a Liberal, was invariably with the Conserva- 
 tives in voting for projected public works such as railways, 
 harbour works to improve ports, grants for educational purposes, 
 .and such like. 
 
 For two whole sessions every one of the Government Taxing 
 Bills was rejected by the Assembly. The Governor proposed 
 a house tax amongst others. No matter what he proposed in 
 .the way of a tax the House of Assembly denounced it as the 
 worst tax that could have been invented and rejected it. If he 
 proposed, as he did, a tax upon brandy, it was contended that he 
 did it to punish the Western Province, as that was the brandy- 
 .producing part of the Colony. The Western Province members 
 were chiefly farmers, and they rose en masse to get the Bill 
 shelved. If he withdrew that and proposed a house tax, that 
 was worse than the brandy and other proposed taxes. A stamp 
 tax ! No, they would not have that. They would have no 
 brandy tax and no stamp tax ; they would rather have a house 
 lax. Then the house tax was re-introduced, and as well as I 
 o-ecollect, they did pass a mutilated house tax measure that was 
 of little or no help towards squaring the Flemish account. 
 The Opposition chuckled. They were, as they thought, winning 
 Land over fist, and the Responsibles were in ecstacies. 
 
 I remember in 1863 having a conference with Sir Philip, 
 .and he pointing out the provision in the Constitution Ordinance 
 which empowered His Excellency to convene the Parliament 
 wherever he may think convenient, and asked me whether I did 
 not think if he called the next Parliament in the Eastern 
 Province, that the Easterns would pass the necessary taxing 
 measures. I said I thought they would, and he told me in 
 confidence that he had resolved upon convening the- next
 
 48 
 
 session in Graham's Town. His Excellency then intended to- 
 convene the Parliament there so long as he remained in the 
 Colony, hut said that his only difficulty was that he would' 
 have no newspaper there to hack him. 1 previously to this had 
 sold one-half share in the Argus to Mr. Saul Solomon, and 
 I said if that was His Excellency's only difficulty, I would 
 sell out altogether and establish a paper in Graham's Town. 
 I did so, and this is how The Great Eastern came into exist- 
 ence. His Excellency bound me to secrecy in the matter, 
 telling me that the only person he had entrusted with the secret, 
 besides myself, was Mr. Southey, the Colonial Secretary. 
 He believed he could trust us two, and if it leaked out, he should 
 know it must be from one or other of us. He had good reason 
 to know that there would be no leaking-out. 
 
 The Parliament of 1863 came to a close in the previous 
 unsatisfactory way, after a very long session that is to say, 
 leaving the Government with the public debt and cramped 
 means, the session being protracted by opposition to every 
 measure of taxation submitted. On the prorogation day the 
 two Houses assembled, according to custom, in time to proceed- 
 to Government House by noon, at which hour the Governor 
 was to read his Prorogation Speech in the State-room of 
 that ancient building. Not a member of either House had the 
 least idea that anything unusual would occur. The Eastern 
 Members had, for the most part, been loyal to the Government^ 
 but the Eastern minority was powerless to help the Governor 
 out of his difficulty they had not been present in any force, 
 at any one time, during the session. There were no railways 
 in those days, and it was no light thing for men in business, 
 or upon farms, to leave their concerns and their homes for four 
 or five months on the stretch and make the journey to and from 
 Cape Town. The Frontier and Midland Members had to 
 take first a land journey of hundreds of miles, either in post or 
 passenger-cart, and then, what they most dreaded of all, a sea 
 voyage from Port Elizabeth to Table Bay, and when the 
 session was a long one (as that of 1863 was) there were not 
 many Easterns left to hear the Prorogation Speech. There were 
 but few of them left that year. The Westerns were seated,, 
 the front seats were full of ladies and gentlemen, the gallery 
 was crowded and wondering what Sir Philip would have to say 
 about the rebellious spirit of the Legisluture, and the ugly fix
 
 49 
 
 in which the unmanageable legislators had left him. Every 
 bit of space in the State-room was occupied. 
 
 Sir Philip entered in his Windsor uniform, 'attended by his- 
 Private Secretary and the members of the Executive, the band 
 of the Regiment in Cape Town striking up the National 
 Anthem. The Secretary handed the speech to His Excellency,, 
 who, in a clear and audible voice, thanked the Gentlemen of 
 the House of Assembly and the Gentlemen of the Legislative 
 Council for the services they had rendered the country through 
 a long and laborious session, and for the provisions they had 
 made for Her Majesty's service. There was not a word of 
 remonstrance or complaint, and I, who knew what was coming,, 
 waited to see how when it came the now placid-looking 
 members would take it. His Excellency put the matter very 
 neatly. He especially thanked the Eastern members who had 
 been detained from their homes for so many months, remarking* 
 that they had been continually saying that the Westerns 
 would not make the same sacrifice, if they were called upon 
 to do so an assertion which Westerns had always indignantly 
 repudiated. His Excellency had great confidence that the 
 Westerns would be as ready to make the sacrifice as the 
 Easterns had showed themselves to be. He was now going to- 
 put Westerns to the proof. For nine years the Parliamentary 
 sessions had been held in the extreme West the next Par- 
 liament he should convene in the East. 
 
 The Westerns were all aghast. Solomon looked at Molteno- 
 as if he felt that something had gone wrong Molteno 
 shrugged his shoulders and nodded to Ziervogel, who, pale 
 and distraught, nudged his neighbour. The Hon. Robert 
 Godlonton and the Hon. George Wood laughed all over their 
 faces, to the disgust of the Hon'bles Barry and Stein. Western 
 members generally looked limp, and Easterns straightened up. 
 The assemblage in the State-room on that day was Western heart 
 and soul. Not one Western amongst the lot but was furious. 
 
 This of course did not alter the position of affairs. With 
 the Governor it was " what I have written 1 have written," 1 
 and he went on to say that the military having been withdrawn 
 from Graham's Town left the Drostdy buildings at his disposal 
 and that they were most suitable for the Parliament; moving 
 the Parliament would be no extra cost, and the next session 
 would be convened in Graham's Town. 
 E
 
 50 
 
 The band played and the assembly was dismissed. Members 
 and their friends, official and unofficial people, gathered in 
 knots in Grave-street and gave vent to their wrath expletives 
 were strong, and on the stoeps of the Commercial Exchange, 
 the Town Hall, and at Pocock's Corner, there were chattering 
 groups for days. Then a public meeting was called to petition 
 Her Majesty not to permit Sir Philip Wodehouse to carry 
 out his proposal, on the ground that it would be a great 
 wrong done to Cape Town. The meeting was called at the 
 Town House, and Mr. Solomon made a great speech, and 
 moved a resolution against the removal of Parliament, which 
 he said he was sure would be unanimously carried, but it 
 was not. Mr. A. G. Mattheson contended that the resolution 
 would be futile if carried, as it sought to deprive the Governor 
 of a constitutional privilege. It was for His Excellency and 
 not for Mr. Solomon or Cape Town to say where the Parliament 
 should meet. Mr. Mattheson moved an amendment support- 
 ing the Governor, which was seconded, and so to the disgust 
 of the Cape Town party the meeting was divided. The 
 memorial was adopted, signed, and sent home to Her Majesty, 
 who graciously declined to interfere with her faithful servant 
 Philip's arrangements, and so the Parliament of 1864 sat in 
 Graham's Town, and the glorifications in the East consequent 
 thereupon have yet to be related.
 
 REMINISCENCE. 
 
 No. VIII. 
 
 .MOVING THE PARLIAMENT "NO VAGARY" CAPE FORTUNATE 
 
 IN ITS GOVERNORS GRAND RECEPTION OF GOVERNOR 
 
 AND EXECUTIVE AT PORT ELIZABETH BANQUET AND 
 LEVEE GOVERNOR VISITS UITENHAGE WELL RECEIVED 
 ENTERS GRAHAM'S TOWN WITH LIEUTENANT-GOVERNOR 
 
 SIR PERCY DOUGLAS MET B5T SIR WALTER CURRIE, THE 
 
 CAPE FRONTIER POLICE, AND CAPE MOUNTED RIFLES 
 
 BANQUET AT THE TOWN HOUSE OPENING SPEECH DE- 
 LIVERED AT THE SHAW COLLEGE HON. S. CAWOOD 
 
 ENTERTAINS THE PARLIAMENT AT LUNCHEON CITY 
 
 ILLUMINATED IN THE EVENING CHABAUD's CAPRICES 
 
 THE SPEAKER CENSURED. 
 
 As may naturally be supposed, the interval between the closing 
 of the session of 1863 and 1864 was not the happiest time in 
 the lives of the metropolitans of the West. The Shank End, 
 as Cape Town was derisively styled by the Easterns, felt 
 crippled by the announcement of Sir Philip Wodehouse that the 
 Parliament of 1864 was to be held in the Settlers' City. The 
 more reasonable of the Cape Town people saw and admitted 
 that the Westerns led by the Cape Town members had brought 
 this upon themselves by their wilful, uncompromising and 
 .uncalled-for opposition to His Excellency^ the Governor, and 
 they did not blame him. The Conservative party boldly and 
 plainly said, " If Sir Philip is not permitted to carry on the 
 Government for want of the means persistently denied him 
 here he must go where he can get the means to carry it on." 
 
 I notice that Mr. R. W. Murray, Junior, in his book on South 
 Africa dubs the removal of Parliament to Graham's Town in 
 J864 one of Sir Philip Wodehouse's "vagaries." It was no 
 
 E 2
 
 52 
 
 " vagary " it was the only course left open to His Excellency. 
 He had either to try the Easterns, or to wait until the Westerns 
 had brought his Government to a dead-lock, when he must have 
 been recalled with a ruined reputation. Like a wise man, he 
 declined to permit his Government to be wrecked and himself 
 ruined by a little pack of Colonial politicians banded together 
 for the sake of local, party and personal aggrandisement. 
 
 The Cape has been singularly fortunate in its Governors. 
 We have never at any rate since 1854 had a Governor sent 
 us who has not taken kindly to the Colonists for the most part 
 the Home Government and the leading journals of the Mother 
 Country have considered the Cape Governors to have been too 
 much in sympathy with the Cape Colonists, and more than oue 
 of them have been recalled for that reason. The chief part 
 of our Governors have come to be in heart and purpose 
 English colonists whilst in office, and animated by a desire 
 to strengthen, expand, and enrich the Colonial Empire, and 
 each has left the Colony better than he found it. Sir Philip 
 was no exception to the rule. He found the Colony with a 
 balance, and a heavy one, on the wrong side, and he left it with 
 an account square, and a bit of balance on the right side ; he 
 found the Parliament authorising loans for the purpose of pay- 
 ing interest on loans and for ordinary revenue expenditure a 
 practice which he first denounced, and then put a stop to. But 
 before commenting generally on his work let us follow him in 
 the course he took. In the meantime we may think of him as 
 one of our good Governors which Fortune and Her Majesty the 
 Queen has favoured us with, and I may here say that I do not 
 think that Fortune has forsaken us in this respect yet our 
 lucky star appears to be still in the ascendant. 
 
 The removal of the Parliament to Graham's Town was no 
 light matter for Cape Town, for it withdrew a very large 
 amount of money from circulation. It was this more than any 
 political consideration that weighed with the merchants 
 and mea of business in the metropolis. Cape Town had been 
 largely dependent on Government expenditure. All the 
 revenue of the country flowed in that direction and it was 
 there that the fixed establishment, or central Government, was 
 placed. All the salaries of Government and Municipal officials, 
 from that of the Governor to the salary of the postman, were 
 paid and spent there as they are still. This gives Cape Town
 
 53 
 
 an immense advantage. The moving of the Parliament 
 involved the moving of a large portion of the fixed establish- 
 ment the Governor, the Colonial Secretary, the Attorney- 
 General, and Treasurer-General and their staffs or the best 
 portion of the staffs of which these heads of departments had 
 -the direction. The Parliament alone must have been worth at 
 least 20,000 a year to Cape Town, and it was no wonder that 
 Mr. Saul Solomon, who was the Government and Parliamentary 
 printer, was more outraged than his neighbours. It was clear 
 to him that nearly all the Government and certainly all the 
 Parliamentary printing must be done in Graham's Town. Then 
 what was the prospect of any future session of Parliament after 
 that of 186i being called in Cape Town was a very disturbing 
 question not easily answered. The Eastern Province members 
 in both houses had been contending for Separation at one time and 
 for Removal of the seat of Government at another. This removal 
 of Parliament might be the forerunner of either. The Westerns 
 did not know what to think. They were as deep in despair as 
 the Easterns were elated by hope. 
 
 When Sir Philip Wodehouse arrived at Port Elizabeth on his 
 way to Graham's Town to open the session of 1864 he found 
 the Liverpool of Cape Colony en fete. There were triumphant 
 arches and flags everywhere. A deputation of officials Govern- 
 ment and Municipal merchants and others went off to the 
 steamer to welcome him. Memorials were presented and royal 
 salutes fired. There was a levee in the afternoon, a grand banquet 
 given in His Excellency's honour in the Town Hall in the 
 .evening. His Excellency was invited to visit the public 
 institutions, to which he responded cheerfully. One of the 
 merchants Mr. Elaine, alas ! now no more placed his resi- 
 dence on the Hill at the disposal of His Excellency and 
 Lady Wodehouse, and there the Governor's Levees were held. 
 Uitenhage invited His Excellency to come and see its rose 
 gardens and accept its hospitality an invitation instantly 
 accepted, to the great delight of the Uitenhagers. Jt may 
 fairly be said that His Excellency's path was strewed 
 Trith flowers from the day he arrived in Port Elizabeth to the 
 day he left it. When he left he was escorted by the gallant 
 volunteers, officials, and merchants to the Municipal boundaries, 
 cheered on his way and wished God-speed. At every halting- 
 place from the Sunday River Pont to Howison's Poort, the-
 
 54 
 
 highway entrance to the Eastern Metropolis, Graham's Town 
 was present with its volunteers and deputations, and brave Sir 
 Walter Currie and the mounted police to receive and welcome 
 him. There was a grand procession through the Poort, and as 
 the procession passed the Drostdy, the people cheered, the 
 bands played, and the flags waved. The arrival of the 
 Governor gave more heart to the Saints of the City than they 
 had had from the time they wept over the departure of Her 
 Majesty's forces and the loss of the military expenditure. 
 Every man who could command a horse or vehicle was out that 
 day. In the evening the city was lit up and there were fire- 
 works in the Drostdy grounds. His Excellency was accom- 
 panied by the recently appointed Lieutenant-Governor, Sir 
 Percy Douglas, who delighted the British Settlers at the 
 banquet given in the Governor's honour two days after, by 
 saying in his after-dinner speech that he distinguished as soon^ 
 as he entered the Poort, the ring of the true British metal 
 (or mettle, I don't know which he meant), in the cheers which 
 greeted their arrival. It is not too much to say of Graham's 
 Town that it was always British to the backbone, and Her 
 Majesty's Dutch subjects in Albany were ever as British as 
 their fellow Colonists of English derivation, and are so- 
 still. 
 
 These Eastern receptions of the Governor were in great 
 contrast with the treatment he had received in the West, and 
 naturally inspired him with hope of a successful session. 
 
 The opening ceremony, at which the Eastern Province was 
 far more fully represented than it had been at any previous 
 opening of Parliament, took place in the Shaw College, a fine 
 building for the purpose, situated in the lower part of High- 
 street. The city was gaily decorated for the occasion, and in 
 the body of the ball, which was thronged, there were the 
 leading clergy, the wives and families of members, and all 
 Graham's Town's country cousins, to whom the opening of 
 Parliament was a function of which they had read, but never 
 before seen. The Eastern members were somewhat disap- 
 pointed in the opening speech, because His Excellency neither 
 proposed in it to separate the Provinces nor to remove the seat 
 of Government. Still there were the Governor and suite in 
 their midst, and there was no knowing what the session might* 
 bring forth.
 
 55 
 
 The Governor's speech was in print nearly as soon as it wa& 
 delivered, and for the first time in the history of Parliament 
 Cape Town and the West got their first glimpse of a Governor's 
 opening speech in Eastern type. On the Legislature assembling 
 for the despatch of business the predictions of the Easterns 
 proved true ; there were not more Western members present 
 than there had been Eastern at the Cape Town openings. Even 
 Mr. Saul Solomon, the then leader of the House, did not put 
 in an appearance (it is to be regretted that he is not alive to da 
 so now when Parliament meets) in the early part of the session 
 the Easterns had it pretty much their own way. There was 
 no telegraph line through the Colony at this opening of Par- 
 liament the through line was inaugurated later but when the 
 Parliament was sitting. 
 
 There were several little kick-ups during the session, and one 
 of them nearly resulted in the Speaker, Sir Christoffel Brand, 
 being expelled from office. This was brought about by the 
 capricious action of Mr. Louis Chabaud, one of the members 
 for Port Elizabeth. Chabaud was an exceedingly able lawyer,, 
 but as a member of Parliament, he wouldn't steer. He was as 
 tetchy as an old maid who had been crossed in love, taking 
 offence at the least thing and where no offence was intended 
 One evening something had put him out and he lost his temper 
 and handed in his resignation to the Speaker. Having done so r 
 he went round to the Club and other public places of resort 
 and told everyone he met that he had resigned. Being laughed 
 at for his pains, he took second thought about it and went back 
 to the Speaker and got the resignation document back. On the 
 House of Assembly assembling on the next day, Mr. Chabaud 
 had taken his seat. His right to do so was challenged, as when 
 the Speaker has once received a member's resignation it is the 
 property of the House. The Speaker had no right to part 
 with it. 
 
 On the Speaker being interrogated about this resignation, 
 business, he foolishly prevaricated no doubt to save Chabaud, 
 with whom he was on particularly friendly terms. This riled 
 the House and what otherwise would have been but a mole-hill 
 grew into a mountain and a burning mountain of trouble. 
 The Speaker affected not to remember whether Mr. Chabaud 
 had resigned. At last he said that whilst he wag taking some 
 " refreshers " Mr. Chabaud did hand him a paper of some sort
 
 56 
 
 which he put in his pocket without reading it ; that Mr. 
 Chabaud came to him after he had gone to bed and asked to 
 have the paper back, and he, not knowing the nature of it, gave 
 it to him. 
 
 The House knew better. This was not the correct version of 
 the affair, and the matter was adjourned on the first occasion. 
 When it came on a second time the House like Nebuchad- 
 nezzar's fiery furnace, was seven times heated, arid angry 
 members were ready to offer up the Speaker and his wig, bauble 
 and robes, and Chabaud into the bargain, a living sacrifice to its 
 wrath. The proceedings of the House had never been so 
 tumultuous before, and have never been so since. The Speaker 
 had hitherto held the House well in hand, but now it took the 
 bit in its mouth and Mr. Speaker lost all control over it. The 
 gallery was crowded, for it had been announced that the 
 Speaker was to be disrobed and disgraced, and there is nothing 
 that the masses so gloat over as the humbling of great men. 
 
 The press had waxed warm as well as the members over the 
 affair and was antagonistic to the Speaker. 
 
 The late Mr. Painter, the member for Fort Beaufort, a 
 member always outspoken, but whose pluck was sometimes 
 greater than his discretion, said, addressing the Speaker 
 when the subject was revived : " Do you know what the people 
 say of you out of doors, Sir ? Do you know what the Eastern 
 Province Herald says of you, Sir ? The Herald says you are a 
 liar, Sir ; and I say the same, Sir ? " There were cries of 
 ** order " and " unparliamentary," but the little man was not to 
 be put down. Above all the noise and tumult was heard, 
 distinctly, " Yes, Sir, I say the same, Sir." 
 
 It had been discovered that Mr. Porter, the then Attorney- 
 Oeneral, was present when Chabaud's resignation was handed 
 in, and the question was put plainly to him, " Did the Speaker 
 read Chabaud's document when it was handed in to him ? " 
 Mr. William Porter was far too truthful and honourable a man 
 to hesitate about giving a plain answer to a plain question. He 
 said he felt his position to be a very delicate one, but he felt 
 that there was but one answer to the question the Speaker 
 certainly did read it ; he read it to the people sitting round him, 
 and the resignation was freely commented upon. 
 
 A vote of censure on the Speaker was moved, and it was lost 
 Jby a majority of one only. Had it been carried, the Speaker
 
 must have lost his seat, and he would have done so but he was 
 saved by Mr. Jonathan Ayliff having purposely absented him- 
 self to save him. On the matter being disposed of as I have 
 described, the Speaker humbled himself, bowing low in the 
 face of the whole congregation, and the matter was allowed 
 to drop. Had the Speaker lost his office Mr, Justice Denyssen, 
 who was then a member of the House, was named as the 
 probable member to succeed Sir Christoffel Brand. I do not 
 believe there was a member of the House when the momentary 
 loss of temper had passed but who felt glad that Sir Christoffel 
 retained his office. He was a very able Speaker indeed. He 
 .and his eldest son were men of marked ability, and the records 
 of their lives are very brilliant.
 
 REMINISCENCE. 
 
 THE CUSTOMS RUMPUS THE MEMBERS OF BOTH HOUSES VISIT 
 
 THE KtTSVlE THE WYNBERG RAILWAY GETS RUNNING 
 
 POWERS EXORBITANT DEMANDS OF LANDOWNERS 
 
 ON THE WYNBERG LINE 5,500 REDUCED TO 350' 
 
 AND THE CLAY PRINCE OF WALEs's MARRIAGE FETES 
 
 A MAGNIFICENT CARNIVAL FETES IN THE GOVERNMENT 
 
 GARDENS OXEN ROASTED WHOLE ON THE PARADE 
 PARLIAMENTARY BANQUETS AND BALLS IN GRAHAM'S 
 
 TOWN KREL1 TROUBLESOME IS WHIPPED BY MAJOR 
 
 GAWLER. 
 
 BY far the greatest rumpus that happened during the Graham's 
 Town Parliament of 1864 was neither an Eastern nor a Western 
 question it did not arise out of the antagonism between the 
 Provinces, nor had it the least tinge of party of any sort iu it . 
 The rumpus this time was between the merchants and the 
 Government, and sprung out of Customs amendments. It was 
 a rumpus and no mistake. The mercantile dander was fairly 
 up, and once up it kept up for no inconsiderable time. One 
 of the modes for squaring the Colonial accounts proposed by 
 Mr. Rawson, the Colonial Secretary, in his Budget speech, was 
 increasing certain Customs dues, and the honourable gentleman 
 held that if the House agreed to his proposals the higher rate 
 of Customs should be payable on the instant. This provoked' 
 the commercial element in and out of the House, and an 
 adjournment was moved immediately on the Colonial Secretary 
 resuming his seat. The Government opposed the motion for 
 adjournment, and protested against the Speaker putting it, 
 on the ground that if an opportunity were given to the mer-
 
 59 
 
 chants who had goods in bond they would immediately take 
 the goods out of bond, and the Government would lose the 
 advantages from the increased dues which had been calculated 
 upon. Temper was shown on all sides. The adjournment 
 was carried, and the Parliament took a holiday, which members 
 spent on the banks of the Kowie. There was no eod of 
 hullabaloo in Cape Town and Port Elizabeth mercantile circles*- 
 but it quieted down at last, a sort of compromise having 
 been effected between " the powers that be " and " the powers 
 that wanted to be." 
 
 There were certainly a good many measures passed in the 
 Graham's Town Parliament which could not be got through 
 a Cape Town Parliament and some of them of special 
 application to Western affairs. For iutance, the Wynberg 
 Railway Company obtained running powers from an Eastern 
 Parliament which they could not get from the Parliament 
 in Cape Town. Cape Town and Wellington Railway was under 
 the control of a Railway Board, and that Board became inflated 
 with the idea that for the purposes of railways the whole 
 country was theirs, on no other grounds, that I ever heard of 
 than that they were the first in the field. They had regarded 
 the Wynberg Railway with undisguised disfavour from its very 
 inception. When that Company brought its bill into Parlia- 
 ment the C. and W. R. people threw all the obstacles they 
 could in its way. The fact was that they wanted no lines 
 that they themselves did not construct and control, but they 
 had not conducted the railway entrusted to them with such 
 a view to the public benefit as to inspire confidence. They 
 had got on wilh nobody. Their rows with their contractor 
 had cost the Colony no end of money and delayed the opening 
 of the line, and they had worked the line as if it was " all 
 their own no halves or quarters." 
 
 There was but one approach to Cape Town and that was 
 through the Castle. This approach was too narrow to admit 
 of two sets of rails being laid down, and the Wynberg Com- 
 pany asked for running powers over this portion of the Cape 
 Town and Wellington line, but the C. & W. R. Company refused 
 and wanted to force the Cape Town and Wyuberg traffic on 
 to their line at Salt River, thsy to collar all the fares over 
 two miles of the journey. This the Wynberg Directors would 
 not bear of. The Cape Town and Wellington line had the
 
 60 
 
 greatest influence in a Cape Town Parliament and were able to 
 keep the Wynbergians off at arm's length whilst the Parlia- 
 ment was convened at the shank end. The late Mr. Edward 
 Hull, of the firm of Messrs. Hull & Fairbridge, solicitors, of 
 Cape Town, was the Secretary to the Wynberg Company, 
 and he, one of the ablest company solicitors that the Cape 
 ever knew, bided his time, and when the Graham's Town Parlia- 
 ment was in session sent up a short bill giving the Wynberg 
 Company the running powers they asked for, and it passed 
 through the two Houses with the speed of greased lightning. 
 Cape Town opposition did not count in the Eastern Legisla- 
 ture. The Wynberg Directors lauded the Graham's Town Par- 
 liament to the skies, as well indeed they might, for but for it 
 the Wellingtonians would have gobbled up their line. The 
 Wynberg Company had been beset with more than sufficient 
 obstacles without having any bother with the Cape Town and 
 Wellington people obstacles placed in their way by the very 
 people who were more directly interested in the line than any 
 one else, viz., the proprietors of the land through which the 
 line was to run. The sums demanded for bits of land required 
 for the railway were so outrageously exorbitant that if the 
 extortioners had prevailed all the capital of the Company 
 would have been swallowed up in the purchase of lands, and there 
 would have been nothing left for the construction of the 
 line. There was a clause in the Wynberg Railway Act to meet 
 cases of dispute between landowners and the Company, and 
 it was that when a dispute arose it should be referred to an 
 arbitration court consisting of three members, one each to be 
 elected by the disputants, the third by the elected members. 
 The landowners with a view to get all out of the Company 
 they could elected " their sisters and their cousins, their uncles 
 and their aunts," and the awards in the first few cases arbitra- 
 ted upon were so outrageous as to alarm the Directors, so that 
 to prevent the Company being smashed up they were compelled 
 to be on the alert, and when a Mr. Ecksteen demanded 5,500 
 for a slip of land running along the bottom of his vineyard -on 
 the banks of the Liesbeek River, they took care to select an 
 arbitrator who they considered a match for the Ecksteen family. 
 This arbitration occupied the arbitrators the whole of a fort- 
 night. The claimant swore upon oath that he did not want 
 the money, but the clay which he would lose by the loss of his
 
 61 
 
 land the slip containing the only clay he bad on his estate 
 suitable for making first-class fire-bricks. He valued his clay 
 at 5,500. He was awarded all he wanted, i.e., the clay and 
 375. He appealed to the Supreme Court against the award, 
 but the judges said the award was a just one, and in strict 
 accordance with the evidence. He had asked for the clay, had 
 got it at his own valuation, and the balance in money. They 
 upheld and applauded the judgment. After this the land- 
 owners along the line tried on no more of their tricks. 
 
 If Sir George Grey had the good fortune to have the pri- 
 vilege of introducing the first member of the Royal Family 
 Prince Alfred Sir Philip Wodeh ouse had a privilege quite as 
 highly prized in being the Governor in office when the mar- 
 riage of the Prince of Wales took place. It would be difficult 
 to say on which of these occasions the expression of loyalty on 
 the part of the Cape people was most unmistakably pro- 
 nounced, but the demonstration, grand as it was when Prince 
 Alfred came, was as nothing compared with the celebration 
 of the Royal wedding. When the descriptions of the festi- 
 vities reached England, it was publicly admitted that 
 for splendour the Cape celebrations were far ahead of those 
 of the other Colonies, and Cape Town outshone all the 
 rest of South Africa, although every town in the Colony 
 luxuriated in celebrations, money did not come into the con- 
 sideration anywhere. It was calculated that the Cape Town 
 fete brought 10,000 into circulation. Everything was done on 
 a grand scale and regardless of cost. For the first time in the 
 Colonies, a Carnival formed part of the festivities and the 
 Carnival was a magnificent success. For weeks before the 
 Prince of Wales's marriage, business was put aside, and the 
 tradespeople and professionals together devoted themselves to 
 making preparations for the coming spree. The Government 
 placed the department of the Colonial Civil Engineer at the 
 disposal of the General Committee, and every carpenter, joiner 
 and smith connected with the department was kept fully 
 employed in making ornamental cars, fitting up booths, stands, 
 and the like, and the Breakwater mechanics were also employed 
 at similar work. From daylight on the Prince of Wales's 
 wedding-day to daylight of the next, there was one incessant 
 round of festivities, not a private residence was closed it was 
 open-house throughout the city the hotels and pubs were
 
 62 
 
 thronged. There were no wedding-bells, as a matter of course, 
 for there is but one community in South Africa that has even now 
 risen to the distinction of having a really good peal of bells. 
 Kimberley has an imitation peal. In Cape Town there was St. 
 Oeorge's ding-dong alone, but daylight on the wedding morning 
 was ushered in right royally Royal salutes were fired and 
 bands of music paraded the streets. At 7 a.m. there were 
 appropriate wedding services in all the churches Dutch as 
 well as English, without national or denominational distinctions. 
 At 10 o'clock the Carnival commenced. There were groups of 
 fancy characters in cars of shell patterns Britannia in one, 
 Neptune and Tritons in another. The Seasons, Spring, 
 Summer, Autumn, and Winter following, then Bacchus, all 
 drawn in cars by teams of splendid horses. The Lady Godiva, 
 on a milk-white horse exquisitely but appropriately adorned, 
 Knights in Armour, Chinese conjuror in State, and other groups 
 of the same description the dresses and trappings of the horses 
 were as handsome as could be had for money. All the trades 
 followed the Carnival groups in procession. There were the 
 Port Captain and his men with their port boat manned and 
 on wheels, the Engineer of the Breakwater and about 300 of the 
 workmen, some of them working on vehicles constructed for 
 -the purpose. The members of various societies with their 
 banners, the children of all the schools, the boys in blue and 
 the girls in white. The Municipal workmen, bearing the town 
 arms ; the workmen in the Engineer's department, and the 
 railway people who could be spared were all there. The 
 procession was nearly two miles long. There were oxen cooked 
 whole on the Parade and the flesh handed round was partaken 
 of by all the crowd, Sir Philip and Lady Wodehouse being 
 helped to the first slices. All the poor were feasted on the 
 Parade at the cost of the Municipality, a magnificent wedding 
 breakfast was laid out for the Tip-Tops in the Paddock, Public 
 Gardens. Ladies and gentlemen breakfasted under the 
 presidency of His Excellency the Governor, who proposed the 
 health of the bride and bridegroom. There was a bridescake 
 on the table that it took a wagon and span of oxen to 
 convey from the confectioners to the breakfast table. 
 Lady Wodehouse sliced, and the guests took the cake. At 
 night there was an old English fair in the public 
 gardens, which were most brilliantly lit with gas jets and
 
 63 
 
 'Coloured lamps. There were 3,000 coloured lamps and eight 
 mottoes in gas jets in the main walk. The front gate was 
 surmounted with the Prince of Wales's plume and an appropri- 
 ate inscription in gas jets. The fair was an immense success, 
 and the " shows " werefac-similes of those once the pride and 
 glory of Greenwich on its annual fair days. 
 
 It may perhaps give some idea of the scale on which these 
 wedding festivities were carried out if I state that, although 
 every person paid the whole of his own individual expenses 
 dresses, horses, trappings, &c, 8,000 was raised by public 
 subscription for the general expenses, and every penny of it 
 was spent. Graham's Town, Port Elizabeth, and all the Eastern 
 districts celebrated the event magnificently. The Cape never 
 did anything or saw anything so gorgeous and glorious before, 
 never has since, and is not likely to again in this generation. 
 
 It was lucky for the Colony that the Prince's marriage took 
 place in the first year of Sir Philip's rule had it come in after 
 years the celebrations may not have been so splendidly suc- 
 cessful. 
 
 There was never bnt one Parliamentary session held in 
 Graham's Town, for although the Governor managed to get 
 enough money by taxing to carry on with, it was not sufficient, 
 and before the session closed the Eastern members quarrelled 
 amongst themselves, and some of the leading members got to 
 cross purposes with the Governor for the reason that he would 
 not give dominancy to their interests, nor do anything to dimi- 
 nish the natural advantages of the West. To all outward 
 appearances, however, everything went fair and smooth whilst 
 the session lasted. Banquets, balls, and concerts were the 
 order of the day one banquet given by that prince of 
 good fellows, the late Mr. G. Wood, jun., M.L.A., surpassed in 
 magnificence everything of the kind I have ever seen in South 
 Africa. Counting the cost was not in the thing at all. Every 
 luxury that the land could give, and every decoration that Art 
 could devise were there. The company was in the trick of 
 modern language swell. There were, in addition to His 
 Excellency and staff, the heads of depar tments and the mem- 
 bers of both Houses of Parliament at least two score of 
 military officers of the first rank in full dress uniform, and the 
 Commodore and principal naval officers from Her Majesty's 
 Simon's Town Station. The speeches were grand and telling
 
 64 
 
 and politics were not quite ignored. It was at a banquet 
 given to Mr. J. E. Wood, M.L.A., that that grand and' 
 much respected prelate Bishop Moran said : " You complain 
 of mismanagement. Gentlemen introduce Responsible Govern- 
 ment and you will add plunder to mismanagement," and there 
 are a good many who to-day think the Bishop's prediction was 
 far-seeing and correct. Bishop Moran is now filling the epis- 
 copal office in Dunedin, New Zealand. 
 
 During the sitting of Parliament in Graham's Town there was 
 a great stir on the frontier through the movements of the 
 Chief Kreli, and the Lieut. -Governor, Sir Percy Douglas, a ner- 
 vous man and a General with no Frontier experience, nearly 
 succeeded in bringing war about, and would have done so, but 
 that he had the counsel of Lieut. Gawler, who was afterwards 
 custodian of the Tower of London. Colonel Gawler had been 
 in the Colony many years, and was the trusted military com- 
 mander of Sir G. Grey in all Frontier matters. I never forget 
 a remark made by Sir George in one of his prorogation speeches. 
 His Excellency commenting on frontier affairs, said, "Kreli 
 has been troublesome, and I have ordered Major Gawler to- 
 punish him" just as if Kreli was but a schoolboy who deserved 
 a whipping and was to get it. He was not quite a schoolboy 
 he was a big and powerful and dangerous Chief, with a grand 
 army of fighting warriors, but Gawler did as he was ordered; 
 he gave him a whipping, and whipped him well.
 
 REMINISCENCE. 
 
 THE RETRENCHMENT BUBBLE 3IE PHILIP WODEHOUSE THE: 
 
 EASTERN DISTRICTS COURT CONSERVATIVES ANI> 
 
 LIBERALS AND THEIR DISTINCTIONS CONSERVATIVES 
 
 DIVIDED ON THE RETRENCHMENT POLICY OF MR. TW 
 
 FOSTER, M.L.A. ANNEXATION OF KAFFRARIA BASUTO- 
 
 LAND AND FREE STATE WAR CLOSING OF LAW 
 
 COURTS IN THE ORANGE RIVER FREE STATE EASTERN 
 
 OBSTRUCTION IN THE ASSEMBLY BASUTOLAND BECOMES 
 BRITISH PRESIDENT BRAND A FEDERALIST ALLEGA- 
 TION THAT WATERBOER'S COUNTRY WAS ANNEXED 
 
 SOLELY FOR THE SAKE OF THE DIAMOND FIELDS. 
 
 SIR Philip Wodehouse never had a chance of paying a visit 
 to the Diamond Fields, although he was Governor when dia- 
 monds were discovered in Griqualand West and was the 
 purchaser of the first diamond sent down to Cape Town. Nothing 
 was known about the discovery until 1869 nor until the 
 year was pretty well advanced he left in 1870. Sir Philip 
 had his hands pretty full on his return from Graham's Town, as 
 he had during the whole time from the end of the Graham's Town 
 session until the day of his departure. In addition to the finan- 
 cial muddle of the Colony, he had the Basuto aad Kaffrarian 
 difficulties to deal with. The Westerns were as much bent 
 upon Retrenchment in 1865 as they were in 1863. When I 
 speak of the Westerns, I do not include the whole of the 
 Western members, for I know Mr. Saul Solomon never favoured 
 the Retrenchment movement, and was too well up in his work 
 to think that the Colonial debt could be wiped out by any 
 system of economy. Mr. W. Foster, M.L.A., was the head 
 
 F
 
 66 
 
 centre of the Retrenehers and a staunch supporter of the Church 
 of England, or rather the Colonial Church " in Union and Com- 
 munion" with the Church of England,'was a prominent member 
 of the Synod of that Church, evincing great ability when 
 dealing with Church matters whilst occupying a seat in the 
 Synod. He was the editor and manager of the Standard, a 
 journal started by the Conservatives to supply the place of the 
 Cape Argtts, which had passed into the hands of Messrs. 
 Solomon & Co., and had become anything but a Conservative 
 organ. 1 never understood why the terms " Conservative " 
 and " Liberal " became Cape political party definitions. They 
 certainly did not apply in the least were most inapt in fact. 
 If the two parties had been defined as English and Afrikander 
 it would have been far more apt, although even those terms 
 would have conveyed little on the face of them of the political 
 differences which divided the people, because there were several 
 of the African born of Dutch derivation in the Conservative 
 ranks and Colonial born of English derivation and English born 
 in the Liberal ranks. The pith of Conservatism from 1854 
 was opposition to Responsible Government. There was more 
 than that in it, but that was the outward and visible sign. 
 The Conservatives were not opposed to necessary taxation, as 
 a party. They were decidedly in favour of reproductive public 
 works, agricultural development, railways, and certainly in 
 favour of anglicising the country. There is no doubt that 
 they would have had but one language spoken if they could 
 have had their way, and would have had the Cape Colony, in 
 every essential, part and parcel of the Great British Empire. 
 The Standard certainly, under Mr. Foster's management did not 
 represent the Conservative Party. He was too finnikin' in his 
 politics, and his Retrenchment scheme did more than 
 anything else to split up the party which the paper in 
 hie hands was intended to keep together and consoli- 
 date. At the commencement of the session of 1865 Mr. 
 Foeter convened a meeting of members who he thought he 
 could persuade to unite for retrenching purposes. The meet- 
 ing took place in the School of Art, Roeland Street, and to 
 that meeting he submitted his scheme. The main proposal was 
 to take 10 per cent, off all the salaries from that of the policeman, 
 paid at that time a pound to thirty shillings a week, to the salary 
 of the Governor, amounting to thousands a year. This he
 
 67 
 
 -called serving all alike, or tarring all the officials with the same 
 brush. The members present could not see that taking 10 per 
 cent, off a policeman's salary was the same as taking 10 per 
 cent, off the Governor's salary. The deduction of 2s. from the 
 policeman's pound might prevent his sending his children -to 
 school or buying shoes for them if he had children and most of 
 them had. Ten per cent, off the Governor's salary would be just 
 one walnut the less per diem per guest at His Excellency's 
 dinner parties. Besides if the whole of the salaries were docked 
 and not a penny of salary were paid any official the savings 
 would not amount to one tithe of the public debt. Everyone 
 but Mr. Foster saw that to depend upon retrenchment to equalize 
 revenue and expenditure and pay off the debt would have been 
 absurd, but Foster stuck to it, in spite of all that could be 
 advanced, that his was a practicable scheme. He was left to 
 work it out by himself. A resolution had been passed in the 
 Graham's Town Parliament, affirming the necessity of annexing 
 British Katfraria to the Colony. The 40,000 grant for the 
 maintenance which the High Commissioner had received from 
 the Imperial Treasury for the maintenance of that Colony had 
 been withdrawn and its independence could therefore no longer be 
 maintained. The one great advantage the Eastern Province had 
 obtained from the Graham's Town Parliamentary Session was the 
 establishment of an Eastern Districts Court an invaluable 
 advantage to the Province, as, previous to the existence of that 
 Court, all civil cases beyond the jurisdiction of the Magistrate 
 had to be adjudicated upon in Cape Town, which was a great 
 hindrance to Eastern suitors, and an enormous expense as well 
 as delay. If the Eastern Province had got nothing else out of 
 the Graham's Town Parliament, this alone should have made the 
 Easterns grateful to Sir Philip Wodehouse, and it greatly assisted 
 in making annexation easier of completion ; but the Kuffrarians 
 fought against it tooth and nail, and very naturally. They. as a 
 separate and distinct colony had a Government and a High 
 Court of their own, with their own Judge, Solicitor-General, and 
 Bar. The Governor had met and conferred with the Kaffrarians, 
 .and tried to persuade them to come into the annexation arrange- 
 ment willingly, as His Excellency was bound to do in accordance 
 with Imperial instructions, but the more he urged annexation 
 upon them, the more they disliked and resisted His Excellency, 
 -and the Parliament was as difficult to deal with in this matter 
 F 2
 
 68 
 
 as were the Kaffrarians themselves. The Easterns wanted? 
 Kaffraria annexed to their Province, and the Westerns wanted 
 the annexation to be made to strengthen their hands, and as the 
 Easterns could not get what they wanted they resolved upon a 
 policy of obstruction which was dubbed by Messrs. Solomon 
 & Co. the Murray-Wood policy, but it was never the policy 
 favoured by either Murray, who represented Oadock,or by Wood, 
 who represented Graham's Town. The originator of the policy 
 was Mr. Jonathan Ayliff, one of the members for Alice. The 
 plan adopted to obstruct was for Eastern members to occupy the 
 whole time of the House by proposing amendments and sup- 
 porting (?) them by reading Blue-books by the hour. A 
 senseless move that could answer no good purpose. The 
 Easterns being hundreds of miles away from home and most 
 of them men of business, could not possibly hold out against 
 the Westerns, the chief part of whom resided in Cape Town or in 
 its neighbourhood and could personally superintend their 
 business up to two o'clock in the day, and then sit all night 
 without much inconvenience. For five whole months this 
 game of obstruction was kept up sometimes sitting the whole 
 night and going home with the milk in the morning. Once 
 they sat night and day for a week, commencing on the 
 Monday and sitting into the following Sunday morning. The 
 Speaker had a fine time of it. He was compelled to preside 
 the whole time, never leaving his chair to eat or drink without 
 first obtaining leave of the House. Sir Christoffel Brand 
 was a man of marvellous physical endurance, or he never could 
 have stood it. The way the Easterns managed was just 
 to keep a sufficient number of their members in the House 
 to keep the game alive and prevent the main question being 
 put. The game of the Western members to prevent a 
 count-out. There was no business done. As soon as petitions 
 had been presented obstruction was commenced day after 
 day, and kept up as long as the House sat. The monotony 
 of reading Blue-books was occasionally relieved by some sort 
 of amendment proposed, as for instance, " That the Annexation 
 Bill be read this day six months." After spending some 
 dozen or two of hours in fancy debating on the amendment, 
 the Easterns would let the amendment be put, and of course 
 it would be lost, the Westerns always taking care to be iu 
 a majority. When the Speaker declared the Noes to have
 
 69 
 
 tt, the Easterns would call for a division anything to 
 occupy the time, and the division was never hurried through. 
 When the Speaker had declared the result of the division, 
 another Eastern member would move : " That the Annexation 
 Bill be read this day nine months," and the same voting 
 and dividing would be gone through with like results, to 
 make way for another Eastern amendment that the Bill be 
 read this day two months, and so they went on ringing 
 the changes. The Westerns were wild, and said all the 
 savage things they could of the Easterns, and the Easterns 
 retorted no less savagely. The Clerks of the House took 
 it by turns to put in an appearance, and record the Votes 
 and Proceedings ; the Sergeant-at-Arms obtained relief by 
 finding a substitute in the Clerk of the Papers. But after 
 : all the fun and frolic and wrangling the Annexation Bill 
 was passed, and the Easterns were defeated. The Kaffrarians 
 ^became Cape Colonists, the Kaffrarian judges were transferred 
 to the Bench of the Eastern Districts Court, the Attorney- 
 -General was made Solicitor-General of the Court, the attorneys 
 who had been practising at the Kaffrarian bar were made 
 barristers ; and the Kaffrarian agents were turned into full- 
 fledged attorneys. 
 
 Basutoland was made British with far less difficulty. The 
 Imperial Government had signified their desire that Basutoland 
 which had been giving them some trouble should be annexed 
 to the Cape Colony, and had instructed Sir Philip to make 
 his arrangements accordingly, but as their custom was the 
 Imperial Government changed their mind, which change the 
 Governor was apprised of by private hand before the Imperial 
 despatches could be sent off, and Sir Philip took time by the 
 forelock, so that when the despatches came with instructions 
 for him to stay his hand he wrote back to say that Basutoland 
 was already a British possession. Sir Philip was very impatient 
 of Imperial shilly-shallying. 
 
 Then the war made upon the Basutos by the Orange Free 
 State, which was commenced long before Kaffraria was annexed, 
 threatened serious complications. There existed a treaty 
 between the Basutos and the Imperial Government binding the 
 latter not to prevent the Basutos from arming themselves, 
 tut to allow them guns and ammunition. The Governor 
 intimated to the Free State Government that they must expect
 
 70 
 
 neither sympathy nor assistance from the Colony ; that the 
 Basutos were our allies (as indeed they were) and that they were 
 to be allowed to get guns and ammunition from the Cape Colony 
 which the dealers in munitions of war would be forbidden to 
 supply to the Free State. His Excellency issued a proclamation, 
 which he was in duty bound to do, forbidding Colonists to join 1 
 the Free State forces. This riled the Free Staters and their 
 partizans beyond measure. The proclamation was of little 
 effect, however, for armed Colonists crossed the Orange River 
 by hundreds and fought with the Boers indeed the Colonists 
 who so fought claimed the chief part of the credit for the Free 
 State victory. 
 
 The Colonists suffered great losses through that war. The 
 Government of the State closed all their law courts. Those in 
 debt to the Colony could not be sued and the Free State blue backs 
 (or rather orange backs) were declared to be a legal tender, and 
 these blue backs at one time were not worth more in the Colony 
 than two shillings in the pound. The Free State Government,, 
 however, at the close of the war redeemed all their paper most 
 honourably, as well indeed they might, as they made a pretty 
 good thing out of the war in cattle and land. The Conquered 
 Territory is the richest part of the Free State. It cannot be 
 denied that the war settled the country and made the Free State 
 safe to live in. President Brand when he accepted office in> 
 1863 found the State in a dreadful state of disorder and miserably 
 poor. He ruled it wisely, and before he died had raised the 
 country from abject poverty to an enviable state of prosperity. 
 
 Sir John Brand would willingly have federated the State 
 with other States and Colonies of South Africa under the 
 British flag. This he told me himself, but, he did not dare 
 propose it, however, or he would never again have been 
 re-elected. The Raad would have opposed any such proposal 
 almost to a man and would have called upon the President to 
 resign. His Honour lived to be on the most intimate and 
 friendly terras with the Queen and Royal Family of England. 
 There is little doubt indeed it is certain that Sir John was 
 irresistibly forced into many of the positions in which he seemed 
 to figure as an anti-English opponent of the Imperial Govern- 
 ment and High Commissioners, but he was not so. He had 
 either to yield to Boer prejudices or to resign, and I honestly 
 believe that a more unselfish public servant never held office ii>
 
 71 
 
 South Africa. I remember meeting him at the corner of 
 Church-street, Cape Town, just as he was starting to take the 
 reins of Government in 1863, and saying to him that he was 
 blind to his own interest in leaving the Cape Town Bar. There 
 was, I pointed out, promotion straight in view. The prospect 
 of a Chief Justiceship for him was as clear as the sun at noon- 
 day, and that at no very distant date. He admitted this,, 
 but said his countrymen had called upon him, and his duty 
 was to respond. Of course my answer was that if 
 he felt it to be his duty he had but one course open 
 to him, he must accept the Presidentship. Had he 
 not gone to the Free State he would have escaped 
 much worry and trouble, and in all probability he would have 
 been alive to-day and have been the Chief Justice of the 
 Supreme Court of the Cape Colony, for there is no doubt that 
 worry and trouble killed him. There was the Basuto War in 
 the first place, involving grave responsibilities, for victory was 
 not so sure at starting. He could not escape that war. The 
 Basutos on the border on the one hand, and the Boers on the 
 other, were continually cattle lifting and rowing there was 
 never a moment's peace, and the great body of his Republican 
 subjects sided with the Boers against the Basulos and cried 
 out for their extermination^ and the majority of the white Colo- 
 nists sympathised with the Boers, as they would under 
 any circumstances have been with the white against any 
 coloured iace. The closing of the Law Courts was a bold 
 stroke, and to proclaim war with an empty exchequer and no 
 credit was what few Presidents would have dared, and but that 
 His Honour had his people with him heart and soul, even he 
 would not, have ventured so much. He started a paper currency, 
 making his orange backs a legal tender to meet the expenses 
 of the war, and the Government who owed the Standard Bank 
 80,000, refused to permit that Bank to establish itself inside 
 the Free State boundary. The orange backs were at a fearful 
 discount outside the Free State for a very long time. Colonial 
 creditors refused to take them, but when the Diamond Fields 
 were established and trade was opened up with the Free State 
 store-keepers and many men in the Fields did exceedingly well 
 with the Free State paper currency. The whole of its paper 
 was called in when it had served its purpose, which it did. 
 The Government of the State worked out its currency scheme
 
 72 
 
 with great cleverness, and ultimately opened its Law Courts 
 and paid the Standard Bank all it owed that institution, but 
 not until worry and anxiety had undermined the health of the 
 "Chief Manager, Mr. E. Stewart, the ablest financier that ever 
 came from England to South Africa, which is saying a good 
 deal, for we have bad some very able bank managers from 
 England sines free trade in money was delcared. President 
 Brand's presence in the battlefield urging on his men by his 
 own personal enthusiasm involved personal hardship and was 
 detrimental to his health. Next came the controversy 
 with Sir Henry Barkly about the Griqualand West territorial 
 rights, and sad, very sad, domestic afflictions. He was a 
 strong man, armed with an inflexible will and self- 
 convinced of the righteousness of his cause, or he must 
 have succumbed many years before he did. I heard from his 
 own lips the last night I spent with him at the Presidential 
 residence how much he had learnt from his visit to England. 
 When he was in the House of Assembly Mr. Advocate Brand, 
 member for Calvinia, and the colleague of Dr. Taucred, no 
 <loubt was bitterly prejudiced against England, But he 
 was a young man then, and he had been " capped, 
 lapped, and papped " under circumstances which made 
 him prejudiced against Englishmen and all things 
 English. He lived to know better, and Her Majesty 
 ithe Queen got to know him, and to recognise in him a true and 
 loyal subject and a faithful ally. President Brand was never 
 more prpud than he was to accept the knighthood the Queen 
 conferred upon him unasked, and the determination he displayed 
 when his Volksraad said he should not accept a favour from 
 England was admirable, and showed him to be worthy to rule 
 a people. The Queen of England, said he, has graciously con- 
 ferred a knighthood upon me, and I shall accept it. The Raad 
 was silenced. 
 
 It has been said, and many times repeated, that the English 
 would never have taken Griqualand West but that they were 
 greedy to get the diamonds ; that until diamonds were discov- 
 ered they had never given the country a thought, much less 
 claimed it. Sir Philip Wodehouse had been offered the country 
 by the Chief Waterboer before the annexation of British 
 Kaffraria was broached, and had notified it to the Free State 
 Oovernmeut. There was not a diamond heard of or thought of
 
 73 
 
 in the country at that time. Sir Philip had too much hay on 
 his fork to complete the taking over of Waterboer's country 
 whilst Colonial and Kaffrarian difficulties were so pressing 
 upon him. But the Free State Government had had notice 
 from the British Government before any diamond diggings 
 existed, and the English would have occupied the country, 
 diamonds or no diamonds, so that those who have kept up the 
 cry about English greed in this matter may just as well hold 
 . their peace.
 
 REMINISCENCE. 
 
 SIR PHILIP WODEHOUSE'S OFFER TO THE PARLIAMENT TO GET 
 A RAILWAY ENGINEER AND TO BECOME SECURITY FOR 
 
 HIS EFFICIENCY PARLIAMENT ACCEPTS THE OFFER 
 
 MK. BOURNE, C.E., PROCURED FROM DEMERARA HIS 
 
 TIUP THROUGH THE COUNTRY RAILWAY ENGINEERING 
 
 DEPARTMENT FORMED AND BROKEN UP ENGINEER 
 
 DISMISSED UNREGISTERED HARDSHIPS SIR HENRY 
 
 BARKLY'S VISITS TO KIMBERLEY MR. (NOW SIR) 
 RICHARD SOUTHEY'S DEFECTION WITH THE COLONIAL 
 
 GOVERNMENT HIS APPOINTMENT AS LIEUT. -GOVERNOR 
 
 OF GR1QUALAND HIS RECEPTION ON ARRIVAL 
 BANQUET AND FIREWORKS HOW RESPONSIBLE GOVERN- 
 MENT WAS WON. 
 
 AMONGST the multitude of advantages it is boasted that the 
 Colony has derived from Ministers and Ministries, and which it 
 is frequently said we never should have had but for the intro- 
 duction of Responsible Government, is the network of Colonial 
 railways, which has certainly done more to accelerate the 
 progress of the Colony than any public work which has been 
 undertaken. There never was a greater mi&take than this boast. 
 Of course people who do not know any better may be misled by 
 such boastful pretensions, but not the old residents. In 1862, 
 Sir Philip Wodehouse informed the House of Assembly by 
 message, when the House was considering the subject of 
 extending the line of railway then constructed, that if the 
 Legislature desired railway extension, he could recommend them 
 an engineer who would take the superintendence of the railways, 
 and would guard the interest of the Colony efficiently, whether
 
 75 
 
 the Legislature decided that Government should construct the 
 railways, or that they should be constructed by contract. The 
 engineer he would recommend was one who, His Excellency 
 said, had saved Demerara a very large amount of money in the 
 construction of Harbour Works when he was the Governor of that 
 dependency, and Sir Philip added that if the Legislature would 
 authorize him, he would send for that gentleman, and added that 
 His Excellency would be responsible for his efficiency. Mr. 
 Solomon moved that the Governor be so authorized, and in so- 
 doing, said that it would be a great advantage to have an 
 engineer of whose efficiency the Governor had had experience,, 
 and whom His Excellency so strongly recommended. It- 
 certainly was far better than leaving the selection in the hands of 
 the Colonial Agency in London, who would in all probability send 
 a favourite or relative of their own without caring much about 
 his efficiency. The motion was duly seconded to the best of my 
 recollection by Dr. Christie, the then colleague of Mr. 
 Molteno, and one of the representatives of Beaufort 
 West. This was how Mr. Bourne, C.E., came out to the 
 Colony as its Railway Engineer. Mr. Bourne was unquestion- 
 ably a first-rate man. He was in Graham's Town during 
 the session held there in 1861, in order to advise any 
 Select Committee who might be appointed on the subject of 
 railways. At the close of the session 1 was going from 
 Graham's Town to Cape Town was asked if I would join 
 Mr. Bourne and make the journey with him in order that I 
 might point out, knowing the localities, where I thought it 
 most profitable to the country railways should first be made. 
 Of course I could have no objection, and we travelled together. 
 My idea at that time was (and it must be remembered that 
 there were no Diamond Fields then) that railways to serve 
 the country best would be those which connected the productive 
 portions of the country with the ports. Those were the 
 days of small things in the way of railway enterprise. We 
 had been directing our attention to harbours and harbour 
 works, had spent no end of money in docks, patent slips, 
 and breakwaters, but we had been doing little or nothing 
 to increase our exports either in the way of railways or irrigation. 
 Our harbours had been made as it seemed to me for imports 
 only. However, it is sufficient to say that political considera- 
 tions have had more to do with the turns and twists of our-
 
 76 
 
 railway system than any consideration for the material welfare 
 -of the country. 
 
 Mr. Bourne not merely took note of the " lie" of the 
 country, the producimg districts and the ports, but he 
 visited each of the forests on the way, and came to the 
 conclusion that we ought to import less timber than we 
 were doing, and that not only should we get our railway 
 sleepers from Colonial-grown timber, but other timber as 
 well. However all that came to nothing, for in 1866, after 
 the Railway Department was just completed, and the Gorernor 
 was arranging to push on with railways, the Responsibles 
 -nd the Anti-Progressive party together formed a majority 
 in the House, put a stop to railway enterprise altogether, 
 and wanted to repudiate payment for the Tulbagh line, which 
 a majority of members had informally empowered His Excel- 
 lency to construct during the recess to relieve the existing 
 distress, and now after Parliament met did their level best to 
 make His Excellency pay for it out of his own pocket. This was 
 how the Responsibles earned our gratitude for hastening on 
 railway construction in the Cape colony. Mr. Bourne, of 
 course, having been recommended by Sir Philip Wodehouse, 
 came in for a share of the opprobrium heaped upon His 
 Excellency, and he had to go, with all the railway staff which 
 had been imported. The thousands that had been spent in the 
 construction of the Department mattered not a dump to the 
 dominant party, who saw plainly enough that if the material 
 development of the country proceeded satisfactorily under 
 the old form of government no change would be wanted, 
 and Party was not likely to get Place. 
 
 This journey with Mr Bourne reminds me of a little 
 incident which occurred at Port Elizabeth just at that time, 
 and which I thought had a good bit of humour in it may be 
 it was the more humorous to me because it was an event 
 /in which a pressman got rather the best of two officials. 
 When Sir Philip was administering the affairs of the country 
 Mr. George Hudson, now the head of our police department, 
 was attached to the Customs service at Port Elizabeth, 
 and although Kimberley readers may not believe it, G.H. 
 was one of the most inveterate of practical jokers that the 
 Bay then knew, which is not saying a little for Port Elizabeth, 
 for the town might have dispensed with that joker and
 
 77 
 
 then have had quant, suf. of that sort of animal. The 
 colleague of Mr. George Hudson was Mr. Allen Rose Innes,. 
 the uncle of the present Attoruey-General, who was nearly 
 if not quite as given to practical joking as G.H. himself. 
 To " sell " a member of the Press was their greatest delight, 
 and of all the pressmen, Mr. Charles Fraser, the reporter of 
 the Eastern Province Herald, was their favourite butt. To 
 palm off a canard upon him as veritable gospel and get 
 him to insert it in the Herald was an achievement which 
 gave them inexpressible pleasure. Mr Fraser bided his 
 time, and one day be toddled down to the Customs House, 
 and putting on an air of much concern asked them how they 
 were going to get over " this piece of neglect " that everyone 
 was talking of. Hudson and Innes looked up from their 
 desks and asked what particular neglect he referred to. " Refer 
 to," exclaimed Fraser, " why that which has become the 
 topic of the day in every merchant's store in the place. That 
 a number of ships have been at Port Elizabeth without 
 one of them ever having been reported at the Customs 
 House." This was so serious an allegation that Hudson, 
 Innes, and everyone in the office was scared. " Within 
 what period ? " asked Hudson. " Why," said Fraser, " within 
 the last two years the chief part of them." The officials 
 took their registers down for the purpose of comparison, but 
 could find nothing in the shape of an omission, and then they, 
 after days and days of enquiry, finding no corroboration of 
 Fraser's allegation, demanded to know of him what ships. 
 Fraser shrugged his shoulders, and shook his head. " What 
 ship? ? " said Hudson. " Yes, what ships ? " echoed Innes. 
 " Why, hardships," shouted Fraser and sloped. The biters bit, 
 resolved upon revenge, and not long after concocted a marvellous 
 story of the capture of a tiger which Fraser unwittingly made a 
 note of and duly reported to the editor, who published it. That 
 blessed tiger story hoax went the round of the Eastern papers, 
 and was nearly the death of good, worthy George Impey, Esq.,. 
 alas ! now no more, and the Bay chaff about it nearly drove 
 Fraser mad, but it was a long time before the Bay fellows left 
 off asking Hudson and Innes when the Hardships might be 
 expected. 
 
 The Diamond Fields have been visited by three Governors : 
 first by Sir Henry Barkly, when Klipdrii't was the seat of
 
 78 
 
 -Government and the High Court, and the Court of the British 
 Resident sat there. The first British Administration consisted 
 of the British Resident Magistrate, Mr. John Campbell, and 
 Messrs. Holden Bowker, Buyskes and J. Orpen. What the 
 three Commissioners were intended to do I could never under- 
 stand, in fact they said they did not know themselves. They 
 used to spend the chief part of their time in sunning themselves 
 outside the Court House or on the banks of the river. However 
 they are all dead now. Theu we had as Administrators and 
 Magistrates, Messrs. Campbell, Giddy, Thompson and Comman- 
 dant Bowker, and Gilfillan. More of them and their successors 
 anon. The country had been taken over from the Griqua Chief, 
 Walerboer, and the land had to be disposed of. The land up to 
 the time when the British Government took over Waterboer, his 
 people and his country at their request, to save them from the 
 Boers, had been held under a tribal title. There were no 
 individual land holdings the land belonged to the Griquas in 
 common. Each of Waterboer's subjects had a right to occupy 
 and to grow sufficient for his wants nothing more. There 
 was an idea abroad that now the country had become British 
 it should be apportioned out in siicn a way as to make 
 it easy for the land-jobbers to get hold of it. The 
 Lieutenant-Governor's plan of dealing with the land or an essen- 
 tial part of it was to give every Griqua a plot large enough for 
 his needs but, however, whatever it was the Governor dis- 
 approved of it and sent up a scheme of his own, which Sir 
 Richard Southey as Lieut-Governor declined to submit to the 
 Council. The Governor thereupon came up himself and insisted 
 upon its submission to the Legislative Council, and informed 
 Sir Richard that he as Lieut. -Governor must submit it or he 
 could no longer hold the office. Sir Richard then Mr. (Southey) 
 said no matter what the consequence might be to himself, he so 
 thoroughly disapproved of the Governor's scheme that he would 
 have nothing to do with it, and that if it had to be introduced 
 into the Council the Governor must introduce it himself. This 
 His Excellency did. He went into the Council, took the 
 President's chair, and forced the scheme through , and the Lieut.- 
 Governor went into the Council no more and no longer held the 
 office he was dismissed. The public will be glad to 
 know that Colonel Grossman, R.E., who was sent 
 out as I Royal Commissioner to enquire and report,
 
 79 
 
 reported very highly of Sir Richard Southey's adminis- 
 trative ability and administration. Strangely enough, no 
 -copy of this report was ever forwarded to Sir Richard. I take 
 it that the Knighthood was intended to convey to the honourable 
 fientl eman that he had earned and claimed the confidence of his 
 Queen and Her Majesty's Government. This was a second time 
 that Mr. Southey had refused to be coerced into helping to bring 
 about a result of which he disapproved. He was Colonial 
 Secretary, and therefore a member of the Executive Council, 
 when Sir Henry Barkly was sent out as Governor to force 
 Responsible Government upon the country. Sir Henry Barkly 
 informed the Council of his instructions, and called upon the 
 members of the Council to co-operate with him in bringing it 
 about. Mr. Southey held that before any change in the form of 
 government was made it ought to ba submitted to the people 
 and the voice of the country taken upon it. The Governor held 
 that the vote of the two Houses of Parliament was sufficient. 
 Mr. Southey said no, the Houses had been elected 
 without question having put definitely to the constituencies. 
 The Governor said the Colonial Secretary was bound to 
 vote, and he voted against it. As it would never have 
 done to let it go to the country at the critical juncture, when 
 there was but a possible one majority for Responsible Govern- 
 ment in Council, that the Executive Council was divided upon it, 
 Mr. Southey was offered the Lieut.-Governorship of Griqualand 
 West. Whatever else may be said of Sir Richard Southey, it 
 must be admitted that he has always been true to his con- 
 victions. 
 
 When the vote in favour of Responsible Government had been 
 perfected in both Houses of the Legislature by influencing Mr. 
 De Roubaix, M.L.C., who had been elected as a non-Responsible, 
 to give his vote in favour and giving Sir Henry a majority of one, 
 the Premiership was offered to Sir Richard Southey, Mr. Solo- 
 mon and Mr. Molteno both joining the Governor in the 
 endeavour to persuade that gentleman to be the first Prime 
 Minister. He flatly and absolutely declined, although he could 
 have commanded a majority in both Houses. He did not 
 consider the country ripe for it. It was thereupon that Mr. 
 Molteno became the first Prime Minister. Mr. Solomon was 
 asked, and one of those who asked him was Mr. Molteno, but he 
 declined. Even had he lived and remained in good health, Mr.
 
 80 
 
 Saul Solomon never would have accepted the Premiership. I 
 remember his telling me that that was his determination years 
 and years before Responsible Government was carried. 
 
 I think that it is probable that had Mr. John Paterson, the 
 member for Port Elizabeth, been in the Colony and alive, he 
 would have been Prime Minister very soon, but I doubt if he 
 would ever have held office for any length of time together. 
 He was a man of great natural ability, a scholar, and had many 
 of the elements which qualify a statesman. But he was 
 capricious, and lacked the one great essential without which a 
 Minister can do little namely, the power of attracting and 
 keeping intact a Ministry or a majority. Still Mr. Paterson's 
 death was a great loss to the Parliament and the country. He 
 was a practical politician in many ways, but some of his 
 proposals were wild and impossible. I have not yet forgotten- 
 his grand irrigation scheme. At one period irrigation was the 
 great political cry. An irrigation scheme for the whole country 
 was to be the salvation if not of the country, certainly of the 
 Agricultural interest. One of the foremost, the most earnest 
 and most intelligent advocates of it was the Hon. Mr. Frank 
 Reitz, M.L.C., then member for Swellenuam and father of the 
 present President of the Orange Free State. Then Mr. John 
 Paterson took it up, but not in the spirit that characterised the 
 advocacy of the Hon. Mr. Reitz. Mr. Paterson proposed that 
 there should be two Irrigation Boards, one for the West and one 
 for the East. The Eastern Board was to consist of five 
 members, four of whom were to have 1,000 per year, and the 
 fifth, who was to be the President of the Board, 2,000. People 
 asked who was to be the President, and 1 aughed, and that is alb 
 that came of Mr. John Pateraon's great Irrigation Scheme.
 
 REMINISCENCE. 
 
 EARLY DAYS OK THE DIAMOND FIELDS THE RIVER DIGGINGS 
 
 HABITS AND MANNERS OF THE PIONEERS SABBATH 
 
 OBSERVANCE SERVICE RENDERED BY BISHOP WEBB 
 
 AND THE CLERGY OF THE FREE STATE RESIDENT 
 
 CHAPLAIN APPOINTED THE RECTORY BUILDING FIRST 
 
 WEDDING IN THE DIAMONDS FIELDS BRIDE TURNS UP 
 
 A "MAMA" SCENE ON THE RIVER BANKS BURIED UNDER 
 THE THREE KAMEELDOORNS THE END OF THE ROMANCE. 
 
 THE early days of the Diamonds Fields were as prolific of 
 remarkable incident as any portion of South Africa during any 
 period of South African history, When I arrived there was but 
 one eating-house at Klipdrift, and that soon had as many 
 customers as it could accommodate not above ten all counted. 
 The ten fortunate ones were well fed and cared for, the 
 thousands bad rough times of it. There was one remarkable 
 circumstance more than any other of all the remarkable features 
 of that period, and that was the observance of the Sabbath. 
 Without conference, consultation, fixed law, or framed regula- 
 tion, every man knocked off work on Saturday night and made 
 his appearance on Sunday morning, no matter how high the 
 Saturday night jinks had reached, washed and brushed, and 
 with as much of a Sunday-going-to-meeting look about him as 
 circumstances admitted. This Sunday observance was voluntary, 
 not brought about by clerical influence, and it must be remem- 
 bered that of the thousands of diggers not a few were men who 
 had been roughing it all their lives, who seldom talked of 
 religion, never affected piety, and the majority of them had 
 made no pretence of being church or chapel goers when living 
 Q
 
 82 
 
 in cities, townB, or villages. It is true that they visited bars 
 and liquored up on a Sunday all the same, but there was neither 
 card nor billiard playing. They left off work and put on a 
 Sunday appearance which was (he extent of their Sunday 
 observance, but still an observance of the day which I say was 
 very remarkable seeing that every one of them was engaged in a 
 race for wealth, and it involved a loss of one-seventh of the time 
 they had at their disposal for the getting that which they had 
 come hundreds of miles to get. The Sunday hung very heavily 
 on the hands of these diggers, and the observance could not 
 have lasted long in this fashion. Men find little pleasure in 
 idleness for any length of time. They must have something to 
 see or to do if they are not at Avork. Nothing is more true 
 than that 
 
 " Satan finds some mischief still 
 For idle hands to do." 
 
 Happily the clergy at Bloemfontein, the nearest settled country, 
 seeing that there was a disposition on the part of the men 
 themselves to keep the Sunday, came to their assistance. 
 The first clergyman who came to Klipdrift was that 
 excellent, earnest, and talented clergyman, Archdeacon 
 Croghan. The reverend gentleman, although not physically 
 strong, used to come down and hold morning service and 
 make the return so far as Boshof the same day. His minis- 
 trations were well attended, and never were more regular 
 and attentive congregations in chapel, parish church or cathedral. 
 When the Archdeacon's home duties prevented his continuance 
 of those services his place was taken by the Rev. Archdeacon 
 Kitton, of King William's Town, who took up his residence at 
 Klipdrift and continued until the English Church in England 
 sent out a Resident Chaplain to the Fields the Rev. Mr. 
 Sadlier who held early morning service at Waldek's Plant, 
 eleven o'clock service at Klipdrift, and an afternoon 
 service at Pniel. Before the arrival of the Resident 
 Chaplain the Roman Catholics had entered the field, 
 but the Catholics were not sufficient in number to warrant a 
 priest giving up his whole time to the work. Of womenfolk 
 there were none until some time after the arrival of the Resident 
 Chaplain, and, therefore, of course, there were no marriages nor 
 christenings. The first marriage was celebrated by the Rev.
 
 83 
 
 Mr. Sadlier in his " residence," a one-roomed wattle-and-daub 
 hut with a reed roof, which the diggers humorously entitled 
 " The Rectory." The reverend chaplain was an M.A. of 
 Cambridge, and 1 should think that never before had an 
 ordained clergyman of the Church of England been installed 
 ; in such a residence. The building had been designed for a 
 .tronk but on the arrival of the Revd. Mr. Sadlier it was thought 
 it might be devoted to a better purpose, and as there was no 
 other place of accommodation for him it was handed over to him. 
 When it became noised abroad that there was to be a wedding 
 the diggers resolved to keep it up in style. The " twain " to be 
 made one flesh was a coloured " twain," and it could not be 
 complained that they did not come to the rectory in wedding 
 garments. The bridegroom wore a fashionable morning coat, 
 lavender trousers, white waistcoat, sky blue tie, patent leather 
 'boots, and black silk hat a regular bell-topper. The bride, 
 who was a natty maiden of sweet sixteen, was dressed in 
 blue silk with lace tippet, and a bridal veil that reached to her 
 toes. Both wore white kid gloves, quite en regie. In prepara- 
 tion, and to make room for the wedding being celebrated in 
 " The Rectory," the chaplain had doubled up his iron stretcher 
 .and decorated the walls with evergreens brought by the diggers 
 from the willows which overhung the river. I myself gave 
 .away the bride, and when the chaplain, the bride and bridegroom, 
 and myself were inside the rectory there was no room for any 
 one else, but there were hundreds of spectators crowding round 
 rthe building, and in the doorway they stood three deep. When 
 the chaplain declared the twain " man and wife together " the 
 diggers gave such a cheer as might have been heard almost as 
 far as Waldek's Plant. The Pniel diggers took up the 
 cheering from the Klipdrift side, and kept it up. The cere- 
 ,mony over, the diggers stood treat at Sanger's, toasted the 
 .bride, and sent off the happy couple to commence their wedded 
 life with louder if not more hearty good wishes than ever 
 bride was before blessed with. And it must be said 
 to the credit of the diggers who took part in the festal celebra- 
 tion, that they were as respectful to the bride as if she had been 
 a sprig of nobility, and not an unseemly word was spoken in her 
 presence. 
 
 When I went to the Barberton Gold Fields a second time I 
 .had put up for a few days at Bussey's Hotel, Ferreira's Camp, 
 Q 2
 
 84 
 
 on my way to Pretoria. Amongst the staff of servants was a 
 dapper young coloured lad who went by the name of " boots," I 
 suppose from his connection with the Day & Martin department. 
 One morning when he had brought in my shoes in a high state 
 of lustre, he asked me if I had any washing I wanted getting 
 done, if so his mother would be glad to do it for me. It was 
 just the very thing I did want and I told him to send her. In 
 the course of the morning an old vrouw turned up. She was 
 nearly as broad as she was long and I said, " Well, old Mama, 
 what do you want ? " She told me she was the mother of 
 " boots," who told her I had some washing for her. Before she 
 left she asked if I did not remember her. Looking at her, I ex- 
 pressed my regret that I had not that felicity and she laughed 
 very good naturedly, and said " why Mr. Murray gave me away 
 when Mr. Sadlier married me at Klipdrift." She had learned 
 to speak English of the gold diggers. The spread of the 
 language of tiie Empire is one of the good results of the gold 
 discovery. I looked in vain at the old fat vrouw and tried to- 
 imagine her in a white lace bridal veil, blue silk dress and white 
 kids. But I couldn't do it. She had gone in for black kids 
 since then, and had grown quite grandmotherly during the 
 seventeen or eighteen years that had elapsed since that wed- 
 ding at the " Rectory." South African women, white as well 
 as black, soon wear out after they become mothers. She told 
 me that she had borne her husband eight children. She looked 
 old enough to be the grandmother of " boots." Her husband, 
 whom I saw afterwards working in Ferreira's claims, was as 
 stand-uppish as a man of middle age should be and not a day 
 older than became his age. The South African male does not 
 age nearly so fast as the female. 
 
 One of the most memorable incidents of travel, and one that 
 I shall never forget, occurred to me many years ago during a 
 journey I made to the Free State soon after my arrival on the 
 Diamond P^ields. I had been on a visit to President Brand, 
 at Bloemfontein, and was returning, with three other passen- 
 gers, in one of Mr. Hanger's carts. It had been raining tre- 
 mendously heavy for some days, but we reached Boshof all 
 right though it was late in the evening. When we left 
 Boshof it was so dark that we could hardly see the road in 
 fact no one in the cart but the coloured driver did see it, but 
 he found his way along until we arrived at that part of the
 
 85 
 
 journey where you have to drive through the river, and the 
 driver pulled up near the edge of the bank of it. The river 
 was a roaring torrent, but with the recklessness characteristic 
 of his class the driver wanted to plunge into the stream and 
 cross to the opposite bank ; but I saw clearly enough that the 
 river was far too deep and rapid for this to be attempted 
 without the assistance of Kafirs to keep the cart on its wheels, 
 and I refused to risk it until we could get some Kafirs 
 to ascertain the depth of the water. My fellow passen- 
 gers wanted to know where I was to get Kafirs at that 
 time of night they had not the experience of South 
 African Kafirs that I had had, and were willing to cross, hav- 
 ing confidence in the driver, who said it was " safe enough." 
 I didn't care what the driver said, and I would not risk it 
 until we got Kafirs. They wanted to know what I would 
 do if the driver pushed on. I replied that they would surely 
 let me get out. After much wrangling I said there were 
 surely some farms near where there were plenty of Kafirs. 
 The driver said there were no farm houses or houses of any 
 sort for miles, which I did not believe. Taking a look 
 round 1 saw fire at a distance. " Oh," said the driver, " that 
 is some wagons outspanned for the night." Well, I remarked, 
 the wagons will not be without Kafirs they will have drivers 
 and voortrekkers and will lend us their boys, as indeed 
 Boers and kurveyors on trek always will do when help is 
 required. The objection to going to the wagon for boys 
 was that it was such a long way to go. " Oh, I will go," said 
 I, and I jumped out of the cart and set off. I must say that 
 they were right about the distance. It was a long walk in 
 -the dark. As I neared the wagons a pack of dogs flew out, 
 barking as South African curs know how to bark. I heard 
 & voice calling the dogs back, and recognised the voice to 
 be that of a lady, who I soon after saw standing in the doorway 
 of a very large van, through which light from the inside 
 streamed. She called to me to know who I was and what 
 I wanted. I answered and told her, walking up to the 
 doorway of the van in which she stood, when I heard a 
 gentleman inside say, " Ask him in," which she did. I 
 never was more surprised in my life than when I entered 
 the van. It was like the inside of a large sitting room in 
 & comfortable cottage. There were curtains at the further
 
 86 
 
 end, evidently partitioning off a sleeping apartment ; on 
 the entrance end there was a cbeffonier, on which stood 
 decanters of wines and spirits, glasses and dessert set. The 
 left side was fitted up with book shelves, well filled with 
 books, which on a later examination I found to include standard 
 works on scientific subjects, the best known poets, as Shake- 
 speare, Byron, Milton, Moore, Keats, Hood, Sir Walter Scott's 
 novels, and several volumes of Dickens. On the right 
 side there was a fine grated fire stove in which a well-made- 
 up fire blazed and crackled, and by its side sitting in an arm- 
 chair was a gentleman evidently in very ill-health. He 
 was an exceedingly handsome man with clear-cut features 
 and a fine flowing chestnut beard. His hands, resting on- 
 his knees, were more emaciated even than his face. He invited 
 me to take a seat, which I did. The room was bright and' 
 light, a very handsome lamp hanging from the ceiling in the 
 centre of the apartment. When I bad taken my seat, the 
 gentleman turning to me said, "I know you, Mr. Murray,. 
 or at least all about you, and I was hoping to meet you at 
 Bloemfontein." He then went on to tell me that he was' 
 very ill, consumptive in fact, and that he had been ordered 
 away from England by his medical advisers, who said bis- 
 only chance of living was to get the dry warm air of the 
 Free State or the Diamond Fields. He had been staying in. 
 Bloemfontein for some time, but, said he, what with that 
 wretched patois they converse in and the want of companion- 
 ship I have been miserable, and my health instead of improving 
 has grown worse. 
 
 I had not up to this time much chance of observing his wife,. 
 as she was standing a little behind me after I had entered into 
 the light, but she was now standing before me and I could see that 
 she was in every respect a lady. She was younger than her hus- 
 band I should say five or six years he could not have been more 
 than 38. She had a charming expression, was as neatly dressed 
 as if sho had been at home in her own house instead of being the 
 occupant of a wagon in the wilds of Africa for so the locality 
 at which wo were might then have been considered. 
 
 I said to my invalid friend " Come along to the Diamond' 
 Fields, and we'll soon set you up." I was then living at 
 Klip-lrift. She said " Wo are coming to the Diamond Fields. 
 Can you tell us where we can find lodgings? " I said" Never
 
 87 
 
 mind the lodgings these you could not hire, but 1 will put you 
 up." He said " I shall never reach there ! " and invited me to- 
 take some refreshment ; and then went on to say *' Don't you 
 think I have been intensely selfish to drag my wife into this- 
 wilderness ? I do, and shall never forgive myself. Here is she, 
 tenderly bred, used to refined life, taken from her friends from 
 all that were near and dear to her with no companions, no- 
 enjoyments wasting her young life waiting upon me, who- 
 have lost the power of giving her anything in return. Am I not 
 selfish ? " 
 
 I could see that her eyes were filling, and she dared not 
 attempt to speak, or there must have been a burst of grief. I 
 said " You must not talk like that. Illness makes you take a 
 distorted view of things. You have not dragged your wife away 
 from home and friends you did not even drag yourself here* 
 It was the force of circumstances, over which you bad no control,, 
 that sent you away from home ; and it was her love of you, over 
 which she had no control, that led her to come and attend you aa 
 a loving wife does when she has an invalided husband. Think 
 of the wretched life she would be living now, were she at home,, 
 7,000 miles away, and you dependent on strangers! You might 
 have blamed yourself if you had refused to bring her with you 
 but not now ! However, I said, " she won't want for company 
 when you come to the Diamond Fields, for I have a family there, 
 and we will all try to make life for you as cheerful as it can b& 
 made." 
 
 She brightened up, and said, with a smile " Thank you, Mr. 
 Murray. It is long since I have heard anything spoken so 
 kindly. You have but echoed what I am always saying to- 
 him." 
 
 He looked at her with a brighter and happier expression on 
 his face. He remained silent for a little time, and then said,, 
 with a grave look upon his face "Do you know any nice place 
 to be buried at between this and the Diamond Fields ? " 
 
 This question coming upon me momentarily and suddenly 
 struck me somewhat unpleasantly. On the journey up when 
 arriving at a point 'between the old Halfway House on the 
 Boshof road and the town of Boshof we came to a charming 
 little spot, which was at that time, when we had been some time 
 without rain and the general appearance of the country was 
 dismal and parched, quite a little picture. Three fine Kameel- 
 doorns with wide-spreading branches were standing in the
 
 88 
 
 middle of a grass plot of luxuriant green. It was a little oasis in 
 the desert, and I looking at it said with a sort of mixed feeling in 
 which there was both humour and sentiment " If I were to die 
 here, that is where I should like to be buried." But it was one 
 thing to say this to jovial companions in a passenger cart and 
 another to say it to a man who, conscious that he was on the 
 brink of the grave, was looking for a " nice place " for his 
 final rest. 
 
 I begged him to dismiss the thought from his mind, assur- 
 ing him that he would feel better when he had been in Klip- 
 drift a little while, and which I myself believed at that time. 
 But he was not to be assured, and he pressed me to tell him 
 of some place where it would be pleasant for him to think of 
 as his grave, and for his wife to remember. 1 ultimately told 
 him of what I said on the way up, and indicated the locality 
 of the three trees and the bright green sward. 
 
 He then went on " I want you to promise me one thing 
 before you go," said he. " Well," I answered, "If it is a pro- 
 mise I can perform, I will willingly make it." He said, " If 
 when I am dead my wife should need advice, will you give it 
 her ? " I said, " That is very little to promise certainly." 
 He explained to me his circumstances. He had plenty of 
 means, and was well provided with coin, &c. With the talk, 
 the warm fire, and the hot toddy, I had forgotten my com- 
 panions in the cold and dark on the river bank, but remember- 
 ing them, I hastily asked to be excused and told him to think 
 no more about dying, but come along to the Diamond Fields: 
 and get cheered up again. He gave orders to his Kafirs to 
 go to the river and do what I wanted of them, and I returned 
 to find my fellow passengers very savage at my delay, but 
 still plea&ed that I had brought the Kafirs. 
 
 We crossed the river, thanks to the Kafirs, but for whom 
 we should have been u demmed moist, unpleasant bodies," 
 la Mantalini, for it was with the greatest difficulty even with 
 the assistance of the Kafirs that we prevented the cart from 
 capsizing and being washed down the river, and ourselves with it. 
 
 Some weeks after this I was in my garden plot at Klipdrift 
 when a messenger came to me from the Klipdrift side and said 
 there was a lady at Mrs. Jardine's Hotel, at the top of Pniel, 
 who wished to see me. I went across, and to my delight saw 
 the lady of the luxurious van apartment standing by the side 
 of the same van, to which were a span of oxen inspanned.
 
 89 
 
 'She was dressed in ordinary ladies' dress and suspecting noth- 
 ing, I took her hand, welcomed her to Klipdrift, and said 
 " How's your husband ? " The answer was chilling : " Dead 
 
 and buried under the three Kameeldoorns" 
 
 She then told me his last Avords were that she was to come 
 
 to me as soon as he was buried, and take my advice and be 
 guided by it. I said, " You have I know a good deal of 
 money and valuables in your van. You have a man servant 
 who has been with you ever since you left your English home ; 
 you cannot do better than make the best of your way back to 
 that English home again," adding, " if you would rather stay 
 in the Fields for some time, come across the river with me at 
 once, and we will make you as comfortable as we can," but my 
 advice to her, as she had a good deal of money and valuables 
 with her, was not to stay but push on. She had her oxen out- 
 spanned for three or four hours, and then turned her face 
 homeward via Port Elizabeth with letters of introduction from 
 me to old friends along the road. From Port Elizabeth she 
 wrote me of her safety with more in the way of grateful 
 expression than I care to repeat. 
 
 In 1882, I, writing a tale entitled "Ten Years Ago," which 
 first appeared in numbers in the South African (London), I 
 worked in the facts relating to the three trees, giving to them 
 more of romance. The morning the last of the tale appeared 
 in print I went for a stroll through Hyde Park, and when near 
 the gateway at Leicester Terrace met an old South African, 
 who said, " 1 have been reading your tale of " Ten Years Ago," 
 how well you have worked it out. I know all about the lady 
 and invalid gentleman, and the grave under the three Kameel- 
 <loorns. Would you like to see the lady ? She lives here at 
 No. 3. She would like to see you, J know, and she will forgive 
 all your romancing." In my tale I had converted myself into 
 the hero of it, had met the lady at the Golden Cross, Charing 
 Cro&s, fallen in love with her, and married her in St. George's, 
 Hanover Square. I went to No. 3 at the request of my friend 
 and grasped the hand of a widow, not a wife she had been 
 a widow a full two .years then, and she was able with less 
 suffering than when she left me at Pniel to talk of the grave 
 under the three Kameeldoorns, and to laugh with me over the 
 imaginary meeting at the Golden Cross, and the still more 
 
 imaginary nuptials at St. George's altar.
 
 REMINISCENCE. 
 
 No. XIII. 
 
 A WORD ABOUT MR. PATERSON AND THE PRESS MR. GEORGE 
 IMPEY THE "MIDLAND HERALD" TREATMENT OF THE 
 
 GEM OF THE DESERT MR. GODLONTON AND THE GRA- 
 
 HAM'S TOWN JOURNAL THE ALTERED ASPECT OF THE 
 
 SOUTH AFRICAN PRESS " INTERVIEWING " EXTRAOR- 
 DINARY. 
 
 MY article, treating of the last forty years' history of the Cape 
 Press and Pressmen, closed with a glance at the Port Eliza- 
 beth papers, and a notice of Mr. Paterson's connection with 
 The Telegraph. I can only give the story of that gentleman's 
 disaffection with the above-mentioned paper as it came to me. 
 It must be remembered that I am writing without a note and 
 entirely from memory. These articles are entirely remini- 
 scences. I have nothing whatever to refer to. I have neither 
 a note nor the file of any newspaper. 1 am altogether depen- 
 dent on the storage of my brain for the facts related, but my 
 memory seldom fails me in any important particular, and as 
 far as I have gone I have only been reminded that I have 
 made mistakes in two Christian names, and in saying that 
 Bishop Moran's prophetic utterance was made at a dinner given 
 by one brother whereas it was made ;it a dinner given to 
 another. All the incidents related in that article occurred 
 over thirty years ago, and the mi&tukes did not affect the stories 
 related in the least degree. When I do not feel sure of my 
 facts I say so, and 1 may here remark that I am not certain 
 whether The Port Elizabeth Telegraph or The Eastern 
 Province Herald was the first started. They were both in 
 existence forty years ago as I stated. This I know of my own.
 
 91 
 
 knowledge but as a matter of course T was dependent upon 
 information received from others as to the particulars con- 
 nected Avith their origin and originators. Whichever paper was 
 started first, Mr. Paterson was the editor of it and Mr. Philip 
 the proprietor, and those who knew Mr. Paterson will be pretty 
 well assured that he did not continue long editor after he saw 
 his way to be master proprietor himself. He was not a jour- 
 nalist with a love of journalism as a profession. He always- 
 used the press for purposes of his own, to attain an end in which 
 he himself was to figure largely. Heat no time in his life in- 
 tended it to be his permanent profession. This he has told me 
 himself. We were for nearly twenty years previous to his sad 
 and unfortunate death fast friends, and spent a very great many 
 enjoyable hours in company, and he was certainly as charming 
 a companion as a man could wish to have. In these hours of 
 companionship he was very frank, and his confidences were 
 very full as well as frank. 
 
 He was a far better speaker than he was a writer. He could 
 give clearer and fuller expression to his thoughts with his voice 
 than with his pen, but his writing was above the Cape average. 
 It had both force and point : His views were always extreme 
 whatever he v/as writing about. He was originally one of the 
 teachers imported from the Scotch University by Dr. Lines, 
 the Superintendent-General of Education, preceding Sir Langham 
 Dale. Mr. Paterson was Government teacher for many years 
 before he entered commercial life, and there are many of his 
 pupils still alive who speak of his aptitude for teaching in 
 admiration. No man did half as much for Port Elizabeth as 
 he did in his life-time nor anything like it. For many of its 
 existing institutions Port Elizabeth is indebted to him for 
 instance, its magnificent Town Hall, tbe largest and best built 
 town hall in South Africa the Grey Institute, the North 
 End Park, the original bank on which Mr. R. Steuart built up 
 the finest banking institution on the Souih African continent, 
 the Standard Bank, and many others of value and importance. 
 The Eastern Province Herald in Mr. Paterson's hands was a 
 fairly good property, and its political influence was greater 
 when the paper was his than it ever was afterwards, but as a 
 newspaper it was not then nearly as valuable as it was after 
 it came into Mr. George Impey's hands and ownership. Mr. 
 Impey was not an expert in the political world, but he was in.
 
 92 
 
 the commercial world, and as a commercial paper the Herald 
 was most valuable and highly valued by the mercantile com- 
 munity of Port Elizabeth. To make it so Mr. Impey devoted 
 his best energies. He and his note-book were conspicuous in 
 the Port Elizabeth markets, amongst the Customs people, and 
 wherever shipping or mercantile matters were to be heard about. 
 He lent some attention to agriculture and his treatment of stock 
 and produce markets was inimitable. Both Port Elizabeth 
 papers have held their own very successfully, and although 
 many rival papers have been started in the sure and certain 
 hope of bringing the Herald to grief, none of them have suc- 
 ceeded. Both it and its two cont emporaries remain in vigorous 
 health, and look as if they mean to do so for many years to 
 come. There is not a sign of decline or death about either of 
 them. 
 
 Some little time ago, since Mr. Impey's death, some fond 
 friends of his put forward the pretence that he was the Father 
 of the Cape Press. He never claimed such a distinction for 
 himself, for Mr. Impey was never a pretentious man either in 
 his profession or out of it. He was modest and retiring, hard 
 working, intelligent, and in every way worthy of the position 
 he held as editor and proprietor of the Herald, and in the 
 social and commercial circles of Port Elizabeth. He was kind, 
 amiable, generous, charitable, and hospitable, always ready to 
 assist those in need of assistance as he was to lend himself to 
 the advancement of any movement having for its object the 
 welfare of the community amongst whom he resided. But he 
 had no such claim as was set up for him. He did not take up 
 press work until others of his contemporaries had been press- 
 men for at least ten years, and some of them more than twice 
 that time. 
 
 I promised in my last article to return again to the subject 
 of the Western Press, but before doing so I must say a word 
 .or two about the Midland Press. In the Midlands The Graaff- 
 Reinet Herald cheered the Midlothians like the taper of the 
 He rmit of the Vale, " with solitary ray." It was always a 
 highly respectable little journal, thoroughly English, but an 
 English editor in Graaff-Reinet, for many years, was much in the 
 same position as an Israelite in bondage in the land of 
 Egypt, having to make bricks without straw. Graaff- 
 .Reinet, in common with all the Midland Districts, has
 
 93 
 
 received but little attention and no favours from any Govern- 
 ment, no matter whether the Government has been Nominee 
 or Responsible in form. It has always been completely sand- 
 wiched politically between the East and West, and it has been 
 but a very thin part of the political sandwich. Up to the time 
 when the Midland Railway communication commenced it had 
 but one post a day. It once had two, but only for a compara- 
 tively short time. The first thing in the way of retrenchment, 
 when the retrenching mania raged, was the post to Graaff- 
 Reiuet that was cut down with a vengeance just cut in two. 
 Simple but effective. The Gem of the Desert was left with 
 one paper and with one post per week. To increase the issues 
 of the Herald was impossible. It was a marvel how the editor 
 kept one issue going walled in as he was, but he did and did 
 it well too. Graaff-Reinet was always an eminently Dutch 
 district and the Herald was like the Parliament has been since 
 the two languages were spoken in it, two distinct halves of a 
 whole. I have never known a Cape newspaper published in 
 two languages attain anything like success yet. Even the 
 Zuid Ajrikaan with its English translations added to its 
 Dutch columns never made enough out of its English support 
 to pay for the trouble and cost of translation and the space 
 the foreign matter (for English was foreign to the Zuid 
 Afrikaaii) occupied. The Zuid Afrikaan of 1854, and for 
 many years after was the property of Mr. Smuts. In its early 
 days Mr. Advocate Brand, sen., afterwards Sir Christoffel 
 Brand, was its reputed editor. And it must be said of that 
 paper that it never minced matters. It was Dutchheart, 
 soul and backbone, as it ought to have been, to be honest ; 
 and as it was during the Brand regime, so it is in the Hofmcyr 
 regime. It has never, throughout its long career, attempted 
 to keep afloat by serving God and Mammon. Always true 
 to the traditions of its race, it has never affected to hold the 
 people of the Nation who took the Colony out of the hands 
 of the Dutch with any very warm affection, for the very best 
 of reasons that it cherishes none for them. The Volksblad 
 was started with a view to cut into its circulation, and it may 
 have done so in some slight degree, but it never seemed to do 
 it much injury, for it kept going on " in the even tenour of 
 its way." The Zuid Afrikaan was to the Dutch of the West 
 precisely what The Graham's Town Journal was in Mr.
 
 94 
 
 Godlonton's time to the Settlers of the East. The columns 
 of the Zuid Afrikaan were sis much believed in by the African 
 Dutch as the Bible, and taken to be as unquestionable as the 
 Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke or John. Its dictum was 
 and is accepted by its readers as if it were Divinely inspired, 
 which is a great comfort to both readers and editor ; it saves 
 the readers the tiresomeness of thinking for themselves, and 
 makes the editor monarch of more than he surveys. What is 
 here said of The Zuid Afrikaan and the Dutch may with 
 equal truth have been said of The Graham" 1 's Town Journal 
 whilst it remained in Mr. Godlonton's hands. The Frontier 
 people swore by it and it was as true to the interests of the 
 Frontier people as the Frontier people were to Mr. Godlonton 
 and his journal. 
 
 Within the last fifteen or twenty years the whole aspect 
 of the Cape press has undergone a complete change, as has 
 also its constitution, machinery and method. The Cape Times 
 alone issues more papers in a month than the issues of all 
 Cape newspapers put together amounted to in a year forty 
 years ago. The papers of to-day fairly represent the consti- 
 tuencies for which they are written. The daily morning papers 
 are exceptionally good. In addition 1o the journal with which 
 I am connected, there are two others I also read, and read 
 religiously and with thorough appreciation and enjoyment, and 
 those are the Cape Times and the Transvaal Advertiser. 
 The articles in the three papers are invariably well written, 
 and for the most part are finished compositions, in which the 
 writers are masters of their subjects and of the language they 
 employ. Neither of them are too local, but take the affairs 
 of South Africa fairly within their grasp and handle them 
 becomingly. There is now no town of any size or importance 
 that has not a newspaper of its own, and speaking of the press 
 as a whole, South Africa has nothing to complain or be ashamed 
 of. 
 
 It is proverbial that men get conservative with age, and 
 knowing this I hesitate to write what I think of many of the 
 press features of the present day which those who have been 
 instrumental in bringing them about call improvements, but 
 which to me are but innovations. I am told that they 
 are all in accordance with the Spirit of the Age, and I 
 suppose it is so, but the newspapers are just a little too florid for
 
 95 
 
 <my taste too florid iii type as in many other things. But the 
 press men of to-day are not going to prefer ray taste to that of 
 the public, and they would be great fools if they did. In this 
 particular I am not writing of the Cape press exclusively or 
 even specially. It applies to English as well as to Colonial 
 journalism. 
 
 The innovations which are distaseful to me include the 
 system which has crept in, and is now largely adopted, of " in- 
 terviewing " all sorts of people on every possible occasion, and 
 which is frequently as humorously absurd as is Dicken's descrip- 
 tion of the interviewing of Martin Chuzzlewit at the National 
 Hotel, New York, previous to his departure for Eden, and 
 Captain Kedgick had him made a public character and the 
 citizens put up his "minnument" in the Bar. This interviewing 
 and perpetual presentation of private men as public characters 
 by block portraiture are innovations imported from American 
 journalism, which to my mind is no improvement in style to the 
 eariy English. But it is very taking, especially with aspirants 
 for public distinction. 
 
 I have certainly read some newspaper reviewing in South 
 Africa as full of absurdity and humour as that of Chuzzlewit at 
 the National. I remember one that appeared in a Rand paper. 
 It was the interviewing of the Searelle family. The peripatetic 
 interviewer told his readers that he had been to Doornfontein on 
 interviewing bent. He had never seen any of the Searelles 
 before, but he met a little boy on the road who be knew was a 
 Searelle from his likeness to his father ! His first question to 
 the lady of the house was " How's your father ? " She hoped 
 doing well, but he had been dead these ten years. Then " how's 
 your brother ?" followed. She bad never had a brother, and 
 said so. I expected the question to follow, *' How would he 
 have been if you had had one ?" Which character did she think 
 she played best, he did ask her, and her answer was smart, 
 natural and amusing " the character that most people come to 
 see." 
 
 When this bit of interviewing, which occupied about a 
 column and a half of such questions and answers, appeared in 
 print it certainly served to give the people of Johannesburg a 
 hearty laugh, and to advertise the Searelle Opera Company, but 
 as a newspaper achievement it was certainly not a success. 
 More people have been brought into ridicule than made famous
 
 96 
 
 since the system of interviewing has come into vogue, and to my 
 mind it has not added dignity to the press. The interviewing 
 of famous travellers, inventors, scientists, celebrated statesmen 
 and such like is quite another thing. Mr. Colin Campbell, who 
 was for many years the proprietor of the Anglo- African, tells 
 me that the report in Grahams' Town that Archdeacon Merrinaan 
 was the editor of that paper was a report without more founda- 
 tion than that the Venerable Archdeacon wrote one article for 
 it. Graham's Town generally will be surprised to hear this, for it 
 wasalv/ays regarded as beyond doubt that Archdeacon Merrivnau 
 edited the paper. I don't know who did if the Archdeacon did 
 not, and I arn not respon&ible for giving the reverend departed the 
 credit of it. He certainly enjoyed all the credit of it during 
 his lifetime, and need not have been annoyed at it, for the Anylo- 
 African was most respectably as well as ably conducted, and 
 was as well printed as the very best of our Colonial papers. In 
 the original chapter on the Colonial Press I omitted to mention 
 the Cape Frontier Times, owned and edited by Mr. Franklin. 
 The omission was quite accidental, and I am pleased to have an 
 opportunity of correcting the omission. Mr. Franklin and his 
 paper have been dead for some years, but during their existence 
 they were both greatly respected. The Frontier Times was an 
 independent paper connected with no party, faction or clique, 
 conservative in its tendencies, and was inclined to lean towards 
 the English Episcopal Church in opposition to the extreme 
 Wesleyan bias of The Journal. It was also less local than Tltc 
 Journal, dealt broadly with the affairs of the Colony outside of 
 Graham's Town, and grappled with Western politics ably, as with 
 Eastern and Midland. Mr. Franklin was a man of good parts, 
 a scholar of wide and extensive travel. He had spent a large 
 portion of his life on the European continent, and spoke some of 
 the Continental languages with great fluency. He was a 
 finished musician and an organist of much skill. He was very 
 popular in the beet circles of the East, was the associate of 
 scholars and gentlemen, and for many years represented aa 
 Eastern constituency in the House of Assembly.
 
 REMINISCENCE. 
 
 No. XIV. 
 
 OLD CAPE TOWN MAGISTRATES MR. P. B. BORCIIERDS AND BARON 
 LOREXZ MR. JOHN MONTAGU, THE SECRETARY AND- 
 
 ADMINISTRATOR THE ROAD ACROSS THE CAPE FLATS 
 
 " PRESIDENT " STAFFORD PARKER MR. JOHN CAMPBELL 
 
 AN ASPECT OF THE LAND QUESTION AT KLIPDRIFT 
 
 A GOLD-FIELD EPISODE BALANCE ON THE WRONG SIDE 
 
 SLAVE DEALERS AND SLAVES A VISIT TO THE 
 
 HATHERLY DISTILLERY. 
 
 THE changes which have taken place in Resident Magistrates 
 within my memory have been very many and some of them 
 very remarkable. When I came to Cape Town first Mr. P. B. 
 Borcherds, then a very old man, was Resident Magistrate. 
 He had been in the Government service all his life ; had had 
 the supervision of the offspring of the slaves in the old slave 
 days, had the control of the Juvenile Immigrants before I was 
 born, and had represented the Government in scores of commis- 
 sions. He, as Resident Magistrate, had nothing whatever to 
 do with police cases, but his work was confined to civil suits 
 alone. The civil roll was then, I should think, five times the 
 length of the civil roll of to-day, and the old gentleman, who 
 was one of the most patient and amiable of men and certainly 
 one of the most just and impartial of magistrates who ever 
 sat upon a magisterial bench, would be pretty well exhausted 
 when he had been sitting from ten in the morning to about 
 four in the afternoon, and then he would invariably say to the 
 messenger of the Court, " Hill, how many more cases ? " The- 
 answer would be something like " Twenty more yet, your wor- 
 ship." Then the old gentleman would shrug his shoulders and 
 H
 
 98 
 
 say, " Ah ! Ah ! Go on, Hill." He must then have been over 
 .seventy years of age when I came first to Cape Town, a grand 
 old man in every respect, grand in appearance and in character, 
 always ready to do a good turn for any one in need or in trouble, 
 respected by the Government and revered by the public. 
 I don't suppose he ever used a harsh word, certainly not a word 
 unnecessarily harsh or uncalled for in all his life, either in 
 public or in private. He must have been a fine, handsome man 
 in his younger days. He was handsome even as he was vener- 
 able in his old age. He even then took a great interest in 
 public movements, and without any ado attended meetings and 
 exhibitions of agricultural societies as far ;iway as Malmesbury, 
 Stellenbosch, or the Paarl, although the difficulties of travel- 
 ling in those days were tiring even to young men. One ride 
 I had with him from Malmesbury to Cape Town I shall never 
 forget. He told me stories of his early life the whole way, and 
 some of them were very remarkable, especially those concern- 
 ing the old slave-dealing times. I inferred from what he told 
 me that as a rule the slave-owners residing in and near Cape 
 Town treated their slaves well, as far as creature comforts 
 went; they were fairly well housed, clothed and fed. la sick- 
 ness the family doctor attended them and cured them as fast 
 ^as he could. They were regarded as property, just as horses 
 .and cattle were, and taken care of by their owners as other pro- 
 perty was taken care of. Their morals did not at all come 
 into the calculation, and according to Mr. Borcherds the morals 
 of the slaves and their owners did not differ much, and the 
 consequences of slave-owning were frequently the 
 cause of much domestic disgrace and affliction. In the 
 West, cruelties to slaves were exceptional occurrences, 
 but they did occur, even in the best-regulated families, too 
 frequently. According to Mr. Borcherds, the slaves were most 
 barbarously treated in the Interior and where the slave-owners 
 were isolated from society. He related circumstances in which 
 cruel injuries were inflicted, and even lives sacrificed circum- 
 stances which he officially had had to deal with ; and, from 
 what he said, I am inclined to believe the Governments of the 
 period were not slow to punish when these circumstances 
 became known at headquarters, and proof of ill-treatment 
 could be obtained, which was always difficult and sometimes, 
 frequently indeed, impossible. Mr. Borcherds retired from the
 
 99 
 
 -service at last on a pension, but not until he was past work, 
 rand spent the last years of his well-spent life in the midst of 
 relatives and friends at Stellenbosch. 
 
 The Police Magistrate of the same period between 1854 and 
 '1858 was Baron Lorenz, whose history was remarkable, to say 
 the least of it. He was one of the witnesses m the notorious 
 trial of the unhappy and ill-fated Queen Caroline, and it was 
 said that was the cause of his leaving Europe, and this is very 
 feasible. I remember reading his evidence in the report of the 
 trial I had in my library for years, and until some book-thief 
 jumped it. I am sorry that I have not the book still, as the 
 evidenca given by the Baron would be read with interest now, 
 rand especially his cross-examination by Lord Brougham, whose 
 defence of the Queen was masterly, and whose cross-examination 
 of Baron Lorenz must have made him shiver as he had never 
 shivered before. His lordship's ability and eloquence in his 
 .conduct of his Royal client's case made him famous. 
 
 Baron Lorenz was a most courteous gentleman, remarkable 
 for his volubility when on the Bench. He never let a prisoner 
 get away from the dock, whether innocent or guilty, without 
 -a long and grandiloquent lecture. The Baron for many years 
 -held the office of Road Inspector in the Cape Division conjointly 
 with that of Police Magistrate, and it was under his supervision 
 that the original road round the Kloof and to Camp's Bay was 
 started, but, as I have heard, he got so much out in his levels 
 that the work had to be taken out of his hands and put into 
 the hands of a more skilful road-maker, but this was before my 
 /time, and all I knew about it came to me from hearsay. I 
 .understood always that the work was completed by Mr. Bain, 
 who designed and carried out the| Bain's Kloof road and other 
 kindred works, but I ana not in [a. position to certify that as 
 a fact. Bain's Kloof was one of the public undertakings 
 carried out whilst Mr. John Montagu, the elder, was Colonial 
 Secretary, whose great administrative talent was acknowledged 
 by even his bitterest opponents, and he had many of them, who 
 were very bitter and very j uncompromising. Mr. Montagu 
 -came to the Cape from Australia, where he had won a most 
 enviable name in the service of the |Crown. He came here to 
 find the Cape desperately in debt, and as he was assured by 
 .those occupying office at the time, without any resources for 
 him to develop. He soon, however, saw that the lehaboe 
 
 H 2
 
 100 
 
 Islands could be made to produce more wealth than was neces- 
 sary to liquidate the public debt, and he set to work, opened 
 and established the guano trade, made roads and mountain 
 passes in order to enable the farmers to bring their produce to 
 the markets with profit. Then the twelve miles of road from 
 what was then called " the interior " into Cape Town was^ 
 through shifting sand, and strings of wagons on the road 
 would sometimes be half-buried and completely stuck in a 
 sand drift for three weeks and a month on the stretch. He it 
 was who designed the hard road from Eerste River to Cape 
 Town, and turned the common Hottentot Fig (Misembrean- 
 themum) which grew all over the Cape Flats to good account 
 in stopping and consolidating the drift sands. This was at the 
 time considered the most marvellous achievement that was 
 contained in any official record in the Colony. Mr. Montagu 
 got no end of kudos for this, and no wonder. It is impossible 
 for any one in these days of railways and telegraphs to estimate 
 the value of the hard road across the Flats to the farmers, 
 travellers generally, and mail contractors. No name stood 
 higher than Mr. Montagu's for some years, no man was so- 
 lauded, none so popular as he until the anti-convict movement. 
 Then he met with the reward which generally falls to the lot of 
 public benefactors. Because he could not go the whole hog 
 with the extreme popular party, he was hounded to death, acd 
 when he was dead and buried, the Parliament refused to vote 
 a pension for his widow. Mr. Montagu might well have 
 applied to himself what Marc Antony said of Caesar : 
 
 " Ingratitude, more strong than traitor's arms, 
 Quite vanquished him ; then burst his mighty heart." 
 
 Mr. Montagu devoted his life, and every hour of his life, to his 
 work, and his work was to leave the country better than he 
 found it, and in this he was successful. He freed the country 
 from debt, lifted it out of the slough of despair, and laid the 
 foundations of a material prosperity to which it had long been a 
 stranger, but he. acquired no wealth for himself, but left 
 behind him his widow and family in straitened circumstances. 
 The thoughtful and faithful he left behind him honoured his 
 memory, but they were not a Parliamentary majority,, 
 and when the widow's appeal to Parliament came they 
 were powerless. In my last article, I told something of
 
 101 
 
 the tale of " President " Parker's career in the Diamond Fields. 
 I may now go on to say tbat he commanded a certain 
 amount of influence at Klipdrift up to the time of Mr. John 
 Campbell's appearance there as British Representative and 
 Magistrate. And amongst other moves of his he made very 
 many bold attempts to get hold of the land for himself and his 
 friends, and he would have succeeded but for the opposition of 
 ome men, who put more trust in the British Government than 
 it proved iself worthy of or at least than its representative 
 allowed it to be worthy of. There is no doubt that had all 
 those who were first on the Fields joined Stafford Parker and 
 used him they might have succeeded in getting possession of the 
 land and leaving nothing for Land Courts to meddle and muddle 
 with. But loyalty has never been profitable to the loyal in 
 South Africa, and it sometimes seems to me that it is wonderful 
 after the lessons we have had that so many remain loyal. It is 
 true that Britain ensures a just administration of her written 
 laws to the people of dependencies as well as to those of 
 Her Majesty's subjects resident in Great Britain, but for 
 special acts of loyalty and for being true when others are false 
 there is no reward. Office, honour, and advancement are not 
 for the loyal, but for the schemer, the importunate and the most 
 troublesome. 
 
 Mr. Parker, with all his opportunities, made no very great 
 deal of money on the Diamond Fields. When he left them 
 for the Transvaal Gold Fields he squared his accounts like a 
 man, but he who brought little into these Fields took little out 
 of them. But I do believe that when he went he did not leave 
 .fin enemy behind him, and had the good wishes of all who 
 knew him. 
 
 When I met him the next time he was at Barberton not 
 President of the Gold Fields, but Marketmaster of the only 
 .town then existing in the Gold Fields. From President to 
 Marketmaster could hardly be regarded as a step in the right 
 direction, but rather as a stride in the wrong one ; but Parker, 
 *he Marketmaster of Barberton, was quite as jovial, happy and 
 merry as when "President " at Klipdrift and rather more so, 
 I think. He was as ready to welcome old friends, hospitable 
 $o perfection, and altogether a swagger citizen of the Great 
 Republic. Stafford Parker is naturally generous in private 
 Hfe, and is by no means wanting in natural ability within a
 
 102 
 
 certain range. In inventive genius he has no equal in South' 
 Africa. His stories of this continent beat all comprehension.. 
 There is no such word as impossibility in his vocabulary.. 
 Presto ! and he changes fiction into fact in less time than it 
 takes an eye to twinkle. He told me some stories about the 
 Gold Fields which would have beaten all the Munchausens- 
 that ever had existence in fact or fiction, out of the Fields. 
 
 My mind having been directed to the Transvaal Gold Fields 
 I am reminded of the first meeting of shareholders J attended 
 there. It was that of the Edwin Bray Company, and it was 
 unique of its kind. There were not ten present, including, 
 directors, secretary, and unofficial people. The shareholders 
 had received a dividend of 60 per cent, for the first six months,, 
 and now came the annual meeting, when it is customary to- 
 receive the directors' annual report and balance-sheet for the 
 year. The meeting took place in the Exchange and all present 
 being seated and the notice calling the meeting having been- 
 read, the secretary produced the engineer's report on the 
 property by no means an unflattering document, but this was 
 the only report forthcoming. Not a line was reported from- 
 the directors and when Mr. Beit asked for the balance sheet 
 the secretary said that the directors had not had time to get 
 it printed. But said Mr. Beit, " I suppose you have a written- 
 balance sheet." " Oh yes," was the answer. Mr. Beit asked 
 to have it produced, and produced it was. Then came the 
 following questions from Mr. Beit and answers from the- 
 Secretary : 
 
 How much money have you on band ? 
 
 Nothing. 
 
 But what is the amount in the bank ? 
 
 Not a penny. 
 
 But I see you have in your balance-sheet a balance of" 
 1 17s. 6d. Where is that ? 
 
 The Secretary did not know even where the 60 per cent, 
 dividend came from except that Mr. Beit would find it in the 
 balance sheet. But Mr. Beit, on looking through the figures,, 
 discovered that the 37s. 6d. was on the wronj; side. Instead 
 
 O 
 
 of having that amount to the good they owed it. So the- 
 meeting was adjourned for a week that the balance sheet might 
 be adjusted. When the meeting resumed all that the Secretary 
 had done was to erase the 1 17s. 6d. from the credit side.-
 
 103 
 
 and put it to the debit side of the account. If my readers- 
 see nothing unique in this 1 did, and I had a hearty laugh over 
 it with my old friend, the editor of the Transvaal Advertiser^ 
 when I got hack to Pretoria. 
 
 When I paid my second visit to Pretoria, it was in the 
 
 company of Mr. Pearse Morrison, the proprietor of a first-class 
 
 London commercial journal, The Citizen, and of all the 
 
 pleasure trips I have had in the land of Gold and Republican 
 
 Independence, this was the most pleasant. In company with 
 
 Mr. Sam. Marks, of Messrs. Lewis & Marks, we, after making 
 
 the rounds of the Pretoria district in company with the late 
 
 Mr. Nelmapius (whose memory I shall always cherish), paid a 
 
 visit to the Hatherly Distillery, one of the best appointed 
 
 distilleries I ever visited, and despite all I have heard in 
 
 dispraise of the spirits that are sent out from that distillery, 
 
 I am bound to say that they have in stock as fine whiskies, 
 
 brandies and liquors as were ever imported into South Africa 
 
 from either Scotland, Ireland, or France. The distillery is 
 
 most perfectly appointed, and the machinery kept in delightful 
 
 order, and has every one of the most recent improvements, both for 
 
 distilling and brewing. There is nothing of the kind to be 
 
 compared to it in the whole continent of South Africa. It is 
 
 charmingly situated, surrounded by running streams of water,. 
 
 and the residence and grounds of the resident director, Mr^ 
 
 Marks, is a charming place, worth a day's ride to go and see.
 
 REMINISCENCE. 
 
 THE DISCOVERY OF DIAMONDS CAPE TOWN 1869 CRISIS 
 
 BANKS AND BANKRUPTCIES SIR PHILIP WODEHOUSE 
 
 PURCHASES THE FIRST DIAMOND MR. WOLLASTON 
 MANAGER OF TELEGRAPHS THE MESSRS. LILIENFELD AND 
 THE STAR OF SOUTH AFRICA THE RUSH TO THE DIAMOND 
 
 FIELDS THE RIVER DIGGINGS IN 1869 AND 1870 THE 
 
 NATAL PARTY'S LUCK AT STARTING APATHY OF BLOEM- 
 
 FONTE1N. 
 
 THERE is no event recorded in all the strange and eventful 
 history of South Africa, from the discovery of the Cape by Vasco 
 de Gama to the occupation of Mashonaland hy troops of Colo- 
 nists in search of more elbow room, which caused more excite- 
 ment or has been of such permanent value not to the Cape 
 Colony only, but to the whole of South Africa as the discovery 
 of diamonds. South Africa has been a country of sur- 
 prises from its first discovery to the present hour, but of 
 all the surprises recorded in its historical records there is not 
 one to be compared with that of the discovery of diamonds, 
 either in its unexpectedness or results. To trace back the chain 
 of circumstances link by link to the accidental finding of the 
 first diamond on the floor of a Boer house amongst a heap of 
 stone playthings of a sprawling Boer in embryo, to the 
 establishment of the vast and profitable diamond industry which 
 has provided labour for millions, made the fortunes of thousands, 
 and lifted men from social and commercial ruts into the ranks of 
 millionaires. It seems more like perusing the pages of some 
 wild romance in which genii and fairies play impossible fancy 
 parts than the stern, matter-of-fact history in which the
 
 105 
 
 principal characters are ordinary men and workmen, toilers and 
 rschemers some working for daily bread and others in pursuit of 
 fortunes. The discovery of diamonds has earned not only 
 fortunes for those who have been engaged in the diamond 
 .industry, but it has won for the once depressed Cape an enviable 
 name amongst all the nations of the earth. It is difficult to 
 realize, within anything like a measurable estimate, the influence 
 
 that South African diamonds have had upon the progress, the 
 welfare, and the happiness of mankind since the commencement 
 of that Year of Grace One Thousand Eight Hundred and 
 
 Seventy when the first great exodus from the established 
 South African Colonies and States to the Land of Diamonds 
 took place. Neither the Mashonaland marvels, nor the gold 
 industry with its millions of annual gold output, are to be 
 spoken of in the same book with it. They, too, are wonders in 
 their way, and their way is vast and inexplicable, but neither 
 
 can compare with the discovery of diamonds and the progress of 
 the diamond industry. 
 
 I presume there is no man who has been connected with 
 Diamond-fields life, but remembers vividly the first rough and 
 uncut diamond he ever saw and can tell how he came to see it, 
 in whose hands it was, and what he thought of it. I shall 
 never forget my acquaintanceship with the first gem that was 
 landed, shown and sold in Cape Town. It was in the year 
 1869. The picture of the stone itself, the man who shewed it 
 to me, the scales in which it was weighed, the man who weighed 
 it, the office it was weighed in, are as plain to my mental vision 
 now as the real picture was, as then presented to me, and, in 
 addition to the picture, the conversation that was the outcome of 
 it all, I remember well. 
 
 The times were hard in Cape Town in 1869. Not only had 
 
 the Colonial farmers had a bad year, but there was no trade. 
 
 Railway construction upon which men had set their hopes had 
 
 come to an end. The dominant party in Parliament had 
 
 smashed up the Railway Department, the Engineer-in-Chief 
 
 .and his professional colleagues had been driven away from our 
 
 ; shores. The contractors had gone with plant and all. The 
 
 workmen navvies, mechanics, &c., brought out at the cost of 
 
 the Colony were wandering about the streets, many of them 
 
 without homes and too many of them dependent upon the 
 
 charitable for food. Merchants and professional man, and master
 
 106 
 
 tradesmen stood at their office doors in the great Metropolis 
 and took a personal survey of the streets up and down, and 
 tried by mental survey of the wretched state of things to get 
 a glimpse of some brighter future, but it was dark everywhere. 
 The depression of trade had depressed men's spirits. What 
 was true of Cape Town and its neighbourhood was equally true 
 of other parts of South Africa. From 1866 banks had been 
 breaking in the Eastern Province ; bank after bank bad 
 collapsed, and bankruptcies were occurring throughout the land. 
 The commercial world was full of disaster and little else. The 
 kites that had flown so airily and charmingly hadn't a fly loft 
 in them. Insolvency followed upon insolvency. Some of the 
 firms, old-established, thought to be as sound and solvent as the 
 Bank of England, toppled over. Town and Country were alike 
 cornered. Some Western farmers, once well-to-do men, had 
 to come to the millers they had dealt with to get a little meal 
 for family use. The manager of the Standard Bank found all 
 his financial genius and experience none too much to enable 
 him to keep the head of the institution in his charge abore 
 water. When men in business met they pulled long faces and 
 asked each other what was to come of it all. And then when 
 the whole country was enveloped in a darkness that was felt, 
 and men groped about in despair, light came from a quarter, 
 little known, and not a bit understood. 
 
 The first gleam of light that came to me shone out in the 
 private office of the Manager of Telegrams. The offiee was 
 in that row of buildings in which the musical depository and- 
 book depots of the Messrs. Darter stand now. There was 
 no plate glass in the Darter windows then. That has come 
 out of the Diamond Mines, like most of the other improvements 
 in Cape Town, and the improvements in Port Elizabeth and 
 Kaffraria too for the matter of that. Diamonds have changed 
 the whole aspect of our Colonial towns and villages, and have 
 given many localities in London new life and a changed 
 appearance for the better. They have helped the Transvaal, 
 the Cape Colony and the Free State. But for the diamonds 
 the Gold Fields would not have been what they are, and we 
 could not have had the network of railways we have, nor 
 could the harbour works of East London and Port Elizabeth 
 have had so much money spent on them. 
 
 Jn order to realise in any appreciable degree the value of
 
 107 
 
 the diamond discovery, and to form anything like an estimate 
 of the value of it as a contribution to the wealth of the world, 
 and its stimulating influence upon enterprise and industry, a 
 man must have been intimate with all the phases of diamond 
 digging, mining, and diamond sales in the Colony and outside 
 the Colony, and have possessed a fairly intimate knowledge 
 of the state of affairs before the diamond hai become a factor 
 in industrial and business operations. 
 
 In 1869, when all was dark and drear, the diamond discovery 
 was announced. It was at first considered too good to be true,, 
 but the announcement proved itself to be as true as it was good. 
 The first diamond that was sold in Cape Town, or indeed sold 
 at all, was purchased by His Excellency Sir Philip Wodehouse, 
 who was then Governor, and it was that diamond I saw in- 
 the hands of the Manager of Telegraphs, Mr. Charlton 
 Wollaston, the father of Captain Wollaston, of Dutoitspan. 
 Mr. Wollaston, senr., was an accomplished man not as a 
 scientist only, but he knew something of Art and more of 
 geology and mineralogy. He had travelled a great deal, and 
 travelled with his eyes open. He was not to be classed amongst 
 those who have eyes and see not. He laid down the first line 
 of telegraph between England and France, and during his 
 professional career in connection with telegraphs had made 
 the acquaintanceship of diamond dealers and cutters, and had 
 seen rough and uncut Brazilian diamonds. When the first 
 diamond was offered to Sir Philip Wodehouse he handed it 
 to Mr. Wollaston for that gentleman to pronounce upon it and 
 to weigh it. He was weighing it when I got my first glimpse 
 of it, and when it was weighed I handled it and looked it over, 
 held it up to the light, and was about as wise when I had' 
 turned it over and over and looked through it as I was before. 
 It might have been a chip from a decanter for all I could make 
 out of it. I wasn't even told it was a diamond, but Mr. 
 Wollaston said to me : " If there is plenty of that sort of stuff 
 where that came from, the Cape people will soon be out of 
 their trouble." 
 
 As to whether it was the late Bishop Ricards or Dr. Ather- 
 stone who settled that the stone was a diamond does not 
 matter much. I said in my original reminiscence on this 
 subject that it was the late Bishop. Dr. Atberstone claims 
 the credit. He is quite welcome to it as far as I am concerned.
 
 108 
 
 I need only say that Bishop Moran was ray authority, and that 
 authority was good enough for me. 
 
 The news that diamonds had been found ; that " the Star of 
 South Africa," a diamond estimated to be a fortune in itself, had 
 been found in Griqualand West, had been purchased by the 
 Messrs. Lilienfeld, the enterprising merchants of Hope Town, and 
 shipped to England, and that another diamond of the first water 
 found in the same locality had come to Cape Town and been 
 purchased by the Governor for 300, soon made the merchants 
 and the citizens of Cane Town prick up their ears. The glad 
 tidings of great joy was wired from Cape Town in all directions, 
 and the depressed and despairing who could see no way out of 
 the gloom which had been prevailing in industrial and commercial 
 circles were soon as lively as fleas. The Diamond Fields 
 became the talk of the Colony in fact, than diamonds and the 
 Fields there was no other topic of conversation. Everybody 
 talked of going merchants, lawyers, clerks, Civil Servants, 
 counter-jumpers, boatmen, tradesmen, and mechanics wanted to 
 be off on the instant. They saw in their lively imaginings the 
 Diamond Fields, straight ahead of them, with diamonds glitter- 
 ing like dew drops in the waving grass, on the branches of 
 the trees along the Vaal River, and covering the highways and 
 byeways like hoar frost. But how were they to get there ? 
 Where were the Diamond Fields ? How far were they off ? 
 Whose lands were they upon 3 and such like, were questions 
 easily put but which there were few to answer. 
 
 The newspaper people in the Cape Colony set to work, con- 
 sulted the maps, found where the land of diamonds lay, and 
 discovering that Wattrboer's people owned the country, made it 
 all as plain as plain could be, but they could not tell anyone how 
 to get there. The best information that could be got was that 
 Hope Town was the nearest town to Diamantia, and Hope Town 
 could be reached by mail cart. Whoever could get seats in that 
 comfortless and unsafe vehicle made the first start from Cape 
 Town, but Cape Town people are not rapid in their movements, 
 never were, and I suppose never will be. Whilst the metro- 
 politans were making up their minds and packing up, the 
 Natalians were making their way down, and the first Natal 
 party of diggers had made their pile before any Cape Town 
 party could be seen arriving even with a telescope from the 
 summit of the Pniel heights. And even Kaffraria and Port
 
 109 
 
 Elizabeth had sent some thousands of men with well-stored 1 
 wagons and implements before the Cape Town parties had 
 reached Darling Bridge. But they did come at last, as they 
 always do, and when they did come they certainly worked with 
 a will, and the men from Cape Town did as much as the people 
 from any part of South Africa to make the Fields the success 
 they have been. 
 
 My impression has always been that the people of Bloem- 
 fontein were the most apathetic of all. They resided compara- 
 tively close by, and might have been the first in the Fields, but 
 even up to late in 1870, Bloemfontein was but little the better 
 or the richer for the great discovery. They had doubts, and 
 whilst they were nursing their doubts they remained at home 
 trying their level best to work their orange backs up to par, . 
 which they would never have done but for the diamonds found 
 on the banks of the Vaal River. The Free State, at last, when 
 they saw people going through that State from the river 
 diggings with packets of diamonds, fortunes which they had 
 obtained in the country about which they had been nursing 
 doubts, wanted not only the diamonds, but all the land, vowed it 
 was all theirs, and that the British Government had robbed 
 them of it. They did get 90,000, which was more money 
 than they had had in their Treasury for a long time. No one 
 grudged them that, for the Free Staters were always held to be 
 good fellows, from the President to the Messenger of the Court, 
 as they are to-day.
 
 REMINISCENCE. 
 
 No. XVI. 
 
 ;HOW DIAMOND FIELD SOCIKTY FORMED ITSELF NOBILITY, 
 GENTRY AND MECHANICS POUR IN ENGLAND DOUBTS 
 
 THE GENUINENESS OF THE CAPE DIAMOND MR. STREETER 
 
 COMES TO THE RESCUE THE IMMORTAL THUNDERER 
 WON'T BE CONVINCED. 
 
 No DOUBT, the absence in the early days of Diamond Field 
 History of violent personal encounters, robberies, lynching, 
 and such like, which were features of everyday life in the 
 early days of the Californian and Australian Gold Fields, 
 is to be attributed to the fact that the diggers who laid the 
 foundation of the diamond industry were all South African 
 Colonists. If all the vast crowd did not know each other 
 personally, they knew of each other, and any man coming either 
 to Pniel or Klipdrift, who was such an entire stranger that he 
 could not claim acquaintance with someone amongst all the 
 thousands massed together on the banks of the river, would be 
 looked upon strangely, if not suspiciously, until he could give 
 some good and satisfactory account of himself, or had by his 
 conduct on the Fields won the good opinion of his neighbours. 
 The basis of Cape Society differed materially from that of 
 Australia. South Africa had never been a convict settlement, 
 nor had there ever been a convict settlement in its proximity. 
 There was no material for the making of bushrangers, or 
 highway robbers. There was plenty of card-playing, but the 
 stakes were mild, and there was none of that gambling that 
 leads to duels and assassinations as in the gold fields of other 
 countries ; pickpockets and burglars were at that time as 
 .ecarce in the Colony as money, and that was scarce enough in
 
 Ill 
 
 all conscience. I who bad then been in the country nearly a 
 quarter of a century had never even when residing in the 
 principal towns of the Colony Cape Town, Graham's Town, 
 ;and Port Elizabeth, as I had done, heard of a pocket being 
 picked, an iron safe being smashed, or a burglary worthy of 
 being called a burglary committed. It used lo be said that 
 the Cape was not yet sufficiently civilized for pickpockets and 
 burglars to make it a pleasant and profitable place of residence. 
 There was humour in the saying, but there was as much fact as 
 humour in it. But there was something more than that in it. 
 Your professional member of a London swell mob might have 
 picked many pockets and burgled to his heart's content, if he 
 
 could have found his way to the Cape, but he would have found 
 it difficult to get off with the swag. I suppose there is no 
 such thing as unmitigated good in the world, but amongst all 
 the blessings which have come to the country through the 
 diamond discovery, it has brought us a few pickpockets and 
 burglars, which are very questionable blessings, and which we 
 
 could very well do without. However, so it was in the early 
 days of Diamantia, that that class of crime was unknown. 
 The prevailing crime of South Africa up to 1870 was sheep- 
 stealing, but there were no sheep on the Diamond Fields to 
 steal, and digging for diamonds, although not generally very 
 profitable at first, was even then more profitable, and held out 
 better prospects than stealing sheep. 
 
 The natives surrounding Diamantia were about as honest 
 as natives usually are rather above the average in the way 
 of honesty, for there was very little temptation in the way 
 of sheep-stealing. There were no flock-masters with well- 
 stocked farms in the neighbourhood. The stock farms were 
 all too far off for the Griquas and Koranuas to get to them, 
 and the value of diamonds they had no idea of they had to 
 be educated by the white sons of civilization and Christendom 
 before " the light stones," as they then called diamonds, would 
 be sufficiently appreciated to be a temptation to them. Their 
 ^education has not been neglected in that respect now. If there 
 were honours and bursaries for adepts in that educational line 
 4vnd the examiners came here the natives would take the cake 
 now-a-days. 
 
 However, it was a great thing for the early digger to feel 
 .that he could trust his native servants most implicitly as far
 
 112 
 
 as diamonds were concerned. All he had to guard was his- 
 grog and bis tobacco. As far as the grog bottle was concerned,, 
 whenever a native drew a cork behind his master's back, 
 detection was certain, for the cork never went back to the 
 mouth of the bottle again while there was a drop left in the 
 bottle, and the master could always find his servant again 
 for he would find him lying on the floor of the tent or on the 
 ground not far off. The worst part of it was that when a grog 
 prigger was detected the liquor was gone, and so was the work 
 of the prigger for that day. The vexations of that time were 
 trifling compared with those that came after, when the native 
 who came naked to the Fields had been sufficiently educated to- 
 have a taste for dress, and knew of the delights his wages or a 
 stolen diamond would bring him at the Kafir canteen. 
 
 There was one feature in early Diamond Fields life that made 
 life pleasant on the banks of the Vaal, and that was the cor- 
 diality and good understanding that existed between the 
 diggers themselves. There was a mutual regard for each other 
 manifested all through the camps. The unlucky digger shared 
 in the luck of his neighbours. When a man was known to be 
 hard up after having honestly invested his bottom dollar on his 
 claim, he would not have, if he was known to havo worked as a 
 man should, to beg for a few coppers. It had not become the 
 rule as set forth in Scripture to take from him that hath not 
 even that which he hath. The man who had, knowing that his- 
 neighbour had not, did not wait to be asked for help he gave 
 without being asked. No man wns long without money, for 
 directly it was known that his funds had run out some of his- 
 neighbours came forward and set him on his legs again. It is- 
 proverbial that a certain old gentleman, who is a Prince in the 
 down country, is not so black as he is painted, and the same 
 may be said of mankind generally. There is much that is 
 unselfish and excellent in a man's nature, let who will say 
 otherwise. A poet says : 
 
 " When the preacher preaches that this earth is vile 
 And man's affection bowed, 
 Like the crushed and broken reed 
 That never reaches the beautiful again, 
 I know that he dips all things with colour of Ids own mind, 
 He never felt with Nature sympathy, 
 
 Nor heard God say 
 My children are Mankind."
 
 113 
 
 I forget how the lines run, Imt I don't forget that I saw proof 
 in the early days of the diamond diggings that " Man's affec- 
 tions are not bowed like the crushed and broken reed that never 
 reaches the beautiful again." 
 
 As soon as the Cape diamond began to be believed in in 
 England which was not for a very long time new arrivals 
 with fresh English faces, evidently well-to-do men, began to 
 show up at Pniel and Kimherley, amongst them " sprigs of 
 nobility," but there were not many of that class until the 
 Colesberg Kopje and Old De Beers had become household 
 words. For a full year and for more than a full year after 
 diamond digging had been successfully going on on the banks 
 of the Vaal the wiseacres of England had been pooh-poohing 
 and ridiculing the reported diamond discovery in this country. 
 Diamonds at the Cape or anything good to come from 
 Capcward was too absurd for an Englishman born on English 
 soil, and especially a Londoner, to swallow. They could believe 
 in a Kafir war breaking out, or Cape wine being sour, but that 
 there should be any natural formation in the Cape that con- 
 tained diamonds of the first water was a story to tell the 
 marines not Englishmen. Your Londoner is about the softest 
 thing in the shape of man to be gulled that exists upon the 
 face of God's earth, and the most difficult to convince that 
 there is anything for him to learn that he cannot see for 
 himself on the banks of the Thames. 
 
 When the first diamonds went home the Londoners " swore 
 with an oath or something as good " that they were Brazilian 
 stones which the Cape landowners had bought and sent home 
 with the tale of " diamond discovery at the Cape," in order to 
 send up the prices of their lands and induce Englishmen to 
 come out and buy. The Press of England took the same view 
 of things yes, that Almighty, Omnipresent, and Omniscient 
 institution which has its head centre in London and claims to 
 be the Thunderer for The Fourth Estate of the Realm, true to 
 its traditional anti-Cape prejudices, was as strong in its avowed 
 disbelief as any Dutch diamond polisher in Holland, and was 
 not to be shaken in its disbelief in South Africa being 
 diamondiferous. It quoted from reports of eminent English 
 experts in mineralogy all English experts are eminent in 
 proof that there could not be a nugget of gold or a precious 
 stone in any part of the South African continent, and even 
 I
 
 114 
 
 when parcel after parcel came to London and a good trade in 
 diamonds bad been established in Hatton Garden the Times 
 cautioned its readers to beware of the diamond reports which 
 were coming home from South Africa. Still, despite the Press 
 of England, Times included, Englishmen did come out, attracted 
 by the reports which went home. 
 
 The Diamond Fields are under much obligation to Mr. 
 Streeter, the jeweller of world-wide fame, whose magnificent 
 establishment in Bond-street is known to every South African 
 who has gone from the Diamond Fields on a visit to London. 
 Mr. Streeter in the very early Klipdrift days sent out a 
 representative, a Mr. Toby, to look into the affairs of the River 
 Diggings, to report upon them and to buy all "the stuff" he 
 could lay his hands on. Happily for Mr. Streeter and the 
 Diamond Fields, the diamonds Mr. Toby sent home reported 
 better than Mr. Toby did with his pen, and Mr. Streeter was 
 soon as able as he was ready to assure the people on the other 
 side of the water that there was no mistake about the South 
 African Diamond Fields, and he staked his reputation upon it 
 that he had received diamonds from the Cape Fields that were 
 superior to any Brazilian or Indian diamonds that he had ever 
 seen from the Brazils, admitting of course that these were 
 exceptions and not the rule. 
 
 And upon this Englishmen rigged themselves out as diggers 
 and emigrated to the land of diamonds. Men of all classes 
 caine few, but some, of the lower class. The arrivals were 
 generally from the middle, the well-to-do, and the upper classes. 
 There were men of title and men of no title, sprigs of nobility, 
 and sprigs of mobility. The first who came were the best who 
 came. There were Lords This, the Honourables That, and Sir 
 Somebodies by the dozen, and amongst them the Lord-Knows- 
 Who. The real sprigs came with money in both pockets, and 
 for the most part were gentlemen well trained at the " Bar," to 
 which they found ready admittance at the Fields, and where 
 they spent more of their time than in the claims. I don't know 
 that any of them did much to improve the morals of the 
 Community. Truth to tell I don't think they did, but their 
 company was much sought after, for over all the world there 
 will be tuft-hunters so long as there is a tuft to hunt. As it 
 was in the beginning so it ever will be, world without end. It 
 was the same before the diamond discovery, has been so since,.
 
 115 
 
 and is so still. The veriest democrat in creation loves the 
 warmth of an aristocratic wing, and the distinction obtained by 
 being nestled bj an aristocratic feather. The Prince of Wales's 
 plume attracts more human flies than a whole barrel of treacle 
 attracts of wasps. 
 
 The Times newspaper even in 1882 twelve years after the 
 opening up of the Diamond Fields, and when the Fields were 
 exporting ticelve millions a year insisted that the reports from 
 the Diamond Fields were the wicked inventions of " adven- 
 turers " circulated for the purpose of rigging the market. I 
 shall relate an incident which occurred in The Times office in 
 1882 in the commencement of my next reminiscence in proof of 
 this. 
 
 I 2
 
 KEMINISCENCE. 
 
 No. XVII. 
 
 SIR BARTLE FRERE AND THE DIAMOND FIELDS IN LONDON 
 
 THE ENGLISH PRESS AND PUBLIC UNINFORMED THE 
 " DAILY NEWS" WON'T BE TOLD MY INTERVIEWS WITH 
 THE CITY EDITOR OF THE " TIMES " SIR BARTLE FRERE 
 
 AT THE GEOGRAPHICAL SOCIETY AND AT WIMBLEDON 
 
 MY LECTURE AT THE SOCIETY OF ARTS COLONEL 
 GROSSMAN AT THE LECTURE THE LIBERAL M.P. ON 
 THE COLONIES. 
 
 HAVING stated at the close of my last article that even The 
 Times newspaper, the Thunderer of the English Press whose 
 every word was once taken as gospel, was warning its readers 
 in 1882 not to believe in the reports that were coming to 
 England about Cape diamonds, as they were misleading exag- 
 gerations, I promised to relate an incident to-day confirmatory 
 of the statement. 
 
 I left the Diamond Fields for England in 1880 just before 
 the departure of Sir Bartle Frere from the Cape, and my first 
 work in London was to confer with leading men interested in 
 South Africa as to the reception to be given him on his arrival 
 at Southampton, to mark the disapprobation felt at his shameful 
 recall. It was arranged that an address should be presented 
 to him on his landing at Southampton, and that the presentation 
 should be made by a deputation of South African gentlemen, 
 and that Mr. D. P Elaine should be the leading actor in the 
 ceremony. About thirty South Africans, chiefly merchants, 
 went down from London to Southampton, where they were 
 joined by some distinguished members of the House of Commons 
 and several of Sir Bartle's neighbours at Wimbledon. Unfor-
 
 117 
 
 tunately bad weather had occasioned an unprecedentedly 
 voyage to the steamer which brought the ex-Governor home, 
 and the deputation was detained at Southampton nearly a week,, 
 but a week at Southampton is by no means an unpleasant way 
 of spending time. When Sir Bartle Frere landed he met with 
 such a hearty reception as was never accorded to any Colonial 
 Governor returning to his native home. The landing stage 
 was crowded and the cheering was enthusiastic. Having 
 received the address he took train for Wimbledon accompanied 
 by the crowd who came to welcome him. At every station 
 there was a fresh and enthusiastic crowd with flags whose 
 cheering might have been heard a mile off. When 1 first 
 arrived in London, I found that very little was known about 
 the South African Diamond Fields and the diamond industry, 
 which had then been established over ten years. The grossest 
 misrepresentations appeared in the columns of the London 
 journals, and the most influential of the morning papers were 
 continually throwing out insinuations that was most harmful. 
 I found that the English people were misled by the papers 
 they read. Many reflecting what they had gathered from 
 their favourite papers, boldly said that they didn't believe that 
 the diamonds coming home were Cape diamonds at all, and 
 these people kept alive the old absurd invention ' that tha 
 diamonds were from the Brazils, purchased and sent home by 
 South African landowners with a view to a land swindle. 
 Those who admitted that some diamonds might come from th 
 Cape made out that they were of very inferior quality chiefly 
 boart, and only fit to be ground up for the use of the machinist. 
 It was very tantalizing to hear and read all this, and I resolved,, 
 if possible, to set matters right with the British public through 
 the medium of the morning papers, but I soon found that I 
 had counted without my host. I had been introduced to the 
 editor and proprietor of The Observer and had found him 
 exceedingly kind, courteous and hospitable, but he declined 
 taking articles from me on South African affairs, as he said 
 he had been taking a line when writing himself about a 
 country of which he admitted he had a very foggy notion,, 
 but if he inserted articles from me I should shew his readers^ 
 what I had told him was the fact, that he had been misleading 
 them, and this he said would never do. On other subjects 
 he would be glad to take articles from me, and to pay well for them.
 
 118 
 
 That was not what I wanted. I had then occasion to have a 
 conference on a business matter with the editor of the Daily 
 Telegraph, and took the opportunity of pointing out to him 
 the incorrectness of the line he was taking in dealing with 
 South African affairs, and how ill-informed he was about the 
 Diamond Fields, offering to write him a series of articles. Mr. Le 
 Sage, of the Daily Telegraph, was not so frank and so fair as 
 Mr. Dicey, of The Observer. He, like the Scotch advocate, 
 " admutted nothing, my lord," but offered to publish my articles if 
 I would send them. I did so, but I presume he found my articles 
 clash so completely with what had appeared in his paper that 
 he did not think it wise in the interest of his paper to use them. 
 There are some journalists even in London at the present day 
 who, caring much more for the " dibs " than for the good of 
 the public, set their greatest store in keeping up the delusion 
 that their broad sheet can never be wrong. Once admitting 
 that they have been misled they think would destroy public 
 confidence in them. I suppose this was Mr. Le Sage's notion, 
 as my articles did not appear. I after that made for The Times 
 office, and had a conversation with the City Editor. I said 
 nothing to him about his articles being misleading, but told him 
 that I could supply him with facts about the Cape diamonds 
 and the diamond industr}', which I was anxious should appear 
 in his columns for the public advantage. He Avas very courteous 
 at our first meeting, expressed his pleasure at meeting me, and 
 when 1 told him who I was and of my long and intimate 
 connection with South Africa and the Diamond Fields, said he 
 should be glad of any information I could give him. He 
 confessed that he had been unable to get an idea of diamond 
 mining at the Cape into his head. He could not form any 
 conception of what it was like. I explained, chalking a rough 
 sketch of the Kimberley Mine on the floor of his office, with 
 Hauling gear, &c., made him understand how mining for 
 diamonds was carried on. He thanked me and agreed to publish 
 any letter of mina on the subject. I went home much gratified 
 to think that I had at last got the leading paper of England on 
 the side of the much misrepresented Cape diamond industry, 
 and I sat down and wrote a letter of about two columns and 
 affixing my own name to it, took it down to The Times office 
 the next morning, and handed it to the same editor. 
 
 I ought to have mentioned before this that on the previous
 
 119 
 
 day he had said to me that he had seen ; how highly Sir Bartle 
 Frere had spoken of Mr. R. W. Murray in a lecture our late 
 Governor had given to the Royal Geographical Society, but 
 before he published my letter it would be necessary for him to 
 know that I was the Mr. Murray referred to. I said the best 
 plan would be for me to get a letter of reference from Sir Bartle 
 himself. Tell it not in Gath ! The City Editor said The Times 
 did not care to have anything to do with Sir Bartle Frere. I 
 asked if it were possible that their differences with Sir Bartle 
 Frere had become so personal that they would not rely upon his 
 identification of a Colonist with whom he had been associated 
 .at the Cape. The only answer was that they did not care to 
 have anything to do with Sir Bartle Frere. The Times people 
 had done Sir Bartle all the injury they possibly could, and I 
 suppose conscious of that fact deemed it their best way to keep 
 clear of him. I cannot restrain myself from digressing a bit 
 here, to call attention to the fact that when public feeling and 
 opinion in England had veered round in favour of that much- 
 persecuted gentleman The Times turned round with it, and when 
 Sir Bartle died of a broken heart, as he undoubtedly did, The 
 Times was most lavish of its eulogies of the faithful and 
 eminent statesman, and when Sir Bartle's statue was unveiled 
 -on the Thames embankment, they devoted more columns of 
 praise to him. So much for the value of The Times adoration. I 
 gave him the reference required from Mr. D. P. Blaine, of 
 Messrs. Blaine, Macdonald & Co., of Suffolk Lane, Cannon 
 Street, London, which entirely satisfied him that I was the Mr. 
 Murray referred to in the lecture delivered at the Geographical 
 .Society. 
 
 I had resolved before I handed in my letter to the City Editor 
 that I would not consent to any alteration being made in it by 
 The Times people, and so on handing it to him I asked him to 
 read it. He said he would do so if I would leave it with him. 
 I did so, stipulating that if it was to be abbreviated, the 
 abbreviation was to be done by me and no one else, and that I 
 would call again next day. 
 
 The next morning when I called on him he said he had bsen 
 making some enquiries about the diamond industry and the 
 diamond market since he saw me, and that I must admit that 
 the mines were in the hands of unprincipled men men of no 
 character, in fact and that the diamond market was rigged by
 
 120 
 
 them. I said 1 would admit nothing of the kind, for it was not 
 true. I then mentioned the names of Baring Gould, a member 
 of one of the best known families of England, Mr. Charles 
 Posno and Mr. H. B. Webb, of 19, Finsbury Circus, Mr. Oehs 
 and the Messrs. Lilienfeldt, of Hatton Garden, Mr. Porter 
 Rhodes, who was at that time in London with the Porter 
 Rhodes diamond, in addition to a score of other well-known 
 names who held claiias and shares. My good friend the City 
 Editor then shifted his ground and said, " Your letter may 
 affect the share market, you know, Mr. Murray." 1 said that 
 was my object in writing it, as the shares had not reached their 
 value nor had they. I said if the market was affected it 
 would be because my facts were re-assuring, adding that at any 
 rate my letter could only affect it for one day, for if I WHS stating 
 what was not true there would be plenty of people to contradict 
 me in the next issue. Then he drove rne wild by saying that 
 perhaps I was a large holder of shares, and in one day 1 might 
 realise a fortune by a rise, and others would be injured. This 
 led to a quarrel, of which it is not necessary to give the details 
 beyond that having lost my temper I reminded him that 
 although a predecessor of his in the City Editor's chair had made 
 a fortune for himself in that way and to the injury of the 
 general public. I had not taken to that line of press work 
 yet. It is sufficient to say, no letter appeared. But 
 I did better than anything I could get done through the 
 medium of The Times newspaper, which I was not pleased to 
 fiud acting so meanly and scurvily. On mentioning the matter 
 to Sir Bartle Frere he laughed at The Times encounter, and said ;: 
 " Mr. Murray, journalism has changed, and not for the bettor 
 leave the newspapers to their own devices. Deliver a lecture on 
 the Diamond Fields of South Africa to the Society of Arts. I 
 will introduce you, and he did, and I lectured there. The Hon. 
 Mr. Harry Escombe, of Natal, presided, and the Society printed 
 and distributed five thousand copies of the lecture distributed 
 them in the right quarters too and the public of England 
 learnt that the output of Cape diamonds were then one 
 million and a half a year and that there were millions more 
 to come. Shares went up, and people talked of the wonderful 
 diamond industry in a new strain. 
 
 I must relate one incident arising out of tin; lecture. Wheu> 
 my Kcturc was concluded and I was removing my diagrams-
 
 121 
 
 from the walls, a gentleman walked up to the platform and held 
 out his hand, which I took. He said, ' Mr. Murray, I congratu- 
 late you. Yours is the most accurate lecture I ever listened 
 to." I did not recognise him, but I thanked him. " Don't you 
 know me?" he said. I said I thought I knew his face. 
 " Colonel Grossman," said he. I mention this because Colonel 
 Grossman is so well known and so highly respected in the 
 Diamond Fields, and everyone here will be glad to know that he 
 took an interest in the Diamond Fields after he got home. The 
 names of Colonel Grossman and Sir Charles Warren will always 
 be intimately associated with the Diamond Fields and never be 
 mentioned without respect. Colonel Grossman was the Royal 
 Commissioner who set our Lieutenant-Governor right with the 
 Imperial Government, and Colonial Warren settled the Land 
 Question, which Commissioners and Judge of the Land Court 
 bad got into one of the finest muddles that was ever muddled. 
 
 I must not in justice omit to mention that I did ultimately, 
 before I started a paper of my own in the interests of South 
 Africa, gain access to an English journal. Remembering that 
 I had contributed to The Mining Journal in 1850 and 1851 I 
 called upon the proprietor of that jwiper and had a long talk 
 with him about South African affairs generally and the Diamond 
 Fields in particular. That which he had been inserting 
 respecting the diamond industry related, almost solely, as was 
 natural, about the state of the share market, and as he derived 
 his information from diamond defilers in Hatton Garden he 
 could not go so very far wrong --a little sometimes, but that 
 was a matter that could be left to right itself. The proprie- 
 tor of The Mining Journal was quite ready to insert any 
 information about diamond mines and the diamond industry 
 that I liked to write, providing 1 would affix my signature to 
 everything I wrote. This I was quite ready to do of course, 
 and for months letters on these subjects appeared in every 
 issue of that paper. 
 
 I may here add one more anecdote illustrative of the igno- 
 rance prevailing respecting South Africa and diamonds about 
 that time. Two gentlemen were travelling from the Waterloo 
 Station, to Southampton in a well-filled railway carriage the 
 one was an M.F. for one of the manufacturing districts in the 
 North of England, the other a Cape Colonist. The conversa- 
 tion turned upon the Colonies generally, the Cape Colony in^ 
 particular, and Cape diamonds. The M.P. didn't put much
 
 122 
 
 faith in Cape diamonds, he said, nor anything else of the Cape. 
 The C.C. suggested " And perhaps not of any of the Colonies." 
 "No," said the M.P., " the sooner England gets rid of them 
 the better. They have never been anything but a trouble and 
 expense." The C.C. wanted to know where the manufacturers 
 of England would go for their raw material if England 
 shunted off the Colonies. The M.P. said they would have to 
 send it to England for sale all the same. " Well, now," said 
 the C.C., " we will just for the sake of argument suppose that 
 England abandoned her Colonies and the Cape with the rest, 
 what should we of the Cape do ? We have not the elements 
 of a nation in ourselves, and we could not protect ourselves. 
 We should naturally look about for some one of the Great 
 Powers to take us in tow. Let us say Germany. Well, we 
 go to Germany and say our Mother Country is tired of us, has 
 shunted us, and will have nothing more to do with us, will you 
 take us over as one of your colonial dependencies ? " Germany 
 would naturally say, ' What are we to get by that ? " Well, 
 we might say, " If you will we will give you advantages. We 
 , levy a Customs duty on imports of about 10 per cent, all round, 
 we will go on charging the full 10 per cent, on English manu- 
 factures, but will only charge 2 per cent, on German manufac- 
 tures. We will ship all our wool to you, you giving us 
 certain privileges." " You would do that, would you ? " 
 exclaimed the northern M.P ., " then we would blockade all 
 your ports." " You are a nice man for a Member of Parlia- 
 ment," said the Cape Colonist. "You don't want us; you 
 abandon us, and you won't let us make our own arrangements. 
 You are like the dog in the manger." The M.P. did not laugh, 
 but every one else in the carriage did. This is just the way 
 ill-informed Englishmen, even English M.P.'s, talk about the 
 Colonies and their affairs. At least they did in 1882. They are 
 getting a little better now, but The Times continues to blunder 
 along when it has a touch at anything South African. 
 
 And yet when a bogey company is started and English capital 
 is wanted, it is only for company-promoters and company- 
 mongers to bait their hooks and angle a bit round the Exchange, 
 Throgmorton Street, or anywhere in London where English 
 capitalists paddle about open-mouthed, and the gold fish take 
 the bait, as Avitness the way in which they took the gold bait 
 that brought the Rand company-mongers and company-promo- 
 ters so many thousands of British coin.
 
 REMINISCENCE. 
 
 No. XVIII. 
 
 MOW YANK BIT YANK NO PENDULUMS TO THE CLOCKS NO 
 SEATS TO THE CHAIRS HOW AN AMERICAN CONSUL'S 
 "INDEPENDENCE" COST HIM HIS BERTH THE "ALA- 
 BAMA " ARRIVES IN TABLE BAT CAPTURE OF THE 
 
 " SEA BRIDE " CAPTAIN SEMMES AND HIS CONSUL 
 
 THE " ALABAMA " CAPTURES FOURTEEN MERCHANT 
 SHIPS ON THE COAST. 
 
 'WE bad once an American Consul resident in Cape Town, who 
 in the early days of Cape commercial intercourse with the 
 Western Hemisphere, traded between Boston and Cape ports, 
 commencing with the Cape of Good Hope and extending to 
 Port Durban (Natal). When Consul he used to tiffin in 
 the Captain's Rooms. I am now speaking of a time about 
 :1860. "The Captain's Rooms" was at that time owned by 
 Captain Sedgewick, and I suppose that was the reason of its 
 being called "The Captain's Rooms," for there was scarcely 
 ever a captain who took a meal there. The visitors were 
 generally merchants and professional men, who, residing in the 
 suburbs, found it too far to their homes to tiffin with their 
 families. One day, the room being pretty well filled, the late 
 Mr. William Berg came in laughing, and as the custom is, when 
 .a man comes among a company laughing heartily, he was asked 
 what he was laughing at. " Haven't you heard about the 
 clocks ? " Nobody had, and he told it just as I am about to 
 relate it. 
 
 When the British Consul was trading between Boston and 
 .Natal he on one occasion went on shore just as he had brought 
 .his schooner to an anchor. Walking up the main street of
 
 124 
 
 Durban he ran across an American who had been a shipmate of 
 his. After a mutual exclamation of surprise at meeting each other 
 in Natal, the Consul asked his old shipmate what he was doing 
 in Natal. kk Oh, I am a merchant nowadays," was the answer. 
 " Then you had better take the agency of my ship," said the 
 captain to the afterwards Consul, and handed him over the 
 papers. The next day the Consul of my day, the then skipper,. 
 came on shore with a sailor carrying a parcel, walked up to his 
 sigent's store and asked the agent if he knew anybody who would 
 buy American clocks, because, said he, " I bought a lot cheap, 
 and can sell them a bargain." " Have you a sample ? " asked 
 the agent. " Yes, here is a sailor with a sample," and the sailor, 
 called in, handed up the sample a very good-looking clock in a 
 swell papier mache case. " What do you want for them ? " the 
 ngent enquired. "I told you I'd sell them cheap," said the 
 skipper " I'll take 8s. a clock." " I'll take the lot," said the 
 agent, and as the value was about los., he thought he had' 
 done a good btroke of business. "Mind," said the skipper, 
 *' you have bought them according to sample, and I'll hand 
 the sample over to you (doing so) so that there may be no 
 mistake," adding that he had a good lot, in fact it Avas his cargo. 
 The clocks were sent on shore and delivered. A few days 
 after the skipper said he was in a hurry to get to sea and would 
 be obliged for a cheque for the clocks. The cheque was given, 
 but the skipper appeared in no hurry to sail. 
 
 A customer from the country came into the agent's store and 
 wanted to buy a good clock. One of the newly-purchased 
 clocks was shown to him he liked it, purchased it, and took it 
 away. Three or four days after be came back again, and told 
 the agent that he had forgotten to give him a pendulum to the 
 clock, saying that a clock without a pendulum was not of much 
 use. " Give him another clock," said the agent, " and see that 
 it has a pendulum." A clock was taken down and unpacked. 
 No pendulum ! A second was tried. No pendulum ! A third 
 and a fourth with the same result. Then the skipper was sent 
 for. When be arrived the agent said : " Captain, these clocks 
 you sold me have no pendulums." " Was there any pendulum 
 to the sample ? Because you know you bought them by sample." 
 The sample was referred to, but there was no pendulum. The 
 agent saw that he had been done, but like a true American, . 
 seeing that much, he made no fuss. He took it as a fair Yankee
 
 125 
 
 trick sharp practice it was true, but still business. " Have 
 you got the pendulums ?" he asked. " Yes," answered the 
 skipper, " they are all on board." " What's the figure ? " the 
 agent enquired. " Seven shillings a pendulum," said the 
 skipper, nothing abashed. " Send them ashore," said the agent. 
 This brought the clocks up to los., the full value of them, and 
 the skipper calculated that he had made a good deal. So that 
 matter ended. The Consul, even when a skipper, was pious, was 
 loud in his piety, and one of the leaders then, as when Consul, of 
 a Nonconformist church ; but with him it Avas business before 
 piety, and he was an uncommonly cute man of business. 
 
 Some fifteen years had passed over. The skipper was no 
 longer a skipper. He had left off going to sea, settled in Cape 
 Town as a merchant, had obtained the Consulship of America, 
 was living in first-rate style, and was still strong on piety. He 
 had forgotten all about the clocks and pendulums. 
 
 His Natal agent having failed as a merchant at Natal had 
 taken to the sea again, and as captain of a barque had put in to 
 Table Bay. On finding that his old friend of the clocks and 
 pendulums was American Consul, he waited on him sit his office 
 and banded over to him the agency of his ship, and was invited to 
 dinner. The next day he told the Consul that he had a good 
 lot of chairs for sale, and asked his advice as to the best way 
 of disposing of them. The sample was produced, with the 
 result that the Consul bought the chairs according to sample, 
 and paid for them 8s. per chair. The Consul having sold a 
 dozen of the chairs to a customer it turned out that there were 
 no bottoms to them. The Captain who sold them to the Consul 
 was sent for, and the Consul said : *' There are no bottoms to 
 those chairs, Captain." " So," was the reply, "and there were 
 no pendulums to the clocks, Consul, but you can have the 
 bottoms at 7s. a bottom." The biter saw that he had been 
 bitten the chair-dealing brought back the clocks to bis memory, 
 tout all he said was "Send the bottoms ashore, Captain," and 
 they were sent. 
 
 Just as Mr. Berg had finished the story and the room was 
 convulsed with laughter the Consul dropped in to tiffin, which 
 was the signal of a renewed guffaw, and the Consul soon learnt 
 'what all the merriment was about, and from that day forward 
 was pretty well chaffed about the clocks and the chairs. 
 
 I have always considered these as good illustrations of
 
 126 
 
 Yankee cuteness as I ever knew of, and I imagine my readers 
 will think so too. The coolness with which the American 
 stands being taken advantage of is quite a national characteristic. 
 None but an American would put up with it. A Britisher,, 
 whether he worshipped at the shrine of St. George, St. Andrew, 
 St. Patrick, or St. David, would howl about being " swindled," 
 " cheated," " defrauded," even if he did not prosecute the seller 
 of the clocks and the chairs. " Sharp practice" would be far 
 too mild a term. The phrase wouldn't " fit the crime " as the 
 Mikado puts it, nor would the man who tried it on ever be able 
 to trade amongst the same community again, much less even be 
 promoted to a British Consulship. No amount of piety would 
 save him. He would be asked where his " honour " was. 
 
 The Americans ring their changes upon Consuls with quite as 
 much rapidity as upon any other of their officials. There have 
 been no end of American Consuls at the Cape since 1854. The 
 Consul cute upon clocks was reported to have been dismissed 
 through disrespectful treatment of naval officers on one Fourth of 
 July Independence Day. According to the story in circulation 
 he invited the commander and officers of an American man-of- 
 war, then in Table Bay, to dine with him in honour of the day, 
 and after they had sat down to dinner he informed them that he 
 was a total abstainer and permitted no intoxicating drink under 
 his roof, and therefore they would have to wash down their 
 dinners with nothing stronger than water or tea. The 
 commander said if his host tho Consul had mentioned that when 
 he invited them, they would not have accepted the invitation,, 
 but since they were there they would drink the toast in 
 champagne, as they had been accustomed to do. He requested 
 the junior officer present to go on board the ship and get the 
 man in charge of the liquors to bring a case of champagne on. 
 shore and come himself to draw the corks. This was done, and 
 the toast was drunk with all the honours, and as the Commander 
 considered in a liquor befitting their own constitutions and the 
 Constitution of the United States. The toast having been 
 disposed of, the officers took their departure from the Consul's 
 house, the Commander having intimated to the national repre- 
 sentative that he should report him for want of loyalty and 
 breach of etiquette, and he did, with the result that the Consul 
 was relegated back into private life and another Consul reigned 
 in his stead.
 
 127 
 
 The U.S. Consuls sent to Cape Town have been of a variety 
 of patterns, and their personal characteristics have varied 
 quite as much as their physiques, but happily they have all 
 been in accord with their Cape surroundings whilst in office. 
 The successor of the dismissed Consul was certainly not a tee- 
 totaller. He was a jovial soul, merry, and a most enterprising 
 man. The first summer he was at the Cape he made the 
 experiment of introducing ice in blocks from America, and he 
 succeeded in getting it out all right, but he found it did not pay, 
 and he then died. He was succeeded by an Americanised 
 Scotchman, who held office when the Alabama put into Table 
 Bay, and he sent a protest to Sir George Grey agaiost His 
 Excellency permitting Captain Semmes to come on shore, and 
 a protest to Captain Semmes against his doing so. Sir George 
 acknowledged the receipt of the protest, but declined to be 
 influenced by it. Captain Semmes went further ; he came on 
 shore and claimed to be within his rights. The Consul and the 
 Captain got into a long paper war, in which Captain Semmes 
 showed that he was as able a master of his pen as of his ship. 
 
 The arrival of the Alabama in Table Bay caused as much 
 excitement in Cape Town and neighbourhood as if it had been 
 a British three-decker with the Queen of England on board. 
 I had learnt from Messrs. W. J. Anderson & Co., who were her 
 appointed agents, that she was to visit the Cape and about the 
 time she was to be expected. When she was signalled from 
 the Lion's Rump, Cape Town turned out to a man. It was 
 early in the afternoon, and soon after she was signalled it was 
 also signalled that she was in chase of an American barque, 
 which turned out to be the Sea Bride. I rode off to the turn 
 in the Kloof Road where you can command a complete view of 
 the entrance to Table Bay, and there sure enough was the 
 Alabama pouncing down upon the Sea Bride like a hawk on a 
 sparrow, or rather like a shark after a herring. The barque 
 was doing her best to save her distance by getting safe within 
 three miles of Robben Island, but it was steam against 
 wind, and steam had the best of it. The rakish little steamer 
 overhauled the barque, steamed round her, fired a gun across 
 her bows, put off a boat and took her in tow. 
 
 I, having seen the prize taken, made the best of my way to 
 my boat at the wharf and was one of the first on board the 
 Alabama as she lay at her anchor in Table Bay. A man was
 
 128 
 
 leaning over the larboard rail looking 1 very intently at the water 
 rippling by the steamer. Taking him to be an officer of the 
 steamer, I asked him if it was so. "No, sirree," said he, 
 " I'm a prisoner." He then told me that this was the second 
 time he had been taken by Captain Serames. The first time 
 he was coming away from New York supercargo on board a 
 United States ship when the Alabama took her and confiscated 
 his goods. He had now a large venture on board and that 
 would be confiscated too. He said he had just gone below to 
 his cabin to have a wash when the mate called and told him 
 that there was a steamer in sight. He was rejoiced and said, 
 "It is the English mail and I shall get nay letters as soon as 
 I land." He finished dressing himself and came on deck. He 
 no sooner caught sight of the steamer than he saw it was " the 
 bally Alabama" He didn't say "bally," but the word will 
 answer as a substitute. " And here I am again," said he. 
 
 After waiting a little while, whilst Captain. Semtnes and 
 the agent, Mr. W. J. Anderson, completed their business, 
 I was introduced by the last-mentioned gentleman to the 
 Captain, in his cabin, where he sat surrounded by the 
 chronometers which he had taken from the prizes which 
 had fallen into his clutches. A more genial man than Captain 
 Semrnes I never met he was as full of humour as an egg is 
 full of meat. I remained with him in conversation for upwards 
 of two hours, and it was the commencement of a friendship 
 that lasted up to the day of the gallant patriot's death, and but 
 for that lamentable event I should now have been in America 
 instead of at the Cape of Good Hope. Captain Semmes did 
 well on our coast, in capturing ships, as in any part of the 
 world in which he sailed. H*5 sold the Sea Bride to a Mr. 
 Marcus, of Cape Town, for 1,400. She was re-fitted and 
 re-christened, and fell into the hands of Messrs. De Pass, 
 Spence & Co., and did that firm good service. Fourteen other 
 merchantmen fell prizes to the Alabama, on their track round 
 the Cape from India and elsewhere. And how Captain Semmes 
 took the Alabama out of Simon's Bay, from under the wake of 
 the Vanderbilt steamer that was sent out by the North to bring 
 her home or smash her, and with her, Captain Semmes, either 
 dead or alive, is worth the telling. 
 
 We have had some American officials at the Cape who would 
 have been an acquisition to any society in the world, but
 
 129 
 
 amongst them all none more able, refined and accomplished 
 than the late Judge Pringle, of the Mixed Commission, which 
 had its head-quarters in Adderley Street, Cape Town. Mr. 
 Pringle was a man of great gifts, learned in Constitutional law 
 and precedent. He was on the Commission with Mr. George 
 Frere, cousin to Sir Bartle, representing England ; Chevalier 
 (afterwards Viscount) Du Prat, representing Portugal. On; 
 Mr. Frere being promoted to an office in Downing Street, the late 
 Mr. Knox, once the Editor of the Morning Herald, succeeded 
 him. Mr. Edward Knox, C.E., of Pretoria, is his eldest son r 
 and Dr. Schoble, the able Editor of The Transvaal, was his 
 sub. for many years. Mr. George Frere, Viscount Du Prat, 
 Judge Pringle and Mr. Knox are all gone to the land where 
 slavery is unknown ; and all have left names behind them that 
 kings might covet.
 
 REMINISCENCE. 
 
 No. XIX. 
 
 THE CAPE PRESS THEN AND NOW THE PRESSMEN Ol' FORTY 
 
 TEARS AGO MY FIRST PRESS WORK AT THE CAPE AN 
 ODD SCENE IN COURT. 
 
 THERE is as yet no record of the history of Cape journalism or 
 Press life to which reference can be made, and it cannot be less 
 interesting to the general newspaper reader than to the members 
 of the Press themselves to know something of the chronicles of 
 the Press, of those who have laboured in establishing it and in 
 its advancement, and of such incidents as have occurred behind 
 as well as before the scenes during the last forty years. For 
 the history of the Press has not been the least eventful of Cape 
 institutions, nor has the Press been slow to advance itself or in 
 stimulating the general progress of the country. 
 
 Forty years ago there were but four newspapers and one 
 advertising sheet published in Cape Town, the joint issues of 
 the whole five papers (including the advertising sheet) not 
 exceeding nine per week. Graham's Town had but three papers, 
 all weeklies, Port Elizabeth two weeklies, and the Midland 
 Province but one weekly. The titles of the whole of the 
 Colonial papers were : The Commercial Advertiser and Mail, 
 The Zuid Afrikaan, The Monitor, and The Mercantile Adver- 
 tiser, published in Cape Town ; The Graham's Town Journal, 
 The Frontier Times, and The Colonist, published in Graham's 
 Town ; The Eastern Province Herald and The Telegraph, 
 published in Port Elizabeth, and The Graaff-Reinet Herald 
 published at Graaff-Reinet. I do not think The Fort Beaufort 
 Advocate was started so long ago as that ; but, if not, it must 
 have come into existence shortly after. None of the other
 
 131 
 
 *owns had a newspaper. But one of all the papers had a staff 
 of professional reporters, and that was The Commercial Adver- 
 tiser and Mail, of which Mr. J. Fairbairn and Mr. W. Buchanan 
 were joint proprietors. Mr. Fairbairn was the editor. Origin- 
 nally Mr. John Fairbairn was the sole proprietor and editor of 
 Th, Commercial Advertiser, and Mr. William Buchanaa the 
 editor and proprietor of The Mail. Up to the time of the 
 amalgamation Messrs. Saul Solomon & Co. were the printers of 
 both papers, but when that took place differences had arisen 
 between the printers and the publishers, and Mr. Pike became 
 the printer. Up to that time there had been no Mercantile 
 Advertiser, but Mr. Solomon, with a view to strengthen his 
 own office and to weaken the power of The Advertiser and 
 Mail und the rival printing office, started the advertising 
 sheet, and there is no doubt that he realized his purpose. The 
 sheet was delivered gratis at the houses of all the principal 
 people residing at Cape Town and its suburbs, and the circula- 
 tion not being limited by subscription it exceeded by far that 
 of any of the regular newspapers. Advertisers patronised it 
 well, and it became a thoroughly good property and maintained 
 its position up to about 1859, when the Argus in the hands 
 of Messrs. Darnell & Murray had become the leading paper 
 and commanded the advertising business, but yet not so much 
 so as to do a very great deal of damage to Mr. Solomon's sheet. 
 The merchants and business men generally advertised in both. 
 Mr. Solomon, although not a pressman, and not given to the 
 use of the pen in literary effort, had a good idea of newspaper 
 management. He kept a good staff for collecting local news 
 and compiling shipping affairs, the market prices, &c., and this 
 was all he aimed at in his ordinary advertising sheet. But he 
 had secured a first-rate London correspondent the best that 
 ever contributed to a Cape newspaper, and his letters did much 
 to strengthen the Mercantile in its hold upon the Cape Town 
 public, especially after there was a regular line of ocean mail 
 steamers. 
 
 The Monitor was started by a syndicate chiefly composed of 
 Cape merchants, who, .during the anti-convict movement, had 
 in consequence of the stand they took on the side of the 
 Government met with little mercy at the hands of Mr. Fair- 
 bairn and had withdrawn their advertisements, and a great 
 many of them and others of the English party had withdrawn 
 
 K 2
 
 132 
 
 their subscriptions from The Commercial Advertiser and Mail,. 
 and so in order to get the English party represented and to- 
 give support to the existing Government they started a paper 
 of their own, The Cape Monitor, with a Mr. William Ghislin 
 as the nominal editor. For some time the leading articles were 
 masterly, generally the contributions (free) of able writers,. 
 many of them officials. The popular notion was that it was 
 a Government organ, started and kept going by the Govern- 
 ment, but that was not the fact. 
 
 The Commercial Advertiser and Mail relied upon Mr. Fair- 
 bairn's articles and Mr. Buchanan's reports, and more powerfully 
 and elegantly written articles or better reports no paper could have 
 commanded. Mr. Fairbairn was a man of great natural gifts,, 
 accomplished, scholarly and earnest. He wrote with a point to 
 his pen, and in the zenith of his fame was the idol of the Cape 
 people. He would have made a better magazine than newspaper 
 writer, and had he brought his genius into play in London, 
 instead of at the Cape of Good Hope there is not a shadow of a 
 doubt that he would have been in the first rank of English 
 writers of his time. But Mr. Fairbairn had no Press training 
 nor experience in Great Britain. He had never studied nor 
 worked under the guiding hand of a master of journalism. All 
 that he knew of editorial work he had taught himself, with no 
 rival in the country to compete with him, to stir his blood,, 
 quicken his energies, and brighten his brain. The platform 
 upon which he worked was one that no other newspaper man of 
 his time could by any probability reach. He was high up above 
 the whole, out of their reach altogether, and he knew it. He 
 lashed away at people and parties, at Governors, Governments,, 
 cliques and factions without restraint or rebuke that he paid the 
 least heed to. His popularity was won by his insistance. 
 Recognizing a principle he insisted upon having it adhered to in 
 full, without modification or adulteration. He had been a school- 
 master too long until indeed he had become as dogmatic as 
 men of that profession always are at a certain age. Men 
 admired his writings when they did not agree with his argu- 
 ments. He might have retained his popularity to the day 
 of his death, if he would have shown a little more conciliation 
 towards others. But the people put his Scotch blood up when 
 they differed from him, and that led to an estrangement, unfortu- 
 nate for himself, and for The Commercial Advertiser and Mail.
 
 133 
 
 But let me say that, considering the vast and inestimable 
 -services he had rendered to the people of the Cape, he deserved 
 ^better of them than they gave him. When he had grown old in 
 the public service, his early services were forgotten, and it is not 
 possible but that in his solitary latter days he must have 
 pondered over the ingratitude he had met with, with more pain 
 than he cared to express. 
 
 Eastern opposition he did not care two straws about. He 
 could always give them his Roland for their Oliver. Up to 
 1854, The Monitor had not hurt his Advertiser much. In 
 that year it had become effete. It issued but once a week, 
 iiad narrowly escaped actions for libel innumerable, had neither 
 -satisfied its proprietors nor the public. It was heavily in debt to 
 its printer its bona-fide circulation had dwindled down to about 
 three hundred, and when its advertisements amounted to five or 
 six pounds, which it rarely if ever did, it warmed the cockles of 
 the nominal editor's heart, and inspired the printers, Messrs Van 
 de Sandt de Villiers & Co., with hope. It was hardly to be 
 wondered at that The Monitor had been making no headway. 
 The writers who had made it what it was at starting, had lost 
 the charm of writing when the novelty was gone, as amateur 
 writers always do. An old gentleman connected with the 
 Commercial Exchange had then been hired to supply the articles, 
 and the subjects were never connected with anything nearer 
 home than the American Congress, or the affairs of Canada, 
 as to which the readers of the paper knew or cared about as 
 much as they did about the domestic policy of the Peruvians. 
 The other columns were chiefly filled with chapters from a book 
 -on " How to buy a horse." 
 
 In 1854, the paper came into my hands. Parliament opened in 
 that year, but no arrangements had been made for reporters. As 
 the paper came out but once a week Saturday there was no 
 more work than I could have got through with ease and not have 
 overworked myself on any day, had the whole of the arrange- 
 ments dovetailed as they should. But the compositors had 
 never set up anything but Dutch, and my Friday's work was 
 terrible. How many proofs I had to correct I cannot remember, 
 but it was proof upon proof, proof upon proof until long after 
 midnight, and it was sometimes nearly daylight on Saturday 
 morning before I got home. The publishing office and printing 
 office were both in the same building, at the corner of Castle and
 
 134 
 
 St. George's Streets, and the weary night walks I had up and! 
 down and around that corner were countless. However, I 
 lived through it. As soon as Parliament was prorogued, the- 
 Namaqualand copper-mining mania broke out, which was a new 
 excitement, and I made the most of it. There were Municipal 
 Wardmasters as well as Municipal Commissioners in those days 
 both bodies gave one an experience that was quite unique.- 
 There was seldom a meeting of either body without a row, 
 and the rows worked up exceedingly well. The Wardmasters- 
 used to meet of an evening. There was no Theatre then but 
 the Wardmasters' meetings were as good as a play, and gave 
 rare material for amusing sketches. By the end of the year I 
 had worked up the paper to two issues of 600 1,200 a week. 
 The next year ''Pen and Ink Sketches in Parliament" by 
 " Limner," and the " No Storeowner " libel case which I men- 
 tioned in a previous article served to bring up the circulation to 
 800 an issue three times a week 2,400 per week. All the 
 merchants, public institutions, and advertisers generally, filled 
 the two outside pages, and we had paid off the printers aud had 
 something like a balance in the bank. In that year I got some- 
 help. A Mr. Heaton, who read the English Exhibition 
 Catalogue of 1851, turned up and read the paper, and Mr.. 
 Cbarles Bartholomew commenced his press life with me. He is< 
 the only one out of the whole office besides myself who is 
 still alive. The printers, the nominal editor, aud the com- 
 positors and the pressman who worked off the paper, are 
 all dead. I am glad to have an opportunity, whilst he 
 lives, of recording my high appreciation of Mr. Bartholomew's- 
 aptness, industry, and zeal. He is now on the reporting 
 staff of The Cape Times and sustains the high character be- 
 always bore. I left the paper in the latter part of 1866, and Mr. 
 Bartholomew took over the editorship, and when myself and Mr. 
 Darnell started the Argus in February, 1867, Mr. Bartho- 
 lomew, in partnership with Mr. Charles Cowan, took over the 
 paper. But now I must leave the Cape Town Press and glance 
 at the Eastern Press. I will return to the Western anon. 
 
 The leading paper of the Eastern Province WHS the Graham's- 
 
 Town Journal, of which the Hon. Robert Godlontou, M.L.C., 
 
 was editor and proprietor. The Journal was :is far ahead of 
 
 its Eastern contemporaries as The Commercial Advertiser and' 
 
 Mail was ahead of its Western. The late Mr. Robert Godlontoa
 
 135 
 
 stood in about the same relationship to the Eastern people 
 as Mr. John Fairbairn did to the West, but Mr. Godlonton had 
 the great advantage of having an English constituency to work 
 and to fight for. They were always staunch and true to him 
 all through his journalistic career, and up to the day of his 
 death. The Journal was started by the Hon. Mr. Meurant, 
 M.L.C., who until recently represented an Eastern Circle in the 
 Legislative Council a staunch old veteran of 85 years of age. 
 He died since I commenced these ; reminiscences. Mr. Godlonton 
 never affected to be equal to Mr. Fairbairn as a writer, but his 
 articles were logical, to the point, and unmistakably English. 
 Mr. Godlonton was a man of rare pluck, and he fought the 
 battle of the Settlers bravely, and his own too. If the ruling 
 powers of the period locked up Mr. Fairbairn's press and 
 printing plant in the early days, they served Mr. Godlonton 
 in precisely the same way. The early press life of both was 
 full of tribulation, persecution, and difficulty. Had either 
 been less courageous, able and plucky than he was, he must 
 have gone to the wall. It is no light thing to fight governors 
 and governments, when there is no public opinion and if there 
 are no newspapers to give expression to it. In the early 
 days of the Eastern Press Mr. Godlonton had a long-continued 
 warfare with the Government, and but for him the Settlers 
 would have found it impossible to hold their own on the 
 Eastern frontier. There was an idea in the West, born of 
 prejudice, that the Settlers were a coarse, low-bred people 
 a portion of the pauper population that England was 
 desirous of getting rid of. A great mistake, as the 
 Westerns ultimately discovered. The strong antagonism which 
 has existed between East and West was not the outcome of 
 geographical positions, nor of the differences of nationality ; 
 but it sprung out of the contemptuous treatment the Settlers 
 received at the hands of the Western Press. It gave rise to a 
 soreness which was never thoroughly healed indeed, is not 
 altogether healed to-day. 
 
 The most masterly articles that appeared in the Eastern Pres* 
 in 1854 were in the leading columns of The Colonist, a paper in. 
 the hands of the Roman Catholics, and edited by Doctor (now 
 Bishop) Ricards. In my early professional life in Cape Town 
 I had taken to The Colonist above all the papers that came into 
 my hands in the way of exchanges, and used to quote from it
 
 136 
 
 freely. I never knew who the writer of the articles was until I 
 went to reside in Graham's Town ten years after. The Frontier 
 Times was the property of Mr. Franklin, who edited it. The 
 paper \yas an exceedingly respectable one, and it was supported 
 chiefly by Englishmen, members of the Episcopal Church. Mr. 
 Franklin was a man of parts a scholar and a fair writer. It 
 always struck me that he had an idea that his mission in life 
 was to attack The Graham's Town Journal, which was essen- 
 tially as Wesleyan as Eastern. The Journal was known as 
 *' The Settlers' Bible," and the Settlers swore ?by it. There is 
 rather a good story told about an occurrence in the Circuit 
 Court sitting in Graham's Town in about 1858. It is said that 
 when the Court was in full swing, and a witness had to be 
 sworn, there was no Bible. Here was a pretty how-d'ye-do ; 
 the Judge, Jury, and Bar were struck. The messenger had to 
 go some distance before any Bible could be got. One of the 
 members of the Bar I think it was poor Dick Turner 
 rose with becoming gravity, and said : " My lord, swear 
 the witness on The Graham's Town Journal." The Court 
 roared with laughter, and the Judge (I forget his name) 
 joined in the roar. Of the two Port Elizabeth papers then 
 in existence The Eastern Province Herald and the Telegraph 
 I believe The Telegraph came out first. It was started 
 by Mr. Philip, and was first edited by Mr. John Pater- 
 son afterwards the Hon. J. Paterson, M.L.C. who was 
 at that time Master of the Government School at Port Elizabeth. 
 Mr. Paterson was one of the batch of teachers brought out by 
 Dr. Innes, from Scotland, for the Cape Government Schools. 
 Mr. Gwynne Owen was ano.ther. They were all fair scholar! 
 and good teachers, but more Scotch even than scholarly. In 
 cuteness they had no rivals. All of them gave up teaching for 
 better paying businesses, and the careers of some of them espe- 
 cially those of Mr. Paterson and Mr. Gwynne Owen were 
 remarkable.
 
 KEMINISCENCE. 
 
 No. XX. 
 
 5.XEPORTERS AND REPORTING A DEVON INCIDENT FIRST 
 
 SHORTHAND REPORTING IN THE EASTERN PROVINCE 
 
 " GREAT EASTERN " " ADVERTISER AND MAIL " MR. 
 
 JOHN NOBLE MR. J. B. GLANVILLE AS MISSIONARY, 
 
 JOURNALIST AND M.L.A. HER MAJESTY BECOMES 
 PATRON OF HIS " HOME AND ABROAD." 
 
 I ONCE heard Mr. Fairbairn say in the House of Assembly 
 .that he regarded the reporter as the mainstay of the press, and 
 the reports the most important and valuable portion of a news- 
 .paper. I thoroughly agreed with him. There is no such 
 literary drudgery as newspaper reporting. There is no work 
 .that taxes all a man's faculties so completely. His attention 
 completely uninterrupted attention, must be given to his 
 work during the whole time a meeting lasts and no matter 
 how uninteresting the speeches may be ; however stupid, sense- 
 less, jerky, or vapid the speakers may be, the reporter must 
 listen to it all, and if his instructions are that a speaker, or a 
 .meeting, or a lecturer, must be reported in full he cannot afford 
 >to lose a word. A meeting may be as rowdy as it will but he 
 must be still and attentive, for if there are more reporters than 
 .himself present he cannot excuse himself by reporting " the 
 .noise was so great" or (< the speaker was here unintelligible 
 to the reporters," or the editor may ask him when the rival 
 report appears if his hearing is getting defective. People are 
 apt to think that all that is necessary to qualify a man for 
 reporting is to acquire a system of shorthand and become an 
 .adept at it. There never was a greater mistake, otherwise 
 . every good shorthand writer would make an equally good
 
 138 
 
 reporter, and that is far from being the case. There are thou-- 
 sands of shorthand writers who will never be able to do any 
 newspaper reporting. It is necessary, in order to report a speaker 
 accurately, that a reporter not only hears Avhat he says but 
 understands it. For a man to be law reporter he must have 
 a general knowledge of law, know what the technical terms 
 mean ; and the same applies to lectures on Science or Art, 
 travellers' speeches recounting travel, &c. Parliamentary re- 
 porting becomes a sad hash when the reporter knows nothing 
 of politics. 
 
 Then the reporter who has to sit out a sitting of Parliament, 
 a meeting, or a dinner party as long as those who take part in it, 
 has his work to commence when they have finished theirs. 
 Many people envy the reporter who attends festive gatherings 
 and entertainments. They need not. It is far less enjoyable 
 to the reporter than they imagine. I was never more thankful 
 than I was when I could give up reporting altogether. I had 
 worked very hard at it for many years. I did not find it at all 
 difficult to acquire the art of shorthand writing, and I must say 
 that the experience of Charles Dickens, as that celebrated 
 novelists gives it, was not mine. What with me taxed my 
 efforts most was to go the pace. But speed came with 
 experience, and it was some time after reporting a meeting that 
 I was set to " do " a speech of any celebrated man. The 
 hardest reporting work I ever had at Isast the work that had 
 the least charm in it was during an engagement I had once, 
 when I was about 25 years of age, with Sir Culling Eardly,. 
 Bart. Sir Culling was an extreme Low Churchman, an Exeter 
 Hallite to the backbone, and the head and front of the 
 Platitudinarian Party. He watched the Tractarians like oats 
 watch mice, and whenever he suspected a Tractarian of being 
 about to go over to Rome, he was down upon him like what in- 
 modern phrase is described as " a thousand of bricks." 
 
 He suspected the Rector of St. Mary's Church, a Tillage 
 near Babbicombe, who had been an associate of Pusey, Blunt, 
 and the other leaders of the Oxford Tractarian party, of being 
 about to " go over." Sir Culling was going to Italy and he 
 entered into an engagement with me to report all the reverend 
 gentleman's sermons until his return. He was away two years, 
 and my professional attendance at St. Mary's Church extended 
 over that time. I was never so sick of any work I had to do-
 
 139 
 
 in my life, and I was heartily glad when it was over. The only 
 pleasurable portions of that reporting job were the pay and the 
 the lobster salad tiffins I had at Mother Gaskin's Babbicorabe 
 Hotel. 
 
 There was very little to report in the Eastern Province at the 
 time of which I have been writing. There were no Eastern 
 Districts Court or Divisional Council, nor any of the many 
 institutions which now exist. The Circuit Court and the 
 Municipal Council were reported in brief, in longhand, and an 
 outline of what took place served all the purposes of that period. 
 
 I think the first appearance of shorthand reporters in the 
 Eastern Province was incidental with the holding of the 
 Parliamentary session in Graham's Town in 1864, but I am not 
 quite sure whether Mr. Bidwell had arrived before that date, but 
 I don't think he had. My own belief is that the first shorthand 
 report appeared in the columns of The Great Eastern, and from 
 Mr. Linwood, who came out from London, where he had been 
 the editor of my Home Edition of The Argus, as reporter for 
 The Great Eastern. After the last-mentioned paper was started, 
 the Graham's Town Journal, in self-defence, was compelled to 
 follow suit in the reporting line, and in many other Press CXK 
 pedients which it had never thought of before. The Great 
 Eastern unquestionably caused a great revolution in Eastern 
 journalism. It Avas the first paper printed by steam, and it 
 competed with the Port Elizabeth as well as with the Grahams- 
 town journals. It was published in the early morning and dis- 
 patched to Port Elizabeth by the 4 a.m. mail-cart and delivered 
 to the residences and offices of Port Elizabeth subscribers* 
 generally before the Eastern Province Herald, which was an 
 afternoon paper, made its appearance. The Herald never could 
 compete with it, at any rate, for general news, for it contained 
 all the Cape Town and Western intelligence which it received by 
 telegraph up to the last moment of going to press. There were 
 seldom less than three columns of telegrams in an issue, and, on 
 the arrival of the English mail, more than that. The Great 
 Eastern derived its chief support both in subscriptions and 
 advertisements from Port Elizabeth. Mr. Impey frequently 
 told me that he was not going to compete with me in the way of 
 telegrams as it would never pay, and it did not. The fault 
 was not mine. Had the Parliament been convened in Graham's 
 Town seven years instead of one, as Sir Philip Wodehouse
 
 140 
 
 .intended, The Great Eastern would have been the leading paper 
 of South Africa, and judging by the first year's profits would 
 have been a fortune for the proprietor. But in newspaper life, as 
 in every other, a man must take the ups with the downs. One 
 good effect Tke Great Eastern had, and for which Eastern news- 
 paper readers ought to be grateful. The old-established papers 
 were never able to get back to their old droning habits again. 
 
 The decease of The Great Eastern was a gain to the West. 
 The Conservative organ the Standard, had utterly failed and 
 had cost its promoters over 15,000. The Commercial 
 Advertiser and Mail was on its last legs. The latter paper 
 when it had passed out of the hands of its original proprietors 
 became the property of Mr. John Noble, for many years and 
 now the Chief Clerk of the House of Aesembly. He had been 
 associated with The Cape Argus from the commencement of the 
 paper, and had done it yeoman service. He used his pen with 
 great facility, and as a gatherer of local news had never his 
 match, either before or since. He got to know everybody, was 
 cognizant of every public movement, and was everybody's 
 favourite. He left The Argus to take over The Advertiser, of 
 which his brother, the late lamented Professor Noble, of the 
 South African College, was the editor after Mr. Fairbairn's 
 death. Professor Noble was a man of most versatile genius, 
 was a most popular writer, never at a loss for a subject. 
 He wrote at steam speed, and turned out articles as fast 
 as the printers could take them. At one time he edited 
 The Argus and The Mercantile Advertiser at the same 
 ^time, was the working editor of The Cape Monthly Magazine, 
 lectured on an average once a week, and performed all his 
 College duties as well. He was always ready for an 
 excursion, either by sea or land, and was courted and petted by 
 everybody. He was really an admirable man, generous, 
 kind and genial his purse was always open when friends, and 
 when many who were not friends, were in need. His articles 
 were always popular and on the popular side. His death was 
 much deplored, and he lives yet in the memory of all who were 
 honoured with his friendship. 
 
 The Commercial Advertiser and Mail was no greater boon 
 to Mr. John Noble than The Great Eastern was to me. He 
 .happily obtained the office he now fills, and fills so well. He is 
 as great a favourite with the Parliament as he was with the
 
 141 
 
 Press, still retains his love of writing, and is the author of seve- 
 ral valuable books on Cape subjects. Oddly enough the Chief 
 Clerks of both Houses of Parliament were pressmen. Mr. 
 Jurats Fairbairn, the Clerk to the Legislative Council, had done 
 many a good spell at reporting when his father was alive, and 
 he was a good hand at it. Had he remained at his original pro- 
 fession he would certainly have been in the first rank. His 
 heart is as good as his manner, and his ability was certified to 
 before he was out of his teens. 
 
 Both The Standard and The Commercial Advertiser fell into 
 my hands after The Great Eastern was no more. Professor 
 Noble being ill, I was invited to edit the paper, which had then 
 become the property of Messrs Van de Sandt, de Villiers & Co., 
 and when the Professor died I became the permanent editor. I 
 had not long occupied the editorial seat in that office before the 
 late Mr. T. B. Bayley, Mr. Charles Manuel, and Mr. Charles 
 Barry, the principal proprietors of The Standard, consulted me 
 about the affairs of that paper. The type and finances of The 
 Mail were pretty well worn out. The Standard's finances were 
 alarming 15,000 to the bad was no joke. But that paper's 
 type and steam machinery were both as good as new, and I saw 
 no way of saving the proprietors but by amalgamating the two 
 papers into one. I was commissioned to carry out my proposal, 
 and one fine morning The Argus people woke up to find a 
 new paper started under the title of The Standard and Mail. 
 This was a grand stroke and a successful one. The Standard' 
 and Mail was for a long time edited and controlled by my 
 eldest son, Mr. R. W. Murray, junr., after I had left for the 
 Diamond Fields, and it flourished in his hands. 
 
 There is one of my late Eastern and Diamond Fields con- 
 temporary writers whose name I have not yet mentioned 
 Mr. J. B. Glanville, whose memory I cherish to-day as if he 
 were a near and dear brother, not only professionally, but son 
 of the same Mother as myself. He was the editor of The Gra- 
 ham'' s Town Journal when I came to Graham's Town to establish 
 The Great Eastern. We started as rivals, but became fast 
 friends. We led off by saying smart things of each other 
 intended to sting, but they amused both instead of stinging 
 either. The late Mr. Glanville's writing always bore evidence 
 of a refinement never to be excelled. His style was graceful 
 and refined. It was unlaboured, with well-rounded periods
 
 142 
 
 rand brimming over with wit and humour, and his conversation 
 away from his office was as charming as were his writings. 
 He was one of the sweetest-tempered men I ever met in my 
 life in any part of the world. I do not believe that he ever 
 had one grain of gall in his whole composition. 
 
 Mr. Glanville was for some years a missionary in India, in 
 the Wesleyan Connexion, and it was when there that hi.s Press 
 work commenced. His articles in the Indian journals com- 
 manded a good deal of attention, were much admired by the 
 newspaper readers of India, and eagerly sought after by the 
 newspaper proprietors of that Empire, but they gave offence 
 to his superiors in the Wesleyan ministry, who insisted either 
 upon his discontinuing writing for newspapers, or withdrawing 
 from the Church. He did neither, for he preferred the one to 
 the other, and his writing brought him a vast deal more money 
 than his preaching. Finding that they could not stop his 
 writing, his pastors and masters removed him out of India to 
 Lower Albany, to resume missionary work there. His stories 
 about his vegetating in Lower Albany have afforded me many 
 a laugh. Ultimately he moved from Albany into the editorial 
 chair which Mr. Godlonton had filled for so many years. He 
 brought new life into The Journal brought the sprightliuess 
 into it, of which it at that time stood much in need. I do not 
 think that the circulation of the paper had fallen off, for it was 
 Mr. Godlonton's paper, and the Eastern people would take the 
 paper for his sake, even if they did not take it for the sake of 
 the paper itself. But Mr. Glanville's writings gave it a new 
 value which was appreciated. 
 
 I got to know Mr. Glanville much more intimately in 1865 
 than I had known him before, although we had from the first 
 been on terms of intimacy. We soon discovered that we were 
 born in the same county, and within a very few miles of each 
 other. We knew the same people, and the same places in the 
 loveliest spot of God's creation. Talk of the clanuishness of 
 Scotchmen ; they will never persuade me that there is any 
 clannishness in the world equal to that of the West of England. 
 If anyone doubts me (and I suppose somebody will be bound to 
 rush into print with a contradiction), let them read Kingsley's 
 Westward Ho ! and John Herring. 
 
 In 1865 both the late Mr. Glanville and myself were elected 
 members of the House of Assembly, and we rode down together
 
 143 
 
 from Graham's Town to Port Elizabeth, and from thence voy- 
 :aged to Cape Town by steamer, in company with Mr. (now Sir 
 Gordon) Sprigg, who was on his way to make his maiden Par- 
 liamentary speech. As Mr. Glanville and myself were 
 bowling along down the Howison's Poort road, I had been 
 talking politics to him, and we had come to an understanding 
 that professional rivalry was not to prevent us working together 
 for the good of the Province. On the occasion of our first 
 changing horses he proposed that we should walk on a little 
 way together, which we did, and I never forget the laugh I had 
 when he said to me : "I don't know why they elected me to 
 go to Parliament. I don't know anything about Cape politics, 
 and never shall. I don't know the difference between a Con- 
 servative and a Cape Liberal. Do you ? Am I a Liberal or 
 a Conservative ? Tell me, that's a good fellow." 
 
 The droll way in which he said it and the drollery of his 
 igoing to Parliament to find out whether he was u Conserva- 
 tive or a Liberal set me off. I roared with laughter, and lie 
 looked at me with all that drollery in his face Avhich was his 
 facial characteristic when he was amused and which made 
 me laugh the more. What he said about his knowing 
 nothing about Cape politics proved to be quite true. He could 
 keep the House in a roar of laughter, but he seldom threw any 
 light upon a subject. His levity gave great offence to his 
 immediate friends, and once brought him into disgrace with 
 them, as they did not think such levity becoming in a member 
 who had been a missionary, and was still an editor of a paper 
 that took a high moral tone. But the levity suited the House 
 and sometimes turned its current of thought from the wrong 
 into the right direction. I don't think they could get him to go 
 down to Parliament a second time ; at any rate I know he never 
 stood for re-eleciion. 
 
 When I left the Colony for England in 1880 I had counted to 
 meet Mr. Glanville. who had been appointed Immigration 
 Commissioner, as one of my home treats in store, but alas ! 
 before I arrived in England he had died, and I had nothing left 
 of him to me but his memory. 
 
 After his death Her 'Majesty the Queen read his delightful 
 little book, " At Home and Abroad," and expressed the appre- 
 ciation and delight it gave her most graciously. It is a pity 
 that this did not occur during his lifetime, for Her Majesty 
 would have been as pleased with the man as with his work.
 
 REMINISCENCE. 
 
 No. XXI. 
 
 THE DIAMOND FIELDS PRESS A RACE FOR PRECEDENCE PRESS- 
 MEN TURN DIGGERS. 
 
 THE history of the Diamond Fields Press is quite as remark- 
 able as that of the Old Colony, and if the age of the Fields are- 
 taken into consideration the Diamond Fields Press has had as 
 many ups and downs, as many difficulties to contend with, and 
 made as much and as rapid progress as the Press of the Old 
 Colony. The first two newspapers appeared towards the end' 
 of 1870, the one being published on the Klipdrift side of the 
 Vaal and the other on the Pniel heights. 
 
 1 had packed up for the Diamond Fields at the latter end of 
 1869, but previous to leaving the borders of the Old Colony 
 had paid visits to several districts, and being in no hurry had 
 taken about seven months over it. None of the Colonists had 
 much faith in the new discovery, few outside Cape Town and 
 Port Elizabeth were in much hurry and the hurry in these 
 places was not particularly stimulating, and did not go far ta 
 stimulate the courage of those on the go. When you told 
 fellow Colonists that you were on the road to the Diamond 
 Fields they either laughed at you, or with long faces hoped you 
 would not die of fever like poor So-and-So and so many others 
 
 who had gone up, but if you did and here their feelings 
 
 were too powerful for utterance, and they left the rest to your 
 imagination ; and if the going man had anything like a vivid 
 imagination, he was left with a lively prospect in his mind's 
 eye to amuse himself with on the road. " Hope you won't take 
 the fever, but if you do " and the " do " means die is 
 suggestive of an " unwept, unhonoured and unsung " dissolution 
 in the wilderness, without one loved one to smooth your pillow y
 
 145 
 
 with no pillow to smooth, in fact ; where there is neither grave- 
 digger, sexton, undertaker, priest or parson not even a cremat- 
 ing apparatus. A nice prospect for a mental survey : happy 
 thought that the chief mourner at your last laying-out will be a 
 -cock vulture, who with his family and friends will fatten on your 
 emaciated remains, croak exultingly over your spinal marrow, 
 and leave nothing but your bones to bleach under an African 
 un ; and if your ghost should be iu the humour to stalk about 
 .amongst old acquaintances, with not enough left of you to make 
 your shade recognizable, much loss respectable. 
 
 However, before I left Graham's Town, I heard that my 
 old friend G-lanville was on the road, with printing presses, 
 type, staff, and material, having a Diamond Fields paper iu 
 prospect, which was a little more encouraging. He and his 
 staff of workmen and plant had gone off in a cart and four and 
 bullock wagon, and I was told that they would be there and 
 their paper going before I arrived. As I did not see any means 
 .of getting any further, I thought this more than possible. How- 
 ever, at last 1 discovered that there were some young men on 
 rtheir way in a van to Bloemfontein, a place that I was anxious to 
 see on my way up, and 1 made arrangements with them for a seat, 
 with the understanding that we were to take Middelburg en route, 
 .and they consented to take me with them fora 10 consideration. 
 This was travelling with as much comfort as circumstances ad- 
 mitted of. We had good meals and warm beds all the way to 
 Middelburg, where they had business to transact which detained 
 .them about three weeks, I living at an hotel all the time. At the 
 -end of three weeks we started for Bloemfontein. During that part 
 of the journey ,my travelling companions quite dispelled the idea 
 ,of my having a solitary laying-out in the wilderness with 
 vultures as undertakers, for they assured me that I should cer- 
 tainly be shot in Bloemfontein, where they had already burnt 
 ,me in effigy for alleged Basuto proclivities during the Basuto 
 war. 
 
 By the time we had reached half way between Middelburg and 
 Bloemfontein August had set in, so that it will be seen 1 had 
 .not hurried myself, nor had anyone hurried me along. It was 
 .bitterly cold at nights and sleeping under the wagon was a some- 
 what novel experience, but with nothing but the novelty to 
 recommend it. It was pleasant to see the moon rise, but to 
 watch it making its course the whole night threugh was to my 
 
 L
 
 146 
 
 mind not a good substitute for sleep. It would have been far 
 more agreeable to me if the moon had had the sun in company.. 
 However, journeys no matter how long, like everything else in 
 this lovely world of ours, come to an end in time and this was 
 no exception to the rule. I have some reminiscences of that 
 journey which are pleasanter far to ruminate upon now than the 
 circumstances were when they were present with me. I was 
 mightily thankful when I saw Mr. Stock standing at the 
 entrance to the Free State Hotel and the boots of the establish- 
 ment taking charge of our luggage. I spent a very comfort- 
 able fortnight at the hotel had some pleasant talk with 
 the President, picked up some money (in orange backs) which was 
 due to me, and made the acquaintance of Mr Thomas White and! 
 the Barlows at The Friend office, but no " shootist " turned up. 
 Everyone was particularly kind and hospitable, and I have 
 found on subsequent visits to the Transvaal that the Bloem- 
 fonteiners as much delight in hospitably entertaining their 
 friends, and even" strangers unawares," as "dogs delight to 
 bark and bite, for 'tis their nature to." 
 
 I did my best to induce Mr White to start a newspaper in the 
 Diamond Fields as a rival to that projected by The Journal 
 people, but he didn't see it. In the first place he had no faith in- 
 the diamonds holding out. If the diamonds pinched out what 
 was to come of the plant ? Then there was no building for a 
 printing office, and besides he had no type to spare. The 
 Barlows would have found type enough and to spare had they 
 been left to act upon their own inclination. But Mr. Thomas- 
 White had become too wealthy to care about fresh enterprises,, 
 and having surrounded himself with all the comforts which 
 Bloemfontein life affords, did not care to be disturbed. 
 
 Having seen all and done all that there was for me to see and 
 do there, I made enquiries about getting on to my journey's- 
 end. I discovered there was a weekly line of passenger carts, 
 started by Mr. Hanger, the gentleman who had threatened 
 to shoot me if ever he got sight of me. So I walked round to 
 Mr. Hanger's office, found him writing and told him I wanted a 
 passenger ticket for Klipdrift. He asked me my name that he 
 might write it on the ticket. I said Murray. " What Murray ? ' T 
 he asked. I said, " The R. W. Murray you are going to shoot, 
 so that if you are in the same mind you were during the Basuto 
 scrummage you have a fine chance and had better shoot a way."
 
 He jumped off his seat, gave my hand a hearty grip, and 
 laughing said, " Old fellow 'twas we that were wrong, you were 
 right. Let's liquor up." And we liquored at the Free State 
 Hostelry, dined together in the evening, and have been fast 
 friends ever since. I started for Kimberley the next morning. We 
 remained one night at Boshof on the way, supped on sheeps* 
 trotters and rice, and nestled at night on abillowy bed, each billov? 
 as solid as a boulder, and all the billows together about as comfort- 
 able as a bed of boulders would have been. I have before described 
 my arrival at Klipdrift, and my first Sunday in the Diamond 
 Fields. 
 
 Naturally at starting life on the banks of the far-winding 
 Va:il, I was anxious to see the diamonds, and to pick up a 
 pocketful or two, but I need hardly say I didn't succeed. In 
 the course of time I discovered, not diamonds, but that a place 
 where there was no newspaper was no place for me, so I resolved 
 upon having one. Mr. Glanville had not even arrived as yet. 
 His oxen had died on the road, he had met with accidents to his- 
 wagon, and had been as full of troubles (all drawbacks to his- 
 getting on) as an orange is full of juice. 
 
 J set to work, wrote out all the " copy " for a newspaper, took 
 cart to Bloemfontein, got the paper (The Diamond Field): 
 printed at The Friend office, and took back the papers for sale 
 in the Diamond Fields, having posted in Bloemfontein first copies 
 to the Colonial newspapers. This, then, was the first Diamond 
 Fields newspaper received in the Cape Colony. The day after 
 I arrived in Klipdrift, a copy of The Diamond News came over 
 from Pniel. Mr. Glanville and staff, having arrived in my 
 absence, had planked up an office and got out their first number, 
 they said, the day before 1 returned. No one at Klipdrift saw it 
 until the day after. There used to be a good deal of good- 
 natured chaff between myself and Mr. Glanville as to who had 
 published the first paper on the Diamond Fields, and at last, 
 although we knew that ordinarily there could not be two " firsts,'" 
 we agreed that there should be an exception in our case, I to- 
 have the credit of having published " the first Diamond Fields 
 paper," and he " the first paper on the Diamond Fields," and s<* 
 History Las recorded the fact from that day up. 
 
 I having published, wrote up " copy " for the next issue, and 1 
 off again to Bloemfontein ; had the paper out, and then back. 
 But i soon found that this little game was more exhausting than 
 
 L2
 
 148 
 
 profitable. To write a paper and make the journey to Bloem- 
 fontein and back weekly was rather more than even I could 
 stand, and each paper took a little over a week, and the little 
 was getting greater gradually. So I resolved to send the copy 
 by passenger cart and get the paper back in the same way, and 
 so take things easier. It went all right the first week, and it 
 was a cheaper way of getting out a paper than bringing up 
 plant and a staff of workmen from Graham's Town. 
 
 The second week " the copy " went to Bloemfontein without 
 me it arrived there all right, but the river had risen whilst 
 it was being printed, the cart got capsized in the Vaal, 
 the horses were drowned and the papers too. A little dis- 
 piriting this, but there was this comfort in it, for if I had been 
 in the cart I might have been drowned with the papers, but 
 I was alive to write more " copy," but the next effort was more 
 fortunate. I had not to pay for the printing, for the " copy " 
 never reached the printer. If that " copy " is anywhere to-day 
 it is in a very fishy state in the bed of the Vaal River, and news- 
 paper copy may do as much good " lying " on the bed of a river 
 as be disturbing the occupants of feather beds. 
 
 Whether a Diamond Fields paper -written in Klipdrift and 
 printed in Bloemfontein could be made a permanent success was, 
 .after my river experiences, a problem a little too costly and 
 intricate for me to solve, so I did as I do when a riddle is put 
 to me, and said " I give it up," and that's how it became " all 
 up " with the first edition of The Diamond Field. Some time 
 after this the late Mr. Vickers came up to Klipdrift from the 
 Eastern Province with a very complete printing plant, and he 
 started The Diamond Field again, and kept it going success- 
 fully. After his death his sons, Messrs. George and Henry 
 Vickers, moved with the crowd to the dry diggings and The Field 
 had a long lease of life iu Kimberley. I may mention that in 
 the hands of Mr. Vickers, senior, at Klipdrift, it became the 
 Government organ. It passed into a good many hands during 
 its existence and came into mine again at last, but as I became 
 the editor of The Diamond News and had my hands full of other 
 work The Field had a natural and peaceful end at last. 
 
 Mr. Glanville and his men found when they had The News on 
 Pniel Hill that getting a little paper out but once a week left 
 them with a lot of unprofitable time on their hands, and so they 
 carried out the arrangements entered into when they left
 
 149 
 
 Graham's Town, and started diamond digging. After some 
 months Mr. Glanville left the Fields and was succeeded by Mr. 
 Webb, who now resides at East London, and Mr. Webb, seeing 
 the River Diggings and population becoming " small by degrees 
 and beautifully less," struck his tent. I then joined The 
 Diamond News staff and we moved on to Du Toit's Pan, with 
 workmen and plant, re-pitched our tent close by Market Square 
 in that embryo township, and extended the paper and increased 
 the issues, for people came crowding in from all directions and 
 everybody wanted papers, and did not hesitate to buy them at 
 sixpence per paper. Bultfontein, De Beers, and Colesberg Kopje 
 (now the Kimberley Mine) sprung up like mushrooms. The 
 printing press was kept going as hard as it could be made to go r 
 and yet the supply could not be kept up to the demand. The 
 Colesberg Kopje Camp outstripped all the other camps and the 
 people there had to be supplied with papers too. This could 
 not be done effectually from Du Toit's Pan, so the plant was 
 moved up, and Mr. Attwell, who had come up as manager, shewed 
 himself to be a man of great administrative ability, and he left 
 me to get out the paper whilst he looked after the business. 
 The advertisements came in fast and furious, and it became 
 necessary to publish two sheets regularly and sometimes three,, 
 and the result financially was that whilst Mr. Attwell and myself 
 had the paper in our hands 14,000 of profits were remitted to- 
 Messrs Godlouton & Co.
 
 KEMINISCENCE. 
 
 No. XXII. 
 
 STRANGE CASE OP MISTAKEN IDENTITY THE PARSON SWEARS 
 
 AND THE MAGISTRATE BELIEVES HIM WRONGFUL 
 
 IMPRISONMENT OF A BRIDE-ELECT BISHOP WEBB 
 
 COMES TO THE RESCUE BRIDE BECOMES A WIFE AND 
 
 IS HAPPY EVER AFTER MAGISTRATE'S WIFE ARMS AND 
 
 HUNTS LAW COURT MATTERS ATTEMPT TO SET UP 
 JANTJE AS PARAMOUNT CHIEF. 
 
 REMINISCENCES of the old days of the Diamond Fields, aloiie, 
 would fill a good-sized volume, if they were all compiled, and 
 these would no doubt be of greater interest to my present 
 immediate surroundings than those which relate to my earlier 
 life in South Africa. At any rate I so infer, from the con- 
 stantly-recurring enquiries as to when something more may be 
 expected regarding them. From the time when I first crossed 
 the Vaal, to the date of Sir Charles Warren's departure, life iu 
 the Diamond Fields was exciting, strange and eventful ; and 
 from Mr. John Campbell's installation in office as Magistrate, 
 to the elevation of Mr. R. H. Giddy from the Bench to the 
 Treasurer-Generalship, the principles of the law, as adminis- 
 tered, varied so much that it was sometimes difficult for a man 
 to know how to act with a certainty that he was doing Avhat 
 was lawful and right. 
 
 And the worst part of it all was that we had no Court of 
 Appeal, so that suitors and criminals were completely at the 
 mercy of the Magistrate, wherever he may be. 
 
 There is one case that recurs to my memory as one of the 
 strangest I ever remember to have heard of anywhere. It was 
 * case of mistaken identity, malicious perjury, false imprison- 
 ment, and clerical and majesterial obstinacy combined.
 
 151 
 
 A youug woman, the daughter of an eating-house keeper 
 of Barkly, was about to be married to a young man who lodged 
 in her mother's house. During the time the banns were being 
 called in church, another young man who had previously been 
 courting her and who had brought her to grief, turned up and 
 declared her to have been married to him some months before. 
 He went to the Magistrate, detailed all the circumstances of 
 the marriage, and called in corroboration of his statement the 
 clergyman who, he alleged, had performed the ceremony. The 
 clergyman, the Rev. Mr. Robinson, confirmed the statement 
 .upon oath, swore that he could not be mistaken ; that he had 
 known the girl for a long time previous to the marriage fix- 
 ing the time and place. 
 
 The girl denied this, but the Magistrate refused to believe 
 her, and he had her arrested and placed her in prison. Both 
 iier father and mother said it was not and could not have been 
 her, as the girl was not out of their sight at the time the man 
 who made the charge and the clergyman fixed as that on which 
 the ceremony took place. Mr. Attorney Arbuoin, who was 
 engaged by the man who claimed the girl as his wife, opposed 
 the girl being allowed her liberty, as be contended that she 
 was about to commit bigamy. 
 
 I was in Kimberley at the time of the arrest, but when I 
 returned, the girl's parents came to me and, as I was practising 
 in the Court, put the case in my hands. I heard the girl's 
 story and what her father and mother had to say, as well as the 
 statement of a woman who was ironing with the girl and her 
 mother the whole day on which it was shown that the marriage 
 .took place, and was myself convinced that there had been no 
 such marriage. I learnt, too, that the would-be husband had 
 sworn that if the girl would not have him, she should never 
 have any other husband. 
 
 1 claimed the girl's release, but claimed in vain. It was 
 useless to contend that even if all that was sworn to was true, 
 the girl had committed no crime, and that it would be open to 
 the man pursuing her to forbid the banns (not then called a 
 third time), and then it would be for the clergyman to look the 
 matter up and refuse to marry the couple if he found 
 " just cause and impediment." Mr. Campbell would listen 
 .to nothing. Week after week that girl was kept locked up in 
 prison.
 
 152 
 
 The story of the parents and the girl tallied exactly. The 1 
 girl had been courted by the man now prosecuting, but her 
 parents disapproved of him from the first, and more so when 
 they knew the position in which the girl stood through his- 
 seduction. The girl would not give him up for some time, but 
 one evening when she met him he had so abused and vilified 
 her father and mother, that she told him that she would have 
 nothing to do with him. He then drew a knife and swore he 
 would have her life if she did not consent. She ran away from 
 him and never saw him after. 
 
 I then told Mr. Campbell that T would represent the case to- 
 His Excellency the Governor Sir Henry Barkly and there- 
 upon he released her with a strong intimation that if she 
 attempted to get married he would arrest and imprison her 
 again. 
 
 Happily Bishop Webb and the Rev. Mr. Doxett paid Kim- 
 berley a visit just at this juncture, and I laid the case before 
 his lordship, and I am bound to say that Bishop Webb acted' 
 like a true man and worthy his position. He first asked me how 
 I could get over the fact as sworn to by the Rev. Mr. Robertson*- 
 who was positive that he had married the girl to the man as the 
 rev. gentleman described. I said he bad better see the girl her- 
 self in the presence of Mr. Doxett and hear what she had to say. 
 His lordship did so, with the result, as he said to me, that he 
 was quite convinced that the girl had not been married, that 
 what she and her parents said was true, and he instructed the 
 clergyman I think it was the Rev. Mr. Stenson to perform 
 the ceremony, which he did. I gave Mr. Campbell notice that 
 the marriage was to take place, but neither he nor the pretended 
 husband turned up at church. I then tried to get the pretended 
 husband arrested on a charge of perjury, but he had sloped. 
 
 I heard nothing'more of this case for months, but about six 
 months after a butcher at Klipdrift, named Wegner, had lost some 
 oxen and went out in search of them. Some miles from the 
 town, and in the veldt, became up wilh a boy herding sheep, 
 whom he recognised, and said to him. " Why, you are the boy 
 who was in the tent " (it was a canteen) " when mentioning the 
 man's name (which 1 forget) "married Miller's daughter." 
 " No," said the boy, "it was not Miller's daughter." It was the 
 blacksmith's girl the blacksmith who lives this side of the 
 luit."
 
 153 
 
 " Tell us all about it," said Wegner. The boy's relation was 
 this. The man and the blacksmith's daughter came to the 
 canteen, the girl wearing a " cappie " that almost hid her face. 
 When the two came first the boy saw her face quite plain. 
 " Then the old man that preaches, he that preaches and always 
 dresses in black, and wears a felt hat, came, and brought a bag 
 with him. When he came he walked up to the counter the 
 bar and put his bag on the counter and said to the man, 'Where's 
 the sovereign? ' The man gave him the sovereign, and he read 
 something, and the man put something on the girl's hand, and 
 the parson told them that they were married. There were 
 nobody there besides the man, woman, and parson, except the 
 canteen-keeper and me. Then they all, parson and all, had. 
 drinks round. That's how it was." 
 
 When I heard this, I went to the blacksmith, and saw the 
 daughter in her father's presence, and taxed her with it. She 
 at first denied, but afterwards admitted it to be the fact as- 
 the boy had stated. She said that the man told her to wear the 
 wing bonnet to hide her face, as he did not want her father to- 
 know they were married just yet. She had not told her parents 
 of her marriage up to the time I charged her with it. Her father,- 
 I am sorry to add, turned her out of doors for having permitted 
 the other girl to be imprisoned when she knew her to be 
 innocent. What became of her at last I do not know. 
 
 There is no doubt that the parson believed that it was Mr. 
 Miller's daughter that he married, but his belief was alone 
 founded on what the fellow he married told him. I was never 
 able to discover that any banns were published and I am sure 
 there was no marriage licence. As far as my recollection goes 
 it was the last marriage service the rev. gentleman performed, 
 and I know that he afterwards had no place in the church whilst 
 Bishop Webb was in the diocese. 
 
 They were lively times in Klipdrift just then. The 
 Magistrate's wife on the Klipdrift side was going the rounds 
 of the camp with a loaded revolver in her pocket to shoot any- 
 one whom she considered offensive, and his worship her husband, 
 who sat in robes on the bench, went for knocking men down 
 with his fist as a preliminary to having them locked up. The- 
 Free State held possession of the Puiel side of the River, and 
 the British Government the Klipdrift district, and the Trans- 
 vaal Government held the Hebron district, and that, too, long;
 
 154 
 
 ^after by the Keate award it bad been decided that the whole of 
 Klipdrift side of the River was British rightly, derived from 
 Waterboer. President Brand from the very starting of the 
 Diamond Fields held that the Transvaal had no claim to any of 
 the land on that side of the River. He disputed only Water- 
 boer's claim to land on the Pniel side. The Berlin mis- 
 sionaries were the rival claimants with the Free State for land 
 sites on the Pniel side ; and, according to them, the whole coun- 
 try from the Halfway House to Cawood's Hope was all theirs ; 
 and indeed, as far as possession went, it was. They endea- 
 voured to collect land rents, from the man who started the way- 
 side inn there, and from Mr. James Strong when he built the 
 wayside house at the Bend, and claim licences from the Pniel 
 diggers threatening to drive them off if they did not pay 
 and, more that, if they did not hand them over a large 
 amount of royalty on all the diamonds they found. At first 
 a few of the Pniel diggers did pay claim rents to them, but that 
 did not last long. The diggers soon flatly refused to pay them 
 anything. The owners of the wayside houses never paid a penny 
 piece that I could discover. They always disputed the claims 
 of the missionaries, who were much enraged thereat. The 
 missionaries got nothing by their harassing. 
 
 They had certainly built up by means of native labour which 
 they had pressed into their service a very nice little mission 
 station, had built a very comfortable little church and snug 
 quarters for themselves. The natives, chiefly Korannas when 1 
 saw them, worked the surrounding lands for the benefit of the 
 mission. But the working of the land was done in a very 
 primitive fashion, and it would have taken many a century for 
 them to have reached anything like civilization but for the 
 discovery of diamonds. 
 
 The Pniel lands are British, and there is every proba- 
 bility diamond digging there will be resumed some day. There 
 is an impression that the lands are not half worked out, but 
 for myself I do not think that the estimate rests upon any 
 very tangible grounds. 
 
 The wisdom of Sir Henry Barkly in moving the seat of 
 Government from Barkly to Kimberley must have been years 
 ago 1 was going to say apparent to the Imperial Government, 
 but nothing relating to South African affairs is very apparent to 
 the Government of England. Home Ministers know less about
 
 155 
 
 'Colonists and Colonial matters than about any thing with which 
 the nation has any concern. It is sufficiently apparent, however, 
 to the people of the Diamond Fields that Sir Henry Barkly was 
 wise in exciting the influence that was brought to bear upon 
 him by those interested in Barkly to fix the seat of Government 
 there. The High Court, as old Diamond Fielders will remember, 
 was first constituted in Barkly. It was a one-judge Court, but 
 like all one-horse institutions could not maintain a satisfactory 
 existence for many years. But it was at Barkly some of our 
 first successful members of the Bar and Side Bar made their 
 debut. It was there that Sir Sidney Shippard, now the 
 Administrator of British Bechuaualand, first practised, so did the 
 lamented Mr. Advocate Thompson, and Mr. Advocate Halkett, 
 who afterwards had extensive leading practice at the High 
 Court Bar. The late Mr. Arbouin, Mr. H. Haarhoff, Mr. 
 Sydney Carlyle and Mr. Edington, and all of whom I believe are 
 dead, were the earliest members of the Side Bar who practised 
 at Klipdrift they all practised on both sides of the river. There 
 was no attempt on the part of the Free State or on the part of 
 the Pniel Magistrate to shut out English legal practitioners 
 from that Court. 
 
 There was an endeavour on the part of such diggers as were 
 disinclined towards British rule to set up Jantje as the Chief 
 who owned the land in opposition to Waterboer, and that Chief 
 met with some encouragement from the elder Moffat. Not 
 that Mr. Moffat was by any means opposed to British rule. 
 On the contrary he was British to the backbone, but he recol- 
 lected that when he came to the Vaal it was Jantje who gave 
 his party leave to cross and settle down on the Klipdrift side 
 of the river. Waterboer, however, proved to the satisfaction 
 of the British Government that he was the Paramount Chief, 
 having succeeded his father, Nicolas Waterboer, a chief possess- 
 ing vast natural gifts and a great favourite of the British 
 
 Government. He carried a staff of office, conferred on him 
 by the Crown, in proof that he was an ally of the British. 
 I have seen the staff often. It was of ebony, with a massive 
 silver head to it mpre like a Parliamentary Mace than a 
 staff. Nicolas Waterboer was a very gifted orator, I have 
 heard ( in English, as well as in Dutch and Griqua), and the 
 military people were very fond of getting him down to the 
 
 Colony and entertaining him at dinner] for the purpose of
 
 156 
 
 bearing him make after-dinner speeches. I have read, in a 
 magazine published during that period, accounts of Nicolas 
 Waterboer's excellence as a preacher, as well as public speaker. 
 He sent his eldest son to the South African College, where 
 he was educated he was the Waterboer who handed over his 
 people and lands to the British Government. There is no 
 doubt that he inherited his loyalty to the English from his 
 father. Like most loyal people, he was not a very great gainer 
 from being loyal. It would have been better for him and his 
 agent, Mr. David Arnot, if they had kept possession of Griqua- 
 land West in their own hands, if they could have done so. 
 Whatever it was for themselves, it was a lucky thing for the 
 diggers that they acted as they did, or the Fields would not 
 have been so well and peaceably settled. It was that bit of 
 bunting called the Flag 
 
 " The Flag that waves o'er every sea, 
 
 No matter when or where; 
 And to treat that flag 1 as oiight but the free 
 
 Is more than the strongest dare."
 
 REMINISCENCE. 
 
 No. XXIII. 
 
 MR. AND MRS. ROGERS AND MR. JENKINS AN ODD STORY FROJ 
 
 REAL LTFE ; GIVEN AWAY BY HER HUSBAND THE 
 
 UNGER CASE AT KLIPDRIFT THE FIRST BANK ON THE 
 DIAMOND FIELDS. 
 
 MISTER and Mistress Rogers and Mister Jenkins were famous 
 people in the Diamond Fields in the very early days of the 
 River Diggings, and were known to fame long after the Coles- 
 berg Kopje had become the great attraction, and also when the 
 Newton Kafir eating-house attracted the hungry native, and had 
 become the place of business of the unlicensed dealer in 
 purloined gems. 
 
 The paternal head of the house of Rogers had been a school- 
 master and hedge carpenter at Papendorp, Cape Colony, but 
 had left quill and nail driving in the Western Province with 
 the early crowd who came to seek fortunes on the banks of the 
 Vaal. He came alone at first, and when he saw his way and 
 could muster the money, he sent for his wife and little daugh- 
 ter, who followed him and settled down with him for a few weeks 
 in a tent at Klipdrift Rogers doing odd jobs and his wife 
 taking in washing and ironing, which was what the diggers 
 called " good bis " in those days. 
 
 After about a month of connubial felicity on the margin of 
 the Vaal on the Klipdrift side, Rogers came bellowing like a 
 bull, with the tears streaming down his pallid cheeks, to com- 
 plain that his wife had gone away and left him left him with 
 Mister Jenkins, and all because Jenkins had a bigger tent than 
 he had, and " it is'nt the first tima neither."
 
 158 
 
 The advice he got was "let her go." A wife that runs 
 away twice from her husband is not worth running after, 
 " Oh ! but Mister Murray, I loves her like I loves me own 
 mother," sobbed the disconsolate, deserted hubby. 
 
 After a while, Rogers got a bit more pacified, being aided 
 greatly by good advice and a nip of dop. 
 
 Some days after this, I had gone with my correspondence 
 to the Pniel Post Office and returning ran across Mistress 
 Rogers working away at her wash-tub on the top of Pniel 
 Hill, and warbling away over the tub as she washed, giving a 
 melodious rendering to a popular ditty. Accosting her, I said,. 
 " Why, Mrs. Rogers, what brings you on this side of the 
 river ? " 
 
 " Oh, Mr. Murray, I baint Missus Rogers any more. I be 
 Missus Jenkins now. I'd had enough of Rogers." 
 
 " But," said I, " you are Rogers' wife, married to him, I 
 know, and then you have a little daughter, and if for no one 
 else's sake, for her's you ought not to be on this side of the 
 river. Go hack like a good woman to your husband and' 
 child." 
 
 " I shan't go back yet, not that I don't love Rogers I don't 
 say that. But Jenkins is very good to me. I don't know 
 which I loves the most Jenkins or Rogers. Some day I shall 
 get tired of Jenkins, and then I may go back to Rogers 
 again." 
 
 This declaration of free love was rather too much 
 for me, and seeing it useless talking to her, I made off,, 
 saw Rogers on my return to Klipdrift, and told him 
 that I had seen his wife. Rogers and his little daughter 
 lived on for about six months by themselves, but no Mrs. 
 Rogers made her appearance during that time. 
 
 At the end of about six months we were all in church, and 
 as the Rev. Mr. Sadlier commenced reading " When the wicked' 
 man turneth away from his wickedness," the Rogers family 
 turned up Mrs. Rogers in a wide-brimmed straw hat, gay with- 
 flowers and ribbons, leaning on her husband's arm, in the hand of 
 that arm a big book of common prayer carefully resting upon a 
 well-folded white handkerchief, and her other hand leading the 
 little girl she had left behind her when she flitted from Rogers 
 to Jenkins. She joined in the service like a saint, distinguished 
 herself in the responses, and the voice I heard chirruping a
 
 159 
 
 popular ditty at Pniel was distinct and clear as the warble of a 
 lark in the psalmody of the service. 
 
 Meeting Rogers next day I told him that I was glad to see 
 he had his wife back again, and he, with a happy glow on his 
 face, said : " Yes, Mister Murray, and we be as happy as turtle- 
 doves." 
 
 A few more months elapsed and I came down to Kimberley 
 to report a case of attempting to rob the post cart which was to 
 be heard before Judge Barry in the Mutual Hall, then standing 
 where the Post Office has since been erected. My watch being 
 fast, I arrived at the Hall before the doors were open. Standing 
 near I heard someone calling "Mister Murray," and on looking 
 round saw my old friend Mrs. Rogers, and nodding to her, was 
 asked, " How be all the folks up to Kimberley ?" I answered 
 that I had not asked all of them, but those I saw before I left 
 were looking very well. She invited me to come across and 
 see her place of business, and I went. She had a fine marquee 
 well stocked with all kinds of liquors, and wa? licensed to sell. 
 She told me that the stock was all paid for, and that she had a 
 balance of 80 in the bank. I naturally said I was very glad 
 lo hear they were getting on, and enquired after Rogers. 
 
 " I baint Mrs. Rogers no more, I be Mrs. Jenkins, now," she 
 said, and then she explained lhat she and Rogers could not get 
 on together " We be both fond of a drop," she frankly admitted, 
 " and when we got so-so Rogers raised the very devil. Jenkins 
 came along, was good and fond to me, and he asked me to be 
 his wife. I told Rogers, and he said, ' Well, old woman, you 
 know best.' I said, ' whether you persecute me for bigermy or 
 whether you don't, I'm going to get married to Jenkins.' 
 Rogers never offered a bit of objection, and so we had our banns 
 called at Dutoitspan. Mr. Doxit married us, and Rogers gived 
 me away." 
 
 I thought this as fine a state of things as I had ever heard 
 of in the way of a wedding. Here was a married woman, 
 married a second time in the English Church, not only whilst 
 her husband was still alive, but he was present at the wedding 
 and gave his wife, the bride, away ! 
 
 " What became ofjRogers ? " I asked, and she answered, " Oh,. 
 Jenkins didn't serve Rogers bad. He gived 'en a tent to sleep 
 in out behind ours, and gived 'en work at los. a day ; but, lor 
 bless you, Rogers didn't work long ; he drinked and drinked
 
 160 
 
 from morning to night, was always too far in liquor to work, 
 and he corned to me one day, and says he, ' Old woman, I shan't 
 ever do any good in Kimberley,' and I said, ' No, nor anywhere 
 else,' hut he said he should go to Port Elizabeth and try what 
 he could do there, and he asked me what I would give 'en 
 to go away with to live upon on the road, for he had to 
 walk all the way. So I got a basket and packed 'en in half 
 a ham, a good piece of salt beef, some bread, some pickles, four 
 bottles of Bass I didn't want to give 'en too much for fear he 
 might get drunk ou the road and come to injury, so I only put 
 in besides the beer, one bottle of brandy and one flask of gin. 
 This I gived 'en. Then he said, ' Won't you give me a little 
 money to spend till I gets to where I can get something warm.' 
 So I gived 'en a sovereign, and he puts the basket on his 
 shoulder, and went away as happy as a lamb." 
 
 " Well," I said, " did he get there all right." " Couldn't 
 tell 'ee, for I never heard from him nor of him from that blessed 
 hour to this." 
 
 Nor have I found from that time to this what became of 
 Rogers, but I have heard of Jenkins since. When the daughter 
 grew up to womanhood she married a mechanic, a steady, indus- 
 trious fellow, and one day when I was practising in court at 
 Kimberley, she and her husband came to my office to take pro- 
 ceedings against Jenkins, who they said had " hammered " her 
 mother nearly to death and smashed all her furniture she had 
 been maintaining him by keeping a Kafir eating house. 
 
 I called at the house, at Newton, at the request of the 
 daughter, and there I saw the woman, who once had love enough 
 to divide between Rogers and Jenkins, with a pair of black eyes^ 
 a cut lip, and a swollen cheek, standing in the midst of a 
 wrecked cooking stove, pots, pans, kettles and what she called 
 the " shords " of her crockery. Jenkins had evidently not gone 
 away " quiet as a lamb " as Rogers did. 
 
 I do not give this as a sample of life in the early days of the 
 Diamond Fields far from it. It would not be a fair sample of 
 " life " anywhere, but I think it may be regarded, taken alto- 
 gether, as one of the most extraordinary episodes that were 
 heard of in that period of strong lights and shades, known as 
 *' the early days." 
 
 Whilst Mr. G-ilfillan was sitting as Magistrate of Klipdrift 
 one of the most important cases was heard the most important,
 
 161 
 
 indeed, and involving the largest amount of money ever decided 
 in any Magistrate's Court either in South Africa or anywhere 
 else. He was Judge, Magistrate, and Jury all in one. In 
 civil cases, it did not matter what the sum, the Magistrate was 
 competent to take it in hand. If it was a divorce, or seduction, 
 or land dispute, or a case of bigamy all was fish that came into 
 the Magesterial net. 
 
 The important case above alluded to was one in which Mr. 
 Grant, a Scotch lawyer well known in the Free State, and a 
 man notable for his great literary gifts, and having a profound 
 knowledge of the law, appeared for the plaintiff, and Mr. 
 Edgington, a very able lawyer too, appeared for the defendant. 
 As I had fifty guineas for reporting the case I remember it well. 
 Mr. Lowenthal was plaintiff and Mr. Unger, the well-known 
 diamond buyer, the defendant. The plaintiff represented large 
 capitalists in Scotland, and the case against Mr. Unger was that 
 he had left Scotland whilst his affairs were in the hands of the 
 Bankruptcy Court and when it was unlawful for him to leave 
 the country the amount involved was many thousands of 
 pounds, it was revealed during the hearing of the case that 
 the plaintiff, who was proceeding under a power given him by a 
 Scotch banking company as principal creditor, when he first 
 came out from Scotland had ascertained that Unger was in the 
 Diamond Fields, and on landing recognised him. Lowenthal 
 then returned to Scotland and obtained the power of the credi- 
 tors to proceed, with which power he came back, paid Unger a 
 visit at his own house and had a talk with him. Lowenthal 
 recognized Unger and was invited to the latter's residence, where 
 he spent an evening hobnobbing with him. Unger had no 
 recollection of Lowenthal, and given as he was to boasting, 
 bragged a good deal about the money he had made as diamond 
 buyer in Klipdrift. Lowenthal, armed with power of attorney 
 to take action, obtained a warrant of arrest and had Unger in 
 custody, who was admitted to bail in a very large amount. The 
 case lasted over a very long time and the lawyers made a fine 
 thing of it, the Court being crowded every day, and the lawyers 
 fought like tigers, flinging all kinds of epithets at each other's 
 ieads, but as hard words break no bones, the gladiators of the 
 Jaw were not much injured in person but greatly enriched in 
 purse, for Mr. Unger had to pay, and pay handsomely, to escape 
 from the clutches of the law, or he would have had to re-crosi 
 M
 
 162 
 
 the herring pond to Scotland, which he was not quite in such a> 
 hurry to re-visit as he was to leave. 
 
 I presume that Unger made more money out of diamond' 
 transactions than any man who has ever settled on the Diamond 
 Fields in his line. He was a roughish diamond himself, but he 
 krew how to make money. He did one of the coolest things 
 with the Manager of the Standard Bank that ever I beard of. 
 Mr. Cole was the Manager of the Bank, and Unger got him to 
 appoint him valuator of diamonds which were offered to the 
 Bank as securities for advances. Mr. Cole agreed that he 
 would only take diamonds as securities against advances on 
 Unger's valuation, the Bank to pay a percentage commission on- 
 every valuation. When Mr. John Harsant succeeded Mr. Cole 
 as Manager be found the Bank had been advancing until the 
 stock of diamonds on hand had become a millstone hanging 
 about the neck of the institution. What else was to be expected 
 under such an arrangement ? Unger was a buyer and he had 1 
 the chance of buying all the best diamonds himself, and then as 
 the higher the valuation of the stones valued for the Bank the 
 more he got, of course he did not undervalue. When the 
 arrangement was brought to the knowledge of the Manager-in- 
 Chief, the late Mr. Robert Stewart, his hair stood on end, " like 
 quills upon the fretful porcupine," and I believe the diamond 
 arrangement with Unger was one of the reasons why Mr. 
 Harsant was hurried up. At that time the Standard Bank had 
 but one Branch (the Klipdrift) in the Diamond Fields. The 
 building was of wood, sent up from Port Elizabeth, and the 
 whole of its interior accommodation did not measure more than 
 the Manager's office of the Kimberley Branch to-day. Small as 
 it was, Mr. Harsant did a fine business in it for the Bark, but 
 as soon as a stone building could be run up, Mr. James Strong 
 built a fine, solid, commodious edifice, and the Bank moved into 
 it. The building is in the middle of the Main Street, and there 
 it is still, a standing monument commemorating the glories of 
 the palmy days of the River Diggings glories never more to- 
 be revived on this side of the wreck of worlds.
 
 KEMINISCENCE. 
 
 No. XXIV. 
 
 THE INDIAN REMOUNT AGENCY A FINE HAUL FOR CAPE 
 HORSE-BREEDERS 400,000 DIVIDED AMONGST HORSE- 
 BREEDERS AND FORAGE-GROWERS MEN OF MARK 
 
 BATLET, REITZ, BLAKE, JOUBERT, FOULKES, CHARLES 
 BATLEY COX, GEORGE HULL, VEALE, VIGNE, WESCOTT 
 MORRIS, {DUNCAN MACFARLANE, GEORGE CHAPMAN AND 
 J. C. BOURH1LL. 
 
 IN all my remembrances there is nothing more vivid than the 
 establishment at the Cape of the Remount Agency and the way 
 in which it was worked by Colonel Apperly, who had charge of 
 that agency. Possibly, most probably, the cause of my 
 remembering all about it so well is to be attributed to the vast 
 benefit it was to the Cape at a critical period in Cape history, 
 and that the Colonel himself was such a remarkable man, as 
 indeed he was a man of ten thousand. 
 
 The occasion out of which the establishment of the Remount 
 Agency arose was the great lack of suitable horses in India for 
 military purposes horses which could stand the climate of 
 India. The Cape horse, although a small and by no means so 
 showy an animal as the Australian horse, has always been cele- 
 brated for his great physical endurance, for his immense staying 
 power, for the soundness of his constitution, and his capacity for 
 thriving upon mean and scanty fare. This is just the sort of 
 horse required for the use of Her Majesty's troops in that 
 country. And so when in about 1858 India was badly in want 
 of a supply of horseflesh it was decided in England to get that 
 supply from the Cape of Good Hope, to establish a Remount 
 Agency with its headquarters in Cape Town, and to appoint 
 
 M i'
 
 164 
 
 Colonel Apperly as Remount Agent, giving him Colonel Gould 
 for his lieutenant and Mr. Rogers, V.C., as veterinary surgeon. 
 It was not the first time Colonel Apperly had filled such a 
 position, for he was head of the Stud Department of India when 
 Lord Auckland was Governor-General and from whom the 
 Colonel had been recommended for appointment. That was 
 about 1837, and when in 1844 horses were wanted for the 
 Bengal Army, Colonel Apperly was appointed to get them from 
 Australia. After he had done with that mission, he went and 
 settled down in Monmouth, and it will delight the Rev. Mr. 
 Hughes and ex-Mayor Jones to know that Colonel Apperly was 
 a, Welshman a countryman of their own. I know that both of 
 them are proud of their country, as they ought to be. The 
 loyalty that has not a good infusion of national spirit, and even 
 a bit of national prejudice in it, is a mere carcase without a 
 soul. 
 
 It was the Indian Rebellion that recalled Colonel Apperly to 
 India for no sooner had he heard of the Mutiny than he placed 
 his services at the disposal of the authorities of the East India 
 House. Colonel Apperly was not the man to remain with his 
 sword sheathed when our Indian Empire was imperilled, but 
 the Indian authorities considered that Colonel Apperly could 
 be of more assistance in crushing out the Indian Mutiny than 
 anything he could do with his sword, and so they sent him to 
 the Cape to buy horses. His instructions were to send a 
 batch of 500 horses at once, and this he did. Before going 
 into the matter of what he did, I should have prefaced it by 
 saying that he was a man of magnificent physique clearing 
 his six feet without the help of his shoes, and with a chest 
 such as few men even of his height could boast. He was the 
 most even-tempered military man I ever met, and as fond of 
 fun and frolic as a boy. 
 
 His first batch of 500 horses were so thoroughly approved 
 of that the Indian authorities sent him a vote of thanks, with 
 instructions to go on buying as many horses of the same stamp 
 as the Cape could supply. The establishment of this Remount 
 Agency was another of the good turns Sir George Grey did 
 the Cape whilst he was our Governor. Sir George when he 
 
 * O 
 
 knew the state of affairs in India on the occurrence of the 
 Mutiny, wrote off to England telling them about the suitable- 
 ness of the Cape horse and informing them that the Capo
 
 165 
 
 could supply any number. Up to that time, the Indian autho- 
 rities had no idea that the Cape could supply 500 horses at 
 once in one batch, and so rapidly as they were selected 
 and transported. Sir George assured them that they could 
 have three thousand at once, and the Imperial Government 
 upon that said " Get them." Colonel Apperly whilst at the 
 Cape despatched to India between 6,000 and 7,000 horses at 
 an average of 30 per head, which gave to the horse-breeders 
 and owners of the Cape at least 200,000 ; in horses, forage, 
 and freight Colonel Apperly distributed whilst at the Cape 
 nearly 400,000. Four hundred thousand pounds poured into 
 the Cape was a windfall for the Colony, and for the Western 
 Province especially, where the chief part of the money wa& 
 spent. Is it any wonder then that those of us who lived iu 
 Cape Town at the time and had a good deal to do with the 
 Remount Agent and the Agency should have a vivid remem- 
 brance of it to-day ? I think not. Windfalls like this four 
 hundred thousand pounder are not every-day occurrences, 
 but only occur in the South African world once in a life- 
 time. 
 
 Something like 350,000 was spent amongst the Western 
 farmers alone for horses and forage. Many of them paid off 
 the mortgages on their properties, which had been in existence 
 from the days of their great grandfathers. Those of them 
 within anything like a measurable distance of a town bought 
 pianos, had their daughters taught to strum on them, sent their 
 children to boarding-schools, bought their wives new dresses, 
 jewellery, and hollow-work stockings, furnished their houses 
 a la mode, kept their carriage and entertained, but not one of 
 them invested in fresh blood or did anything to keep up the 
 supply of horses. African- like, having won a prize they laid 
 listlessly on their oars and warmed themselves in the sun, 
 never thinking how the Indian market was to be kept sup- 
 plied when Colonel Apperly had exhausted their stock. Had 
 they invested but a portion of the money which they got from 
 Colonel Apperly in breeding more stock of the same kind for 
 the Indian market, which was as good as a gold field, it would 
 have been open to us to this day. And then when Colonel 
 Apperly's back was turned for some little time and Colonel 
 Gould and Rogers were left to carry on the selecting for a month 
 or two, owners rushed in with inferior horses and got weeds and
 
 166 
 
 screws off tbeir hands, not caring one cobbler's cnrse about spoil- 
 ing the market. They knew that Gould and .Rogers were not 
 the judges of horses that Colonel Apperly was and were more 
 easy to be influenced. When Colonel Apperly returned and 
 saw the stock on hand, and knew that some of the same sort 
 of screws and weeds had been sent on to India he certainly 
 did lose his temper. Even a saint would have sworn under 
 the provocation, and he was not a saint, and never professed 
 to be one. He saw that, like Othello, his occupation was gone, 
 and that he would for some time be discredited. It did spoil 
 the market. India closed and sent to Australia for the next 
 supply. 
 
 Colonel Apperly left the Cape with the good wishes of 
 everyone. Whilst he was here he was entertained at a dinner, 
 given iu the Masonic Hotel, at which Sir George Grey, then 
 Governor of the Colony, was present, as His Excellency said 
 in his speech, to do honour and show gratitude to a gentleman 
 who had been the main instrument in the procuring of such 
 benefits to the Cape as His Excellency enumerated. And in 
 the course of his speech His Excellency reminded those present 
 that the forage-growers alone had pocketed fortunes out of 
 the Agency. 3,000,000 Ibs. of hay grown in the Cape district, 
 1,000,000 in the Graham's Town, and 102,000 in the Port 
 Elizabeth district more than 4,000,000 Ibs. in all of oathay. 
 
 The Apperlys for many generations had been a horsey family. 
 Colonel Apperly's father was at the head of the sporting 
 literary men of England in his time. He wrote under the name 
 of " Nimrod." Of course few now living remember much of 
 4t Nimrod's " writings, but they exhibited scholarship, wit, 
 humour, and fancy, and had a world-wide circulation wherever 
 there were sporting men of the first class " Nimrod's " writings 
 were looked for with fond anticipation, read with avidity, and 
 admired. 
 
 The Colonel's stories of sport in India were well worth 
 listening to. He had been during his service in the East in 
 at the death of three hundred royal tigers, and forty tigers fell 
 to his own gun, and one or two of his most memorable bags 
 that he used to tell of was one was thirty-eight brace of quails 
 within the twenty-four hours, and another day between sunrise 
 and sunset with gun and fishing rod his bag was one tiger, 
 three hog-deer, seven brace of snipe, two floriken, two hares,
 
 167 
 
 three and a half brace of black partridges, and of fish, nine trout 
 ; and five mackseer (Indian salmon), the largest mackseer 
 weighing forty pounds. 
 
 During Colonel Apperly's stay at the Cape he backed Mr. 
 T. B. Bayley's efforts to stimulate the farmers and to induce 
 them to improve the system of agriculture then in vogue. He 
 was one of the judges of horses at the Western Province 
 Agricultural Exhibition at Caledon, and no one who was at 
 the Caledon dinner on that day will forget how much of the 
 .conviviality of the evening was infused into the proceedings 
 by the gallant Colonel. He has been dead now for some years, 
 but he has a son in the army whose name ranks high in India. 
 
 Writing of Colonel Apperly at the Caledon Agricultural 
 Show has brought to my mind the faces of some old friends 
 who took part in that function, faces which are seen no more 
 but in dreams. There were some grand fellows in the com- 
 pany of Col. Apperly on that day men as unselfish as Grod 
 .makes men, full of energy, always ready to bestir themselves 
 to give a shove to any movement calculated to move the 
 country ahead in the direction of progress and prosperity. 
 First and foremost I think of, with sincere regret that I cannot 
 see him now, the Hon. Frank Reitz, M.L.C., of Swellendana. A 
 sweeter-tempered and more affable man never breathed the free 
 air of South Africa than that same Mr. Frank Reitz, the father 
 of President Reitz, of the Free State. He was a fanner, a 
 scholar, and a gentleman, and a far better scholar than farmer. 
 His reading was very extensive, and he was a man of broad and 
 .liberal views on all matters in religion as well as in politics- 
 and one alike respected by opponents as by partisans. It was 
 ^impossible for anyone to quarrel with him, for he hadn't a 
 quarrel in him, no matter how much he might be provoked. 
 He was a most upright man in all things. He always appeared 
 to me to be of the German school of thinkers a marvellous 
 theorist. It was always my impression that he mistook his 
 vocation when he took to farming. He understood every system 
 of agriculture in vogue in the whole wide world, and would have 
 .made a splendid Minister of Agriculture, but in working out his 
 own theories he certainly was not a success. He had a good 
 many fads at farming, and a farmer with fads is not usually 
 very successful. His views generally about fine-woolled sheep 
 were all right, but he insisted that the best of fine-woolled sheep
 
 168 
 
 for the farmer was the Saxony breed a splendid breed for 
 crossing with ; but the Cape farmer, who breeds pure Saxony 
 flocks, and nothing else, will never have a very large balance in' 
 the bank I don't care where his farm is. Mr. Frank Reitz,. 
 notwithstanding his persistence with the Saxony breed, was no' 
 exception to the rule. He and I had many an argument on the 
 subject, and always with the same result. No man was more 
 respected in the district in which he lived a district that 
 always returned him as its Parliamentary representative in the 
 Legislative Council. He had never occasion to go outside of 
 his own neighbourhood to look for a seat. He was as much re- 
 spected by the Council as he was by his constituents, who were 
 proud of him, and not without reason. His love of liberty, political 
 and religious, was not narrowed by party or any other consider- 
 ations, and he stood as well with his Eastern contemporaries in 
 Council as with his Western contemporaries. In his after life he 
 held office in the Council, was the predecessor of Mr. Matthew 
 Blake, the Black Rod of the present day. His death was deeply 
 regretted, and his name is never referred to without reverential 
 regard. 
 
 Another face that comes back with the memory of the Cale- 
 don gathering is Mr. Frank Reitz's son-in-la\v, Mr. John Jouliert,. 
 of Jacjkalsfontein, the father of Mr. Advocate Joubert, who is 
 practising at the Bar of the Supreme Court, and Parliamentary 
 draftsman. Mr. John Joubert was eminently a practical man f 
 and a farmer of the first rank. Both father-in-law and son-in- 
 law were exhibitors of stock, and Mr. Joubert took prizes, but I 
 forget whether Mr. Reitz was or was not a prize taker. I 
 rather think he was. Mr. Joubert was a manly man in all 
 things, it was by an act of manliness he met with his death. 
 He was drowned in an attempt to save a child from drowning 
 an act which itself speaks more distinctly than any words can 
 do of the character of the man. Next comes Mr. Stephen 
 Foulkes, of Duinefontein, who sent us from a distance of seventy 
 miles the hurdles for the Exhibition enclosures a better contri- 
 bution under the circumstances than if he had sent us MS many 
 guineas as hurdles. We had some fine fellows in that neigh- 
 bourhood in those days not a few of them representatives of 
 some of the first families in England. Stephen Foulkes was 
 one. He belonged to a West of England family whose resi- 
 dence for many years, when we were boys together, was
 
 169 
 
 between the pleasant and picturesque village of Dawlish and 1 
 the oyster-beds of Starcross. Mr. Stephen Foulkes WHS brother 
 to the late Mr. Foulkes of the Civil Service, who was at 
 Humausdorp in Charles Bayley Cox's time. Stephen Foulkes 
 is alive still a coffee-planter in Ceylon and when Mr. George 
 Hull, of Gladstone, last heard from our old Diamond Fields 
 friend Mr. Dick Lawder, Mr. Foulkes' coffee plantations were 
 doing well. Western Province people will know that Duine- 
 fontein Mr. Foulkes' farm is near Point Danger, where the 
 ill-fated Birkenhead was lost. The farm is now owned by 
 Mr. Henry Veale, who was a contributor to the Caledon Exhi- 
 bition. Then a neighbour of Mr. Veale's comes in view Mr. 
 Westcott Morris, of " Goedvertrouw," not far from Foulkes', 
 one of the Caledon crowd, :i first-rate farmer and as good a 
 man as farmer. He is brother to Captain W. Morris who led 
 the 17th Lancers at the charge of the Light Brigade. Than 
 Westcott Morris there was not a more energetic farmer in the 
 Province. To speak of him as being specially hospitable 
 amongst the Caledon farmers of that time would be unfair to- 
 the rest. There was not an inhospitable farmer amongst the 
 whole lot of them. The only difficulty in the way of paying, 
 them a visit was the difficulty of getting away again. There 
 was bed and board for all-comers who were worthy of being 
 bedded and boarded, and all that the dairy, the pantry and the 
 cellar could supply, with a clean table cloth and a hearty wel- 
 come. Than Mr. Duncan Maci'arlane there was never many* 
 if any, better farmers on the South African continent. Duncan- 
 was a Scotchman and learnt to farm in his native land, than 
 which I know of no better land to learn farming in, but he, 
 although Scotch to the backbone, was a decent, God-fearing 
 body, but not " one o' the unco guid ye ken, and no so chary o' 
 his bawbees," as my old friend Col. Shaw was, whose dialect 
 was the broadest of broad Scotch and whose views were as 
 narrow as his hand was hard to open. 
 
 The largest sheep-owner, and I suppose the most wealthy 
 of the neighbourhood, was Mr. John van der Byl, of Fairfield ; 
 foremost, too, was he in promoting the success of the Exhibi- 
 tion. At the time of the Show his sheep exhibits were the 
 pick of a flock of 14,000 highly l>red animals. Mr. John van- 
 der Byl was the father of Mrs. Hopley, wife of Mr. Justice 
 Hopley. Fairfield, when I knew it, was one of the best
 
 170 
 
 managed farms in the Caledon district, and that is saying a good 
 deal in its favour, seeing that all its surrounding farms were 
 managed so well, and the homestead was always a picture of 
 order and neatness. There is another lady on the Diamond 
 Fields who was born and bred on a Caledon farm Mrs. George 
 Hull, of Gladstone, the daughter of the Hon H. J. Vigne, who 
 was one of the representatives of the Western Province in the 
 Legislative Council from the opening of the first parliament to 
 the day of his death. He was the first to start tree-growing 
 to any extent in the Caledon district, and his farm at River 
 Zonder End is now a forest. Mr. Vigne was an English 
 gentleman, true till death to bis nationality. There were so 
 oiany good fellows in the Caledon district that it would tax the 
 best of memories to remember them all, but it is impossible to 
 forget Mr. John Linde, of River Zonder End, who was told by the 
 Governor's wife Lady Smith at a Government House dinner 
 that he was one of the handsomest men she had ever seen, or to 
 forget his stepson, Mr. Antony Chiappini, or the welcome they 
 gave you when you dropped in upon them. Then there was 
 that fine fellow, Mr. George Chapman, who came out with dear 
 old Captain Rainier, a magisterial celebrity of the West. Any- 
 one going on Mr. Chapman's farm would say he was a born 
 farmer. He is one of the few still to the fore, full of years and 
 honours. All these men were helpers of Colonel Apperly at the 
 Exhibition. 1 have not mentioned the name of the late Mr. J. 
 C. Bourhill yet, because it is so short a time ago that I had the 
 painful duty of writing fully of the deceased gentleman in an 
 obituary notice, but as these Reminiscences are to re-appear in 
 a permanent form the name of the deceased gentleman must not 
 be omitted. I repeat in effect what I then wrote. He was a 
 large-headed and large-hearted man, loved by everyone, thinking 
 no evil of anyone, always ready with a helping hand, and as far 
 as the Exhibition function was concerned with which I have 
 been dealing, there would have been no success attending the 
 Exhibition bad he not have been the local Secretary and the 
 chief and the most earnest of its supporters.
 
 REMINISCENCE. 
 
 No. XXV. 
 
 FLOCKMA3TER3 AND DIAMOND DIGGERS, SHEEP-STEALERS AND 
 
 I.D.B.'S GOVERNMENT PROMISES THE KING WILLIAM'S 
 
 TOWN PARTY THE MACINTOSHES AND THE BARBERS 
 3,500 A MONTH CAPTAIN GORDON AND BILL SHINE 
 
 WAR DECLARED AGAINST THE CHIEF JANTJE O'REILLY 
 
 ARRESTED AND DISCHARGED. 
 
 IT is a question that is much discussed iu some localities in 
 the country as to which have been the greatest sufferer from 
 thieves, the stock farmer or the diamond miner. I should have 
 thought there was not a question about the matter, but I 
 happened to be staying at a farmhouse in the neighbourhood 
 of Worcester about a year ago, and whilst there heard the 
 question argued out between a claim-holder from the Diamond 
 Fields and a stock farmer living in the Worcester district. 
 According to the Worcester farmer the thieving of diamonds 
 in Kimberley was a very trifling affair and was costing the 
 Government in police more than it was worth, whilst the 
 farmers' stock was left to the mercy of black sheep-stealers, 
 who showed no mercy. The miner, on the other hand, thought 
 it hardly worth consideration as compared with diamonds, if 
 all the sheep in the country were stolen, "for," said he, " I've 
 seen one diamond worth more than a whole flock of sheep." 
 It was marvellous to watch and see how self-interest had 
 blinded these human, moles ; not that either of them would 
 have settled much by any process of reasoning, even if 
 there had been no self-interest at all in the matter. The 
 farmer's great point was that you cannot eat diamonds, and 
 that all of the Cape mankind would starve if there were nothing
 
 172 
 
 but diamonds in the country. The miner wanted to know if 
 the farmer thought that every man in the country could live 
 upon mutton. The farmer, prompt as a pop-gun, asked of course 
 what was better than mutton ? He had lived on it for a 
 whole twelve months together. " What ! No bread ; no pota- 
 toes ; no beans ; no mealies ; no cabbage ; no nothing but 
 mutton ?" asked the miner. Then the farmer lost his temper 
 and wanted to know he wanted to know he wanted to know 
 and this want told upon him so that he could no longer sit 
 still in his chair. He rose on his lego and swung his arms, 
 and wanted to know " Mister, if you think I'm a fool !" The 
 miner thought he must be, to say u man could live on mutton 
 alone. The farmer said he never used the word he said 
 nothing about " alone," and of course the miner " wanted to 
 know " whether the farmer considered him a fool. The 
 farmer said be must have been a fool to think that any man 
 (much less himself who knew what mutton was) should 
 have been fool enough to say that a man could live on 
 mutton alone, without even water to wash it down, or a bit of 
 bread, or a potato to make it relishable. How they settled it r 
 or whether it is settled yet is more than I can toll. As far as 
 I know they may be arguing the matter still, for when I left 
 them they were still at it and still both warming up to their 
 subject. 
 
 It was a fair illustration of how men feel when they move 
 round one narrow course all day long like a donkey in a pug 
 mill ; the little circle becomes all the world to such a man and 
 he, seeing nothing beyond it, deludes himself with the belief 
 that there is no beyond. 
 
 As it was with the farmer and miner so it is all round with 
 all trades, professions, callings and pursuits and this applies to 
 the masses as to the individual. The diamond miner thinks 
 that if everything goes right with diamonds everything will go 
 right, and that the duty of Government is to take care of him. 
 The shopkeeper is of opinion that the mining interest gets too 
 much out of Goveinment as it is, and that all Government cares 
 about is to rob Peter the shopkeeper to pay Paul the miner ; 
 the stock farmer blames Government for locusts, scab, sheep- 
 stealing and drought ; the wine farmer blames Government for 
 phylloxera and odium Tuckeri. If there was but half the 
 energy and thought devoted to the development of the industrial
 
 173 
 
 resources of the country there is to abuse of the Government, 
 and attempts to get Government to do for people what they 
 should do for themselves, this would soon be a glorious country 
 to live in. 
 
 But in compiling my Reminiscences as they occur to me, 
 I do get reminded of some proposals of Government which were 
 cheering when they were made, and inspired the people of the 
 Diamond Fields with hope that there was to be a good time 
 coming, when surplus labour would be a bit relieved, with the 
 result that more articles of consumption would be home-grown 
 and cheaper. I am not going to repeat the old hackneyd saying 
 that " Government promises are like piecrusts, made but to be 
 broken," because I believe that old saying, like many other old 
 sayings, is a popular delusion. I do believe that as a rule 
 Government promises are made with the best intentions, and 
 that breaches of the promises are the exception and not the rule. 
 .People are apt at forgetting the Government promises kept, 
 and the benefits derived from Government, whilst they never 
 fail to remember promises unfulfilled. No allowance is made 
 for change of Government, or change of circumstances, which 
 so frequently necessitate changes of policy. But there are 
 promises which might and ought to have been kept some 
 early policy regarding the Diamond Fields which my reminis- 
 cences bring to my mind that never should have been left 
 unfulfilled and uncompleted. Lieut.-Governor Southey, who 
 has always been intent upon the improvement of the land and 
 getting Colonists to grow more and import less, was, when in 
 office here, bent upon giving his views practical effect. He 
 promised that a large area of land, one in the vicinity of 
 Fourteen Steams and another I think down the river, capable of 
 being watered by irrigation from the Vaal River, should be so 
 irrigated, divided out conveniently and leased to capable 
 and industrious men, on conditions which compelled cultivation, 
 and he had gone some distance with the preliminaries when he 
 was recalled. After he went away nothing was done in that 
 direction his scheme was left unheeded, and nothing has been 
 done to this day towards carrying it out. Had the policy been 
 acted upon produce would have been in larger supply iu the 
 Kimberley market, and would have helped to bear the burthen of 
 railway charges, &c. The Lieut.-Governor's policy was to 
 ,make the mining and agricultural interests dove-tail with each
 
 174 
 
 other. But this seems to have been lost sight of, which it ought 
 not to have been. If this catches the eye of the Commissioner 
 of Public Works and leads to his acting upon it, it will repay 
 me for writing this Reminiscence, at least. 
 
 My reminiscences are not only bringing back to me the ghosts 
 of other days but some of the old friends in the flesh who helped 
 to bring about the events which I have recorded. A day or 
 two since, amongst others, I had a visit from Mr Gumming, who 
 is farming in the neighbourhood of the Modder River. He came 
 to tell me of the pleasure he had had in reading the Remini- 
 scences, and thus getting his recollection revived of the events 
 in which he had figured conspicuously and of old friends, some 
 of whom have left this worid for a better, as he hopes, and others 
 who have disappeared gone to heaven knows where, certainly 
 gone to a distance beyond his reach. Mr. Gumming was one of 
 the King William's Town, or Mackintosh party, who in 1 869 
 followed close upon the Natal Pioneers at the River Diggings. 
 That party was sent up from Kaffraria by the Barbers, Messrs. 
 Guy, Grey, and Hilton Barber, who have since been bright and 
 shining lights in the diamond and gold industries of South 
 Africa. The King William's Town party consisted of Messrs. 
 Alick, Guy, and Ronald Mackintosh, Gumming, Dick and 
 Johnson. The first mentioned five were Kaffrarians, Mr. 
 Johnson being a recent arrival from England. The party first* 
 commenced operations at Bultfontein, where there were a few 
 people scraping in the sand for the precious stones. Diamonds 
 bad been found there before that, and I think that I mentioned 1 
 in a previous article that the old couple who lived in the solitary 
 homestead on the top of the Bultfontein rise had some, unknow- 
 ingly to themselves, in the leather bag full of pretty stones they 
 had been collecting after downfalls of rain. The Kaffrarian,. 
 finding no diamonds, moved on to Hebron, where they met the 
 Natal party, amongst whom were Messrs Glennie and Rolleston 
 our old well-known Diamond Field friends, Paddy, of water- 
 cart celebrity. The Kaffrarians set to work, but after finding 
 one diamond., and no more turning up, they resolved upon going 
 further d own the river, where they established the famous King 
 William's Town Camp. They did well there. The very first 
 month they found ninety diamonds, for which Mr. Hond, one of 
 the first diamond-buyers in the Diamond Fields, offered them 
 3,500, which they refused. They decided to send their parcel
 
 175 
 
 to England, thinking, not unnaturally, that they would have 
 the advantage of the profit Mr. Hond calculated upon making 
 for himself if he secured the diamonds. They had them shipped 
 through the house of Messrs. Elaine, Macdonald & Co., of 
 Port Elizabeth, getting an advance of 1,800 on them. Messrs. 
 Elaine & Co. could get no more than 1,600 for the parcel in 
 England, so that it would have been better for them had they 
 acted upon the principle of " a bird in hand is worth two in the 
 bush," and have taken Mr. Hond's offer of the 3,500, especially 
 as they had to refund 200 to Messrs. Elaine, Macdonald 
 & Co. Refunding money advanced is almost as painful an 
 operation as having a tooth drawn more so when the refund 
 comes upon you when you are hard up. 
 
 The Mackintosh party were as well known in the early days 
 of the River Diggings as the old hill of Pniel. The Mackin- 
 tosh party earned a distinction which was the most enviable of 
 River Digging distinctions. Whenever any person or party 
 was cruelly treated, was defrauded of anything, or was 
 obstructed in any improper way, all that they had to do and all 
 that they had thought of doing, was to go right off to Alick 
 Mackintosh, and if they proved to him that they were in the 
 right, he would soon get them righted. If it was a single- 
 handed affair and a bully tried to bounce, Alick would not 
 trouble the rest, he would take the fellow who had done the 
 wrong in hand himself, without bothering the party, and polish 
 him off single-handed, for Alick knew the use of his mauleys, 
 and also bad the pluck to use them when it became necessary, 
 as Captain Gordon or Mr. William Shine could testify if they 
 were here. But Mr. Alexander Mackintosh would never call 
 upon a man to put up his hands without occasion called for it, 
 and he was never called upon to put up his bands in vain. 
 
 On one occasion the Chief Jantje had shewn an amount of 
 cockiness that was inconvenient. The old Chief had arrested 
 the two O'Reillys for some imaginary offence and held them in 
 custody at Jantje's Staad. John O'Reilly, one of the men 
 imprisoned, was the renowned O'Reilly who first discovered 
 that there were diamonds on the banks of the Vaal River. 
 That story, which I was the first to publish in The Diamond 
 Fields Keepsake of 1875, has gone through so many editions 
 since that it need not be repeated here. To allow John O'Reillr 
 to remain in the custody of a Native Chief was not to be
 
 176 
 
 permitted for one single day after the intelligence was brought 
 to the King William's Town party. Captain Alexander 
 Mackintosh, for he was the captain of the party, called the party 
 to a Council of War, and it was decided that O'Reilly freedom 
 must at once be demanded, and if it could not be obtained 
 peacefully, war must be proclaimed against Jantje and his tribe. 
 Two of the party were mounted and sent off on horseback to 
 Jiintje's Staad to interview Jantje, and demand the release of 
 the two O'Reillys and bring them back to the King William's 
 Town camp, but if Jantje refused they were to inform him 
 that his refusal meant \var and would be accepted as such, and 
 that the King William's Town party were resolved, if forced, to 
 take up arms, to spare neither Chief, Councillors, nor people. 
 Happily the demand for the O'Reillys was at once complied 
 with by Jantje, the O'Reillys were released, and so the matter 
 -ended. Whilst the messengers were away on their mission the 
 party behind had cleaned up their fire-arms and distributed 
 ammunition, and made all preparations for war, and Avere ready 
 for taking the field at sunrise. 
 
 The King William's Town party had from the first allied them- 
 selves with the Natal party, and no sooner found that the King 
 William's Town diggings were enough for both than they sent 
 off to the Natalians, who were operating some hours further 
 down the river, and the Natalians came and joined, and both 
 parties found well in that locality, keeping their finds a com- 
 plete secret amongst themselves, to prevent a rush. But one 
 day a trader came along and outspanned near them. He had 
 not been there long before he saw a diamond on the surface, 
 sparkling in the sun he then discovering that the King William's 
 Town party were finding hand over fist, blabbed it about the 
 Fields, and the dreaded rush took place, which ultimately drove 
 die King William's Town party to Pniel. 
 
 Glennie did not come to the Fields with no diamond expe- 
 rience, as the rest did. He had been at the Brazilian diamond 
 mines and knew about diamonds, rough and uncut, before he 
 came to South Africa.
 
 REMINISCENCE. 
 
 No. XXVI. 
 
 CAPE GOVERNORS AND JUDGES FOUR COLONIAL-BORN JUDGES 
 
 AND SEVEN ENGLISH MR. JUSTICE \VATERMETER IN 
 
 PARLIAMENT MR. JUSTICE EBDEN AS A NEWSPAPER 
 
 CORRESPONDENT. 
 
 I HAVE known personally six Governors and twelve Judge* 
 of the Supreme Court since I have resided in South Africa. 
 The Governors who have administered the affairs of South 
 Africa, for all the Cape Governors have been Her Majesty's 
 High Commissioners as well, have been Sir George Grey, Sir 
 Philip Wodehouse, Sir Henry Barkly, Sir Bartle Frere, Sir 
 Hercules Robinson, and our present Governor, Sir Henry Loch. 
 Of the eleven Judges three of them have been Chiefs. The 
 names of the three Chief Justices are Sir John Wylde, Sir 
 Sydney Bell, and our present Chief Justice, Sir Henry de 
 Villiers. The names of the other Judges are Mr. Justice 
 Musgrave, Mr. Justice Ebden, Mr. Justice Watermeyer, Mr. 
 Justice Denyssen, Mr. Justice Smith, Mr. Justice Fitzpatrick, 
 the late Mr. Justice J. Buchanan, the Mr. Justice Buchanan 
 still on the Bench, and Mr. Justice Upington. These all 
 sat or are sitting in the Supreme Court, Cape Town. Then we 
 have the Judges of the Eastern Districts and the High Court of 
 Griqualand West, who are all too much in the flesh to be dealt 
 with as Reminiscences. All the Judges have administered the 
 law as they found it. -Each of the Governors came with a 
 policy of his own, arranged between himself and his Imperial 
 superiors. This led the late Mr. Saul Solomon to give utterance 
 to his opinion that it would be better if the Governors were not 
 changed quite so frequently, and the Judges were not to remain 
 
 N
 
 178 
 
 o long. With every new Governor we have had a change of 
 policy a change both of principle and plan. This has made 
 the native question, difficult enough in itself, more than seren 
 times more difficult than it would have been otherwise, for the 
 natives have never known for certain for any length of time 
 together what was required of them. One Governor ordering 
 them to do one thing and the next reversing that order and 
 issuing a fresh one one Governor moving tribes one way and 
 the next moving them hack, or in some other direction. Sir 
 George Grey, had he remained here from 1854 to 1893 or at 
 any rate until Resp onsible Government was introduced would 
 have spared Ministers of Native Affairs the trouble they have 
 had in trying to understand native affairs, and misunderstanding 
 each other, and have saved the country, too, the cost it has been 
 put to by their meddling and muddling and playing at cross 
 purposes with each other. 
 
 I wonder how many times I have been asked which Gover- 
 nor I consider the best we have had. My answer is invariably 
 like that of the boy who on Christinas Day, being asked which 
 of the Christmas puddings he had had he thought the best, 
 answered that he liked the pudding he had on his plate the best 
 of th lot. I, when asked the question, feel pretty much like 
 the sinner who was asked by a saint what he believed said he 
 could better tell what he didn't believe than what he did. I 
 could tell which of our Governors was the worst or say the 
 second best than I could tell which was the best of all. I con- 
 sider, as I have many times said, that the Cape Colony has 
 been remarkably lucky in its Governors. Each had his special 
 points of excellence, no doubt. Governors, like other men, 
 differ in taste, disposition, temperament, and see things from 
 different points of view. Sir George Grey differed from Sir 
 Philip Wodehouse in taste, manner, presence, disposition and 
 temperament, as much as chalk differs from cheese, but they 
 were both good as Governors not only at the Cape but in other 
 of Her Majesty's dependencies. Sir George Grey was as popu- 
 lar as Governor of New Zealand as he was as Governor of the 
 Cape. Sir Philip Wodehouse was more popular in Bombay 
 than in Cape Town. But I object to a Governor's or anybody 
 else's fitness for his work being measured by the popularity he 
 achieves. It is easier to gain popularity than it is to dis- 
 charge duties satisfactorily and to acquit oneself of heavy
 
 179 
 
 responsibilities. Ability is not invariably rewarded with 
 popularity. Sir George was remarkably able, never shirked a 
 responsibility, struck out new lines of action for himself which 
 few of his predecessors would have ventured upon even if they 
 .could have thought of them. Certainly Sir Harry Smith would 
 never have done the work that Sir George Grey did he would 
 .not have Iried to do it, and if he had tried he would have failed. 
 Sir George Grey might have made as good a general as Sir 
 Harry Smith who can tell ? He had lots of pluck, was a 
 very skilful strategist, knew how firearms should be handled 
 ;and could handle them. He was a good shot and had plenty 
 of physical endurance, as he proved when he rode on horse- 
 back from Cape Town to the Free State, and the long days he 
 tramped Bain's Vley after game. I cannot tell, for he was 
 never put to the test. Sir Harry Smith wag put to the test as 
 General, was a good one, became known as " the Hero of 
 Aliwal," but as Governor well, he wasn't a Sir George Grey, 
 nor a Sir Philip Wodehouse, a Sir Bartle Frere, nor a Sir Henry 
 Loch. I never knew a military Governor who knew how to 
 administer a civil government yet generals know how to man- 
 age soldiers but they are seldom au fait at civil administration. 
 They have no tact either they domineer and bluster, and talk 
 .about putting their foot down, but no more comprehend a citi- 
 zen's right to liberty than they understand mantua-making. 
 Not a bit more. It was fortunate for Sir Harry Smith that 
 he had Mr. John Montagu as Colonial Secretary or he 
 would have got himself into a miserable plight and the country 
 too. 
 
 Of all the Governors we have had certainly Sir Philip VT ode- 
 house had the most up-hill workfto start with. But with that 
 I have dealt in a previous article. Although he was proud and 
 irrepressible, he put the Colony in a better state than he found 
 it. It is not a grateful task either to make countries or indi- 
 viduals pay their debts, with money of their own earning. Sir 
 Bartle Frere was beloved by the [whole of South Africa, except 
 the Boers of the Transvaal, and they hated him because he 
 would not promise them to exert himself to get back their 
 independence, and for having the honesty to tell them that he 
 wouldn't. The great English Jove of the Press, whose once 
 dreaded thunder is getting less alarming and less dreaded year 
 after year, laid down the qualification for a good Governor when 
 
 N2
 
 180 
 
 Sir Hercules Robinson was appointed. It said Sir Bartle Frere 
 was not suited for a Colonial Governor because he had a 
 distinct policy of his own and cared too much for the 
 Colonists ; that Sir Hercules Robinson was a man who would 
 succeed better, because he was without views and would carry 
 out the instructions he received from home without question^ 
 It rather lowers one's idea of a good Governor to be told that 
 he is the best qualified who has no mind of his own, no views, 
 but acts according to Imperial orders, whether they are good or 
 bad for the Colonists, but Sir Hercules Robinson and his Imperial 
 masters did not hit it well together at the last. Whether it 
 was that the Imperial Government wanted more subserviency 
 than Sir Hercules was inclined to yield or not, no one on this 
 side of the water could tell, but one thing is certain, and that 
 is that Sir Hercules told them at last that South Africa could 
 do with less Imperial interference in its affairs, and then 
 they invited him home and kept him there, or rather 
 let him keep himself. ^Neither Sir Hercules nor Sir Henry 
 Barkly have been favoured with any Imperial employ- 
 ment since they left the Cape, and do not appear likely to get 
 any. It does seem hard most certainly that two of " Your 
 Excellencies" should, after being Governors for so many years, 
 be left out in the cold to pick up guineas for sitting as Direc- 
 tors of Companies ; to be left to go about London like a 
 couple of guinea pigs as they are. Governors now-a-days 
 must sometimes reflect upon this when in office, and when in 
 a speculative mood wonder if it may not befall them to become 
 guinea pigs after all. 
 
 Our Judges get far better treatment than our Governors^ 
 It is with Judges as with Parsons (of the State Church). 
 Once a Parson always a Parson, and so with Judges. Once 
 a Judge always a Judge. The Queen who appoints a Judge 
 at the recommendation of her advisers cannot withdraw a 
 Judge from the Bench, even though her advisers recommend 
 it ever so much, unless they can show that the Judge has 
 become mentally or physically incapable, or has so miscon- 
 ducted himself as to make his continuance in office positively 
 detrimental to the public and his appearance on the Bench 
 a scandal. A Judge cannot be sent to the right about as a 
 Governor can at the whim or caprice of a Ministry. A Judge 
 may decide a suit against his Sovereign as against the
 
 181 
 
 humblest of her subjects without fear of consequences, and 
 when Regina is plaintiff in a case it is quite open to him 
 to tell Regina that the institution of the case was monstrously 
 perverse or fraudulent if the evidence shows either to be the 
 fact. 
 
 Four out of twelve Judges were born Colonists. The Chief 
 .Justice is one of them. It is difficult to write of a living 
 -official, if he deserves well of the country, with anything like 
 the freedom essential to truthful criticism, and it would be 
 impossible to say anything fairly of either Sir Henry de Villiers 
 or Mr. Justice Buchanan that would not be complimentary, 
 :and the same might be said of all our judges at least with 
 rare exceptions which it is not advisable to make here. Write 
 .as carefully as one may, there are always some captiously 
 inclined ready to take exception. As I have no desire to 
 raise a question upon the merits, bearing, or impartiality of 
 either of these gentlemen, I shall content myself with some 
 few remarks respecting the late Mr. Justice Watermeyer and 
 the late Mr. Justice Ebden. 
 
 When I knew Mr. Watermeyer first, he was at the Bar, 
 where he had been practising very successfully. In 1854, 
 .as soon as the elections of members were fixed, Mr. Advo- 
 cate Watermeyer, who was well known and esteemed in the 
 public circles of the Western Province, was requested by 
 several constituencies to enter Parliament. He decided to 
 accept the requisition from Worcester as that came first 
 to hand, and he was returned by a large majority. He was 
 unable to be in his seat in the early part of the first session 
 of 1854, owing to his having to be on circuit, but on his 
 return he immediately entered the House, was sworn in, and 
 took his seat between the Hon. Mr. Porter, Attorney-General, 
 and Mr. J. Fairbairn, the member for Swellendam. He was on 
 the most intimate terms with both. He had co-operated with 
 Mr. Fairbairn in political movements, was of the same school of 
 (politics, which was at that time anti-Government, and therefore 
 opposed to those enunciated and enforced by Mr. Porter as 
 Attorney-General. But this in no way lessened the friendship 
 between the unofficial and official member. They held each 
 other in the highest esteem throughout Mr. Watermeyer's life- 
 time, and no man sorrowed more over Mr. Watermeyer's death 
 than did Mr. William Porter.
 
 182 
 
 There were great expectations formed of Mr. Advocate 
 Watermeyer's Parliamentary career, and these expectations- 
 would no doubt have been fully realised had Mr. Watermeyer 
 continued in Parliament sufficiently long, for his speeches were 
 always telling and to the point. A slight impediment in his 
 speech told much against him, and prevented his giving expres- 
 sion to his thoughts with the fluency which he might otherwise 
 have done. The House always listened to him with breathless 
 attention, and was more influenced by him than by almost any 
 Other man in the Assembly. I was going to write with the 
 exception of Mr. Saul Solomon and the Hon. Mr. Porter, but I 
 will not except even those. Mr. Watermeyer influenced the 
 House as much as either of them. And I am unable to remember 
 any occasion when he did not carry the House with him to the 
 vote, which I cannot say either of Mr. Solomon or Mr. Porter. 
 But then they were much longer in the House. He was most 
 certainly one of the best-mannered men in the House. He 
 seldom if ever allowed his temper to be ruffled at any rate he 
 never shewed that he did. He was invariably calm and dignified, 
 I remember on one occasion when Mr. J. Fairbairn and Mr. 
 Charles Fairbridge, who was at that time one of the members 
 for Caledon, had been hitting each other pretty hard that Mr.. 
 Watermeyer, who always sided with the former, got up to take 
 his part, and Mr. Fairbridge retorted on him that even Sancho 
 Panza did not always fight the battle of Don Quixote, and I 
 thought Mr. Watermeyer coloured up as if the hit told ; but I 
 remember seeing him when the House adjourned join Mr. 
 Fairbridge and walk down Grave-street in his company as if 
 nothing had occurred between them. 
 
 Mr. Justice Watermeyer was admitted by all his compeers to 
 be a splendid lawyer. He was talented from his youth up, even 
 when he went to school, and the Rev. Canon Judge, father of 
 the Civil Commissioner of Kimberley, who was his master, pre- 
 dicted a great future for him. He entered that school in 1833 
 and remained under Canon Judge's tuition for upwards of eight 
 years and left to proceed to England, where, on bis arrival, h& 
 entered the Inner Temple, after which he went to Leyden and 
 remained there fully two years, and was called to the English 
 Bar in the Easter term of 1847. Notwithstanding that ho was 
 of German descent, he was heart and soul an English Colonist, 
 as indeed it was but natural he should be, as his family had
 
 183 
 
 lived under the British Government for many years, and were 
 sufficiently intelligent to recognise the greater liberty and justice 
 which the British Government ensured. 
 
 Upon the Bench he had the confidence alike of his brother 
 Judges, the Bar and Side-bar and the public. He was pains- 
 taking, his summing up evinced unwearied research and hi 
 judgments were sound and impartial. In private life he was 
 surrounded by attached friends, for he was genial, full of anec- 
 dote, and a charming companion. He was a gentleman of 
 highly cultivated taste and of a poetic temperament, and his 
 translations from Schiller, Uhland, and Burger were the admi- 
 ration of literary men when they appeared. In his early life 
 he was very fond of writing skits on public men, and those 
 which appeared in the papers of the period were full of humour. 
 Those which I have heard quoted and read were amongst the 
 very best I have met with in this country. 
 
 I am not quite certain whether Mr. Advocate Ebden was 
 elevated to the Bench in 1854 or 1855, but I am pretty sure it 
 was in the latter year. He succeeded Mr. Justice Musgrave r 
 who had just died at his residence in Wynberg. Mr. Justice 
 Ebden was the son of Mr. John Bardwell Ebden, who, with the 
 late Mr. Eaton, senior, the father of Messrs. Robert and John 
 Eaton, laid the foundation of the Cape of Good Hope Bank, 
 of which he was a director from its foundatiou to the day he 
 died. Mr. Justice Ebden's practice at the Bar was one of the 
 most extensive and profitable of the time. He travelled cir- 
 cuit mostly with Chief Justice Sir John Wylde, and whilst he 
 did so held all the most important criminal cases and leading 
 briefs in civil suits. I remember Mr. Justice Ebden taking his 
 seat on the Supreme Court Bench as if it was but yesterday. 
 His seat was on the right of the Chief Justice, and I thought 
 when I gaw him first seated that he looked the very type of an 
 English judge. He had very striking features ; an exception- 
 ally high and square forehead, good intelligent eyes, and 
 well-cut features. If there was anything wanting it WHS- 
 a little firmness about the mouth. The judgments he delivered 
 whilst on the Bench were sound and clear, and his con- 
 clusions logically arrived at. He did not sit long, for it soon 
 became a monomania with him that he was not sufficiently quali- 
 fied, and in spite of all that could be said to him in the way 
 of advice, he resigned. But his interest in political life never
 
 184 
 
 diminished in his life-time. He was an English Conservative, 
 deadly opposed to Responsible Government, and his pen was 
 continually going for the newspapers, to which he contributed 
 largely chiefly letters under the signature of "Englishman." 
 He started an evening paper in Cape Town, but it did not long 
 survive, although it was fairly well got out. Mr. Justice 
 Ebden was a kind-hearted man, and was the centre of a large 
 circle of politicians for many years. 
 
 It occurred to me after sending off my original Reminiscences 
 for publication that I had omitted all mention of Mr. Jus- 
 lice Cole in connection with my account of the Judges. Nothing 
 more strange to myself could have occurred, for there is no 
 one who has held the judicial office whom I hold in greater 
 respect, for whose talents I have greater admiration, or who has 
 rendered the public such services as Mr. Justice Cole has done. 
 I do not mean as Judge only, but in fifty other ways. His know- 
 Jedge of the law Roman Dutch as well as English and the 
 written laws of this country has never been questioned. That 
 has been acknowledged by all his colleagues of the Bench and 
 his contemporaries at the Bar. He is a profound lawyer, has 
 a ready and clear perception, sees the points of a case with 
 astonishing promptness, and is more rarely in error than most 
 interpreters of the law. He has been longer associated with 
 Bar and Bench in this country than any legal practitioner 
 now alive. He went Circuit first with Chief Justice Sir 
 John Wylde and practised at the Bar when Justices Meintjes 
 and Musgrave were on the Bench, and his chamber practice 
 during many periods of his career has been very large and 
 remunerative. With all our Governors from Sir George Grey 
 to the present time he has been held in high esteem, and his 
 companionship has been esteemed by them all. As a littera- 
 teur he has been unrivalled, and his contributions to English 
 *nd Colonial Literature have been extensive, valuable, and 
 highly prized. He possesses a most fertile imagination and 
 his works of fiction are most felicitous : some of his novels 
 rank with those of the most popular novelists of the day, are 
 widely circulated, and are to be found on the shelves o'f most 
 of our public libraries. To periodical literature in South Africa 
 his contributions have for many years been as large as that 
 of any writer and as popular. They are humorous, elegant 
 And polished, and in some years of his life his political
 
 185 
 
 newspaper articles adorned the columns of the most influential 
 journals in the country. With Professor Noble he for a long 
 period edited " The Cape Monthly Magazine," and reference to 
 ^the pages of that periodical will shew how brilliant and 
 scholarly his contributions were. He has now retired from 
 ;public life, but socially he is as great a favourite as ever.
 
 KEMINISCENCE. 
 
 No. XXVII. 
 
 THE DEAD PAST AND THE LIVING PRESENT THE FOUNDERS- 
 OF FIRMS AND INSTITUTIONS. 
 
 IT is frequently said nowadays that the men of Cape Town 
 of the present day who occupy prominent positions in commerce 
 and in politics are not to be compared with those of the past.- 
 I am not going to discuss that question. The Living Present 
 has ever, as far as I can make out, been inclined to revel in the 
 glories of the Dead Past. The Present has its laurels to win 
 if it means to win a happy memory from the Future, as its 
 predecessors did in the Past. Perhaps it is doing it, but the 
 Future alone will have to settle that. I only know that the 
 men of my time, who represented commercial, professional andi 
 public life in Cape Town, were grand old fellows, stern men of 
 business for the most part, but genial, hospitable, and jolly 
 always. Ever ready with purse and person to assist at a fete r 
 to entertain strangers or neighbours. British to the backbone,, 
 proud of their nationality, and as ready to assist a friend in- 
 need as to do a good stroke of trade. 
 
 Mr. Hamilton Ross, the founder of the oldest mercantile firms 
 in Cape Town, was dead before I knew Cape Town, but he 
 was always spoken of with very great respect for his memory,, 
 and I have heard enough of him to be assured that he was an 
 exceptionally enterprising man. He seems to have had busi- 
 ness ramifications throughout the whole colony, and won by 
 his liberal dealings the respect of all the South Africa that 
 existed in his day. He was succeeded by Mr. John Stein and 
 Mr. John Ross, both of whom are now dead have been dead 
 in fact several years. No one who knew Mr. Stein will forget*
 
 187 
 
 him. He carried himself becomingly in all his relations with' 
 others, becoming in a man with high aims. His word was his 
 bond, and no commercial undertaking, and few public move- 
 ments were entered into whilst he resided in the Colony with 
 which his name was not connected, nor did he fail to act up to- 
 the highest principles of honour and integrity. With the pru- 
 dence of the Scotchman there was combined in him the liberal 
 disposition proverbially supposed to be characteristic of the 
 more southern portion of the British Isles. The estimation 
 in which he was held was plainly indicated when he offered 
 himself as a candidate for Legislative honours. An enthusiasm- 
 was shown in that election which was beyond all precedent. 
 Who will ever forget the hospitalities of Mount Nelson, the 
 residence of Mr. John Ross ? No one who lived in Cape 
 Town during Mr. Ross's time will ever forget the brilliant 
 assemblages which were entertained there. Mr. Ross was a 
 gentleman of very refined taste, and how liberally he patron- 
 ised art none but his very intimate friends knew, and not the 
 whole of them. Mount Nelson Avas a model residence, its- 
 grounds were exquisitely laid out, and the floricultural beauties 
 of Mr. Ross's gardens were unsurpassed. 
 
 Contemporary with Mr. Hamilton Ross were the founders 
 of the firm of Prince, Collison & Co. Mr. Collison, the elder,, 
 was not only one of the founders of the firm with which his 
 name was associated, but he was also the founder of the Public 
 Library of Cape Town, than which no colonial library is richer 
 in standard works. He was devoted to literature himself, a 
 thoroughly well-read man and a profound thinker, and the- 
 delights which literature afforded him he was desirous that his 
 fellow-colonists should share with him ; and in order to get a 
 Public Library established, worthy of the Metropolis, he,, 
 although a wine merchant himself, or at least member of the 
 largest firm of wine merchants in South Africa, proposed a tax 
 upon wine for the support of the Library. It was in this way 
 that the foundations of that admirable institution, the South 
 African Public Library, one of the best colonial libraries in the 
 Empire, were laid. Mr. George Sampson Prince, his partner r . 
 was one of the most extraordinary men the Cape ever knew. 
 A man of remarkable brain power and foresight whose breadth 
 of mental vision appeared to have no limit. His exploits and> 
 the incidents of his long mercantile career would of themselves
 
 188 
 
 make a bulky volume. The first firm of Prince, Collison & Co., 
 and afterwards of Prince, Vintcent & Co., of Mossel Bay, was 
 one of the offsprings of the Cape firm, and Mr. Vintcent, the 
 father of the present member of the firm, was almost as gifted a 
 man as Mr. Prince himself. The present firm of Prince, 
 Vintcent & Co. is an off-shoot, and the partners of the firm 
 re sons of the before-mentioned gentlemen, worthy sons of 
 worthy fathers. 
 
 Then we have Mr. Joseph and Mr. John Barry, of the firm 
 of Barry Nephews. It is difficult to decide at this period of 
 time who did most of all the merchants to develop the resources 
 of South Africa and extend its commerce. Certainly no men 
 did more or executed a larger amount of influence than the 
 deceased gentlemen whose names I last mentioned. Mr. Joseph 
 Barry, the elder of the two, was a most happy and successful 
 tactician, and having the knack of reconciling Dutch and English, 
 the firm became chiefly through him a vast power both in the 
 political and commercial world, and the Barrys were social 
 leaders with the foremost men of those times as they were in 
 the lead in the political and commercial circles of South Africa. 
 There was hardly a district in South Africa in which they had 
 not a branch of their business, the headquarters of which was at 
 "Swellendam. At one time they had a currency of their own, 
 and their notes, in every respect resembling bank notes, were 
 taken as readily as bank paper. Mr. Joseph Barry was one 
 of the first, if not the first, to open up the coasting 
 trade between Cape Town, the Kowie, and Port Beaufort. He 
 kept a little fleet of steamers running between Table Bay and 
 the Kowie until they were all wrecked and the firm kept a 
 steamer going between Table Bay and Port Beaufort in order to 
 open up the trade of the JSwellendam district. From the time 
 that Parliamentary Government was introduced into the Cape 
 the Hon. Joseph Barry was a prominent member of the Legis- 
 lative Council, Mr. John Barry chiefly residing in England and 
 conducting the London branch of the firm. Mr. Charles Barry, 
 Mr. Joseph's eldest son, and Mr. John Joseph Barry did the 
 chief work of the firm for many years, and did it well. The 
 former was one of the chief patrons of Western Province 
 agriculture, imported and bred first-class stock, was well known 
 on the Colonial turf as the associate of Mr. T. B. Bayley and 
 Mr. Charles Manuel, and Mr. Charles Barry was everybody's
 
 189 
 
 Charles frank, generous, and jovial. Mr. J. J. Barry in the 
 Swellendam district was to his surroundings of about the same 
 service and consequence as his cousin Charles was in the wider 
 sphere of Cape Town and neighbourhood. They are all dead 
 now, and the firm of Barry Nephews, not being able to exist 
 without them, is dead too. Mr. Justice Barry, the Judge- 
 President of the Eastern Districts Court, is a son of the late 
 Hon. Mr. Joseph Barry, M.L.C. His Honour was the first 
 Judge of the High Court of Griqualand West, and on one 
 occasion was Acting Administrator of this, at that time, Crown 
 Colony. 
 
 There was dear old Mr. John King (of Philips & King), 
 the pink of neatness, dignified as a duke, the beau ideal of 
 a merchant of the old school, honest as the day, and hospitable 
 as honest. At his own board, no matter how stern or cold 
 he had seemed in the day in business, he thawed immediately 
 he entered on his own domain at Green Point. Colonel 
 Dickson, the founder of the old and much respected firm of 
 William Dickson & Co., was another of the Cape Town past 
 masters of commerce, father of the present Mr. Charles Dickson, 
 and was the very type of an English gentleman; and of the Busks,, 
 of Macdonald, Busk & Co., the same may be said. They 
 were open-banded men. They were well bred and well 
 educated, and had always moved in circles distinguished in 
 the highest ranks of social order. Snobs and stuck-up people 
 had not come so far south as the Cape in their day, and if 
 they had they would have been unrecognisable and unheeded. 
 There would have been no place for them in the old mercan- 
 tile social circles. What would Captain Arcoll, or Mr. Venn, 
 or Mr. Anderson have done with a snob if one had intruded 
 himself into their society ? They would not have known what 
 to do with the creature ; would much sooner have thought 
 of inviting a Cheap Jack to dinner, or of doing business with 
 a mountebank ; and the elder Mr. Rutherfoord, of the firm of 
 Rutherfoord & Co., one of the most gentle of men, of high 
 tone and presence, who was a member of the Legislative 
 Council, would as soon have thought of taking a loafer as a 
 snob into his family circle, or been seen in bis company in 
 the street. 
 
 No one familiar with the firm of Messrs. Searight & Co> 
 will ever forget Mr. T. Ansdell, who was the principal
 
 190 
 
 representative of that firm for many a long year, lending grace 
 io it, sustaining the excellence of the founder's name, and 
 conducting the business profitably on pure business principles. 
 Mr. Ansdell was a central figure in the commercial and social 
 life of Cape Town during his whole lifetime, and might at 
 .any time have had a seat in either House of Parliament, but 
 he had no ambition in that direction, and would have con- 
 sidered it no honour to have filled a seat in either House, 
 setting as he did little store on Parliamentary Government, 
 .and not rating very highly the majority of the men in either 
 House. He was a man naturally gifted and high-toned, and 
 honest in word as in deed. His literary achievements were 
 very considerable and his taste for Art, natural in the first 
 place, he cultivated by every means within his reach. Mr. 
 Ansdell was a companionable man, a bright conversationalist, 
 methodical and regular in all he did : with a very decided 
 relish for fun, but never himself relaxing for it from the 
 steady course of life he pursued. 
 
 These are a sample of the men foremost in Cape Town some 
 thirty or forty years ago. The circumstances of Cape Town 
 have been completely revolutionised since then, and men have 
 changed with the circumstances, as is always the case the 
 world all over. Life was easier then ; neither men in business 
 nor men out of it moved so fast as they do in these days of 
 railways, telegraphs, and mail steamers. Merchants then did 
 not go outside the wholesale business ; they did business in the 
 lump and made money in like manner, which the present gene- 
 ration say is not to be done now-a-days. Whether human 
 nature, society, or trade has been advantaged by the elevation 
 and extension of the shopkeeping classes I am not inclined to 
 discuss. I am now writing my reminiscences of the men and 
 the time most familiar to me the old days, the happy days 
 of old.
 
 REMINISCENCE. 
 
 No. XXVIII. 
 
 POLITICAL APATHY OF KIMBERLET ADMINISTRATOR LANYON's 
 
 TIME THE ROWS IN THE LEGISLATURE THE COUNCIL 
 
 SMASHED UP THE ANNEXATION MOVES DEATH OF 
 THE HON. MR. HALKETT, M.L.C. 
 
 WHETHER it is in the air or in the soil no one can tell, but 
 there is something somewhere in or about Kimberley that is not 
 congenial to healthy vigorous political growth. This is not 
 only the case just now, or even since the creation of the De 
 Beers Company, as some folks would have it to be, but it has 
 been so ever since Kimberley was christened Kimberley. It 
 was so when we had a Legislative Council of our own, when 
 there was neither Monopoly nor Bond to crush the political life 
 out of constituencies. There were cliques, cabals, and revolu- 
 tionary combinations plotting against law, order, and authority. 
 There never has been a good, sound, healthy, active public 
 opinion, without which politics are a delusion and a snare. When 
 any person or interest can command votes without solicitation, 
 and men cannot go to the poll and vote without fear of 
 consequences to themselves or their families, Constitutional 
 Government is a curse and not a blessing, and the people are 
 better without what is called " Constitutional " Government 
 than with it. 
 
 During Major Lanyon's time we had a Legislative Council 
 with an equal number bf official and elected members. The 
 Administrator, who was President of the C ouncil, had a casting 
 vote, so that when the votes were equal His Honour could turn 
 the scale whichever way he chose, and we m ay be sure that he 
 would choose the official side of the question. The official
 
 192 
 
 members of the Legislative Council were the members of the 
 Executive Council, and on the morning of the day of sitting 
 convened a meeting of the Executive and instructed the officials 
 how they were expected to vote. If any member of the 
 Executive declined to vote according to the Government ticket, 
 he was warned, and if he was not moved by the warning he was 
 told that he would be moved out of office. It is no doubt 
 awkward to have a member of Government voting against a 
 Government measure, but it is still more awkward to pretend to 
 give a people popular Government and not give it to them. 
 Shams are never good in any shape, and are more harmful in 
 politics than in any other way. It would have been better by 
 half to have made the Administrator Director -General, for then 
 he would have had to bear all the responsibility of his acts. As 
 it was, he had the Council as a buffer between himself and the 
 people. If a law was a bad one it was the Council's law, not 
 his, and he had an idea that he could use the Council as such,. 
 and have his own way as if there were no elected members. 
 He found his mistake. 
 
 The official members of Council at one time were the Hon. 
 (now Sir) J. D. Barry, Judge of the High Court, Mr. Advocate 
 (now Sir Sidney) Shippard (Attorney-General), Mr. Boscawen 
 Wright (Treasurer-General), and 
 
 The elected members were the Honourablea Mr. Advocate 
 Halkett, Mr. R. W. Murray, Senr, Mr. Advocate Davidson, 
 and Mr. W. Gilfillan. Major Lanyon was resolved upon* 
 effecting the annexation of the Province to the Cape 
 Colony by his casting vote. The Imperial Government wanted 
 annexation, and if he could say to the people at head quarters- 
 " Alone I did it " it would be a feather in his cap and would 
 give him a stronger claim than before upon his Imperial 
 masters. He was here to serve the Home Government, and it was 
 not reasonable to suppose that the good of the people would be 
 of any consideration with him when the Home Government 
 wanted one thing and the people another. He had no concern 
 with the people of South Africa. He was not like Sir Richard 
 Southey, who was a Colonist from his youth up who was- 
 married in the Colony, whose children were born in the Colony,. 
 and to whom the Colony was his home. When Sir Richard 
 Southey was Lieutenant-Governor, he was instructed first and 
 commanded afterwards to introduce a Land Bill to serve the
 
 193 
 
 Imperial Government, but he, considering it an unjust Bill, 
 demurred. That is dealt with elsewhere and need not be 
 repeated here. But Sir R. Southey and Major William Owen 
 Lanyon were two very different men ; as different as chalk i 
 unlike cheese, and the Major was not quite the cheese. 
 
 He introduced the Annexation motion, to which the elected 
 members were opposed, and they spoke strongly against it, and 
 moved as an amendment that the question be considered this 
 day six months. Whilst the debate was in course, Mr. Advo- 
 cate Davidson was called home to England on urgent private- 
 affairs, and before he went, resigned his seat. When the 
 motion was first before the House, after Mr. Davidson's depar- 
 ture, seeing that Major Lanyon had taken no steps to get the 
 seat re-filled, Messrs Halkett and Murray said the proposed 
 change was so important that it ought not to be disposed of 
 without a full Council. 
 
 There was a good deal of Gorernment shuffling, and it 
 became plain that then Major Lanyon was bent on getting the 
 motion through in a Council of four to three. Messrs Halkett 
 and Murray told the Major plainly that he should not ride 
 rough-shod over them, and that they were determined to pre- 
 vent the motion being put whilst the Council remained in its 
 present state. Major Lanyon defied them to do their worst, and 
 they did, and did it thoroughly and effectively. 
 
 They acted in the matter quite fairly, for they told Major 
 Lanyon in open Council that if Mr. Davidson's seat was filled 
 up they would permit the motion to be put, although they 
 knew that the elected members would be in a minority, but 
 if the seat was not filled up no annexation should be carried. 
 
 Of course their object was to show, if the motion was put 
 and carried by the Major's vote, that it was the act of the 
 Imperial Government and not of the people, and would have 
 contended that to annex a community against their will, as 
 expressed by all their representatives as a body, was uncon- 
 stitutional. The Imperial Government did not even do that 
 in the case of annexing Kaffraria. They had first to get 
 public opinion divided 'on the question. Kaffrarian annexation, 
 was barefaced enough, but it was not done in " the face of the 
 whole congregation," as Major Lanyon attempted here. 
 
 Now, there was one provision in the Constitution Ordinance 
 which Messrs. Halkett and Murray availed themselves of, and; 
 O
 
 194 
 
 this Major Lanyon had lost sight of. No business could be 
 done in Council unless two of the elected members were present. 
 Mr. William Gilfillan was the third elected member, but he 
 had been an old official for many years, and upon the principle 
 of " dog won't eat dog," Mr. Gilfillan, who was known to be 
 a good fellow in every relation of life, could not be trusted to 
 fight against officialism, so Messrs. Halkett and Murray had 
 to bear the whole brunt of the battle. 
 
 They allowed Major Lanyon in the President's chair to 
 commence reading the motion, when Mr. Halkett took his hat 
 And walked out, and when the Major had got half-way through, 
 Mr. Murray took up his hat and followed suit, and there were 
 the officials and Mr. Gilfillan, but " no Council " and so the 
 business ended for that day, and there was nothing left for the 
 Major but his rage. 
 
 This went on day after day for weeks. Had the Major been 
 experienced in Parliamentary life, he would have got his 
 Estimates passed before introducing the Annexation motion* 
 but he didn't, and so the twain elected members who were 
 one political flesh had him upon toast. He hadn't money 
 to meet expenditure. He was Administrator only in name. 
 He had nothing to administer but such credit as the Gorern- 
 mcnt could trade upon. 
 
 Poor Halkett was very ill, dying in fact, and at last it was 
 seen that attending the Council was too much for him, so he 
 and Murray agreed that they would attend Council no more 
 and they didn't. The Major sent and asked them to come 
 and pass the Estimates. "No," they answered, "you have 
 tried to ride roughshod over us ; have shown us but little 
 courtesy and consideration, and have got yourself into a mess 
 thereby. Now get out of it." But he couldn't, and so he 
 gave up convening a Council, and asked Sir Henry Barkly 
 for advice. But Sir Henry couldn't help him. 
 
 He suggested to the Executive Council that he should 
 dissolve the Legislative Council and get other members elected. 
 One of the Executive, I believe Sir Sidney Shippard, asked 
 where would be the use of a dissolution. Halkett and Murray 
 would be elected by a larger majority than ever, for the people 
 were with them. 
 
 Major Lanyon was moved to the Transvaal, and succeeded in 
 getting up a revolt which cost Great Britain loss of prestige,
 
 195 
 
 money, and lives, and this ended his official career. He would 
 never have got another Civil appointment had he lired, but he 
 -died at the end of about two years after he reached England. But 
 .annexation was forced on the Diamond Fields after all, not as 
 before by Imperial plotting and scheming, but on petitions that 
 had been got up in its favour. These petitions were choice 
 samples of political unhealthiness the fountains of political 
 opinion were polluted and the pollutions of that time still taint 
 the community. 
 
 There is no doubt that the vexation and turmoil which the 
 fight in Council against the Government involved hastened the 
 death of the late lamented Mr. Advocate Halkett. He was in a 
 rapid consumption before the Annexation Question was raised 
 in the Legislature, and had he lived ever so quiet a life he could 
 not have lasted many years, but in his condition of health 
 thorough Colonist as he always had been, and seeing as he did 
 see the ruination involved to the people be represented which 
 has come out of its being annexed to the Colony, as it has come 
 his whole nature was stirred. Mr. Halkett was a thorough- 
 going man manly and earnest in all he did and said. He had 
 all the qualifications essential to the politician, and had his life 
 been spared him there is no doubt he would have figured con- 
 spicuously in the public life of South Africa as he had already 
 done at the Bar. He was keen, quick of perception, fluent of 
 speech, and experience would have given all that his fluency of 
 speech needed to have made him what he aimed at being a 
 finished speaker. He had gained for himself already a very 
 large and lucrative practice in the High Court of Griqualand 
 West, and had passed colleagues of more experience and greater 
 scholarly and even legal attainments. He was what may be 
 termed " a taking man " and was a great popular favourite. He 
 was thoroughly British, heart and soul. His view in regard of 
 the political situation of Griqualand West, and for which he and 
 Murray were fighting, was for the annexation of Griqualand 
 West to Bechuanaland, and the two territories united to be 
 retained by the Crown as a Crown Colony. This they held, 
 and I hold still, would have been of immense advantage not only 
 to Griqualand and Bechuanaland, but would have been of 
 .advantage to the future of South Africa with the exception of 
 such local interests in Cape Town as have their deep root iu 
 draw all their nourishment from the seat of Government, 
 
 01
 
 and the advantages to them would have been limited to the 
 immediate present. It would have given the Imperial Govern- 
 ment a greater direct interest in the Colony and helped to swell 
 the majority in favour of a united South Africa a consumnmtion- 
 deroutly to be wished. The lands of both territories would 
 have been more rapidly brought into profitable occupation and 1 
 cultivation how much more rapidly few who have not devoted 
 their minds earnestly to the subject can possibly estimate. 
 
 Mr. Halkett was entirely a self-made barrister. He com- 
 menced life in a merchant's office that of Messrs. Van der Byl, 
 of St. George's Street, Cape Town. But trading and commercial 
 pursuits had no charm for him. In his young life he had not 
 the command of means to pay for the passing necessary to qualify 
 him for the position he was anxious to secure a place at the 
 Bar of this country. He for a very long time pursued the study of 
 the law with little assistance, working with his own hands to- 
 provide himself with means whilst he pursued his studies. After 
 being admitted to the Bar he rapidly gained the ear of the Courts- 
 in which he practised and the admiration of the public. He had 
 not nearly arrived at middle age when he passed away from 
 this world, more full of honours than any Colonist of his age- 
 had ever achieved.
 
 REMINISCENCE. 
 
 No. XXIX. 
 
 DIAMOND FIELDS GAIETIES COLONIAL RECEPTIONS OF DISTIN- 
 GUISHED MEN THE FESTIVITIES IN HONOUR OF THE 
 
 LIEUTENANT-GOVERNOR THE DRAFT CONSTITUTION 
 AND THE ELECTIONS. 
 
 THE memory of the past of Kimberley recalls many gaieties, 
 brilliant entertainments, public banquets, personages of high 
 rank and distinction worth remembering, and being brought 
 to memory bring into sad and mournful contrast the life in 
 Kimberley now with life in the Fields then. Take for instance 
 Kimberley in the Lieut.-Governor's time. There was not a 
 day in the week nor in the year, Sundays barely excepted, 
 when there was not something going on in the way of recrea- 
 tion. The Lieut.-Governor himself entertained most liberally. 
 At his residence there were banquets, at homes, and evening 
 parties, and His Excellency and Mrs. Southey did all in their 
 power to make Diamond Fields life enjoyable. No official 
 could have had a more hearty reception on his arrival than 
 had the Lieut.-Governor. The bulk of the population were 
 Cape Colonists, and everyone of them had known Mr. Southey 
 as long as they had known any person, thing or place in South 
 Africa, and to know him was to admire and respect him. 
 Many here were old enough to have remembered him as Secre- 
 tary to the Lieut.-Governor in the Eastern Province of the 
 Cape Colony, an office he had filled from the time that Colonel 
 Somerset was Lieut.-Governor up to the time when he was 
 in office in the Colonial Office, Cape Town. He had personal 
 friends on the Fields, whose friendship had lasted over a full 
 half-century, and that long and enduring friendship had never
 
 198 
 
 once been broken. There were more than a few here who hack 
 fought side by side with him during the early Kafir wars, who 
 were always ready to bear testimony to his pluck, his steadi- 
 ness in the field, recount some of his more remarkable sbots r 
 for he has always been renowned as a good marksman, and 
 these veterans when they heard of his appointment to the 
 office of Lieut.-Governor rejoiced with exceedingly great joy,, 
 for they knew that his government would be just and bene- 
 ficial to all classes in this country. The Eastern Province- 
 men had cause to consider that he had especial claims upon 
 them, for he had fought their battles for many years, not only 
 in the early native wars, but had fought their battles, some- 
 times against the Imperial Government, and at others when 
 West was arrayed against the East. It is unquestionably a 
 fact that when Mr. Southey left the Lieut.-Governor's staff 
 to enter the Colonial Office in Cape Town that the Western 
 people suspected that he would prove to be too much inclined 
 to the Easterns to suit the Western book. But Mr. Southey 
 had lived in the West long enough to show them that he 
 knew how to perform his duty in that station of life to- 
 which it may please God and the Government to call him r 
 whether it was East or West, North or South. Westerns 
 as well as Easterns were prepared to welcome him as were 
 diggers and dealers from parts of South Africa which are 
 neither East nor West. Mr. Southey was always intensely 
 English, as he always will be. The family of Southeys are as 
 well known in the Western counties of England as the Cour- 
 tenays, the Cliffords, the Carews, the Bullers, the Kingsleys, 
 or the Northcotes. But Sir Richard Southey, although 
 intensely English, numbers amongst his Colonial friends as- 
 many African Dutch as he would if his father had been a Dutch 
 Boer. He is a hail-fellow-well-met with every Dutchman he 
 eomes across, and the whole of the Dutch Colonists here dig- 
 ging when he arrived here as Lieut-Governor crowded round 
 him with hearty welcomes on their lips and warm feelings of 
 welcome in their hearts. He was never a negrophilist of the 
 Exeter Hall type, but the native population of South Africa 
 have always looked up to him as a friend of theirs, and Water- 
 boer, Mankoroane, and the surrounding native chiefs no sooner 
 heard of his arrival than they came in to visit him and assure 
 him of their loyalty, and it was his care for the rights of the
 
 199 
 
 natives which chiefly caused the breach between him and Sir 
 Henry Barkly and led to his withdrawal. Some people put 
 it down to spite on the part of Sir Henry, who revenged him- 
 self on Mr. Southey because of their differences in re the 
 introduction of Responsible Government. I regard such an 
 accusation as unmitigated rot not a very elegant expression 
 but one which plainly conveys its meaning. 
 
 When the day was fixed for the Lieut.-Governor's arrival 
 on the Diamond Fields, arrangements were made for his recep- 
 tion upon the best possible scale under the prevailing 
 circumstances. In the first place, of course, the people must 
 not wait to welcome him after he had arrived in the town. 
 In accordance with South African custom, he must be met 
 somewhere on the road outside the town itself. That has been 
 the fashion in South Africa whenever an illustrious personage 
 has paid it a visit, when a Governor comes for the first time or 
 when a popular Governor returns, or whenever an esteemed 
 citizen has been to Europe or elsewhere on a visit and comes 
 back. The honour done to the arrival is measured by the dis- 
 tance which people ride or drive out to give him his first cheer 
 the most enthusiastic invariably going as an advanced guard 
 some miles further out than the main body. When the first 
 member of the Royal Family who visited South Africa arrived 
 in Simon's Bay the people of Cape Town and its neighbourhood 
 settled that nothing short of Rathfelder's Halfway House would 
 do for the general rendezvous to show their delight at the 
 Royal condescension of Her Majesty in sending her son Prince 
 Alfred out to hob-nob with the Cape Colonists, but Rathfelders. 
 was nothing like the length to which the most loyal would have 
 their loyalty measured by. A good lot of the brimful-of- 
 loyalty people went out to Farmer Peck's, and those whose 
 loyalty was brimful and running over drove all the way to- 
 Simon's Town to accompany the Royal cortege the whole of 
 the length of the road upon the principle of " the whole hog 
 or none." And so it was when the Diamond Fielders were 
 bent on giving Mr. Southey a welcome as their Lieut.- 
 Governor. In the ' days when His Excellency's arrival 
 occurred, Alexandersfontein was to the principal city of 
 the Diamond Fields precisely what Rathfelders was to the 
 metropolis of the Cape Colony, It was the great festal centre,, 
 the place of all places for holiday folk where quoits were
 
 200 
 
 played, and picnics came off ; where bridal pairs went to get 
 their first taste of connubial felicity and where men on the spree 
 went when they meant to have an outing on the quiet, and 
 where they knew loo could be played unlimited and poker 
 would not be disturbed. Alas ! Alexandersfontein, like Rath- 
 felders, has gone the way of all flesh in this weary world of 
 change. Both places have been steamed out of existence. But 
 when the Lieut.-Governor's arrival took place, Alexanders- 
 fontein was in the heyday of its glory, as were the people of 
 the Diamond Fields. Money was plentiful, a sovereign was not 
 deemed of more importance then than a brass farthing is now. 
 No Diamond Fielder outside the Malay Camp, or the Kafir 
 restaurants, had any palate for Cape beer. Without pate foi 
 and caviare nobody that was anybody breakfasted, and to be 
 seen drinking without finishing up with a wash down of 
 Champagne and a liqueur to bring the meal to a point was to 
 lose caste in Kimberley and forfeit social recognition. 
 
 Alexandersfontein was settled upon as the grand rendezvous 
 where the people were to welcome their Lieut.-Governor. 
 Erery diamond merchant and citizen of renown kept his vehicle 
 " turn out " it was called no matter what the shape of the 
 vehicle, breed or condition of the team, it was a " turn-out." 
 To drive anything or ride anything in the way of a nag that 
 hadn't a bit of blood in him and was not in full flesh and clean 
 of leg, was to be voted a moke yourself. Mr. J. B. Robinson 
 was the Squire of Kimberley or, at any rate, he was cock of 
 the Kimberley walk so far as turn-outs were concerned. "No 
 Baron or Squire, or Knight of the Shire," ever drove a finer 
 turn-out than he. His vehicle was the pride of the road, and 
 his pair of well-bred high -steppers went their pace as if they 
 knew that they were the pets of a millionaire, as I dare say they 
 did. Mr. J. B. Robinson's noble "turn-out" it was arranged 
 should bring in the Lieut.-Governor and his lady, the Secretary 
 to Government, and his Private Secretary, from Alexandersfon- 
 tein, into which equipage they were to change at that spot from 
 their travelling vehicle. 
 
 His Excellency was expected at 4 in the afternoon, At 2 
 p.m., Kimberley was all hustle and bustle, and by 3 o'clock, the 
 horsemen were in their saddles, the drivers were in their seats 
 cracking their whips, and the vehicles were loaded up. Beauty 
 and Fashion were both there, for Beauty, in the early days, was
 
 201 
 
 ^conspicuous whenever the citizens were en fete. There was an 
 abundant supply of " that other sex, the tender, the fair," at the 
 period of which I am writing. It was the land of liberty and of 
 liberties too. There was beauty in every social rank and there 
 ,were ranks tip tops, second rates, the rut and lower depth still. 
 And when there was a general turn-out, all were represented. 
 
 At half-past 3, the road was crowded. Every inch of it was 
 covered with well-mounted horsemen and well-laden vehi- 
 cles, and by 4 o'clock, when His Excellency arrived, before or 
 behind him was one living mass of people. There had been an 
 advance guard to bring him in, as a number of his oldest friends 
 had gone many a mile beyond Alexandersfontein to get the first 
 shake of the hand and to give him the first welcome. He was 
 received at Alexaudersfontein with such cheering, loud and 
 hearty, as might have been, and I was told at the time, was, 
 heard at Bultfontein. Then the run into town was done at a 
 splitting pace, the people cheering as they went. In the 
 evening there were fireworks in the Market Square. The 
 square was fairly packed with people, and the Lieutenant- 
 'Governor and Mrs Southey, who were present, met with good 
 wishes from every one. The last display of fireworks was a 
 blazer, for the people in charge of the rockets, the Roman 
 candles and Catherine wheels had placed the box containing the 
 bulk of the stock under the platform from whence the display 
 took place ; a spark fell into the box, and the whole was ignited, 
 and blazed, crackled, fizzed, and went off together. No harm 
 came of it, and the fun of the thing gave people something to 
 talk about as a wind-up. 
 
 Following upon the fireworks there was a tiffin, and a boun- 
 teous tiffin it was, at the Theatre Royal a few days after, given 
 in honour of the respected official. I don't believe there was 
 ever so many present at a tiffin in Kimberley before or since. 
 Of course the health of the guest was received with " loud and 
 continued " applause, for it was so reported at the time. There 
 were some good stirring speeches and a pleasant day was spent. 
 The Lieut. -Governor deserved it all, for he had earned the 
 gratitude and esteem of every South African whose gratitude 
 was worth having. 
 
 We had our Lieut.-Governor all right, and he was ready to 
 unravel the tangle of complications and set official matters 
 .straight, and this he did at once, and whatever else may be said
 
 202 
 
 of Mr. J. B. Currey, the then Secretary, he lent great assistance 
 to His Excellency in that work. The straightening up of 
 affairs was a tiresome and long job, but when month after 
 month passed and nothing was heard about the " Constitutional " 
 Government promised by Sir Henry Barkly, the people got 
 restless and wanted to know when it was going to put in an 
 appearance. The Diamond News put the question, pat, but no 
 answer came for some time, and when it did, it had the appear- 
 ance of the dry bones of some old, worn-out Constitution that 
 had been raked out of the Colonial Office in Downing-street, 
 where it had laid from the time of Richard the Third, or some 
 such genial, amiable and generous crowned heads of long ago. 
 
 However, there it was, and Mr. Southey had to make the best 
 of it, as he did, and always did, and does, with everything given 
 to him to work with or work out. The Constitution was pub- 
 lished, criticised and complained of, but neither the Lieutenant- 
 Governor, the Secretary to Government, nor the Executive, nor.- 
 all the lot put together, had the power to alter or expand the 
 provisions of it by so much as one poor provision. The election 
 of members was invited by Proclamation. More than the 
 number required to fill the four seats came forward, and the 
 bidding for the Kimberley seats ran high. The elections were 
 hotly contested.
 
 REMINISCENCE. 
 
 No. XXX. 
 
 THEATRICALS AT HOME AND ABROAD AMATEURS AN PRO- 
 FESSIONALS THE DRAMA AND CHRISTY MINSTRELS 
 
 G. V. BROOKE SEFTON-PARRY CAPTAIN DISNEY ROEBUCK 
 
 HARVEY, DOUGHERTY AND THE REST. 
 
 MT reminiscences of theatres, actors, and theatricals, and 
 of entertainments of all sorts, are amongst the pleasantest I 
 have. Used to that sort of life from my earliest professional 
 career, and having been a constant attendant of theatres and 
 concert-rooms for fully ten years without intermission before 
 I had left England, and having seen the best actors that ever 
 trod the British stage, and heard the most famous vocalists 
 and instrumentalists from the time Charles Kean with Ellen 
 Tree (afterwards Mrs. Kean) and Macready and Brooke were 
 starring it in the Provinces, to the time when Robson was in 
 the zenith of his popularity, the drama had become a passion 
 with me, and having had the privilege of hearing Jenny Liud, 
 Braham, Blewitt and their contemporaries in the concert-rooms 
 of many counties, my natural ear and my taste for music had 
 been pretty well cultivated. I think there is not a county 
 in England in which I had not attended the entertainments of 
 John Parry and Henry Russell, had been a frequenter of 
 Albert Smith's Mont Blanc, and Woodin's Carpet Bag enter- 
 tainments, and a host of others of the same kind. It may be 
 well supposed that when first in Cape Town, where there was- 
 neither a theatrical nor any other entertainment, I sometimes 
 longed to be back in the old country again. 
 
 I can trace back the theatrical events in the Colony for forty 
 years with great accuracy and distinctness. The first theatre 
 I heard anything about after my arrival in Cape Town was-
 
 204 
 
 In Hottentot Square. That had just been transferred from a 
 theatre to a Sunday School by some Dutch goody-goodys 
 under the belief that going to the theatre was half-way, if 
 not more, to the bottomless pit. The first theatricals I had 
 A chance of seeing at the Cape occurred on the arrival of G. 
 V. Brooke, en route to Australia. The play took place at the 
 Barrack Theatre, Brooke taking the part of the Stranger, with 
 Fanny Catbcart as Mrs. Haller, and Mr. Charles Fairbridge 
 as Peter. Richard Young, who was one of Brooke's corps 
 dramatique, played one of the characters, I forget which. 
 This must have been some time in 1855. I remember Jacobs, 
 the conjurer, who I had seen perform just before leaving 
 England. He used to be announced as the Wizard of the 
 South. It was a rare week's treat for the Cape Town people 
 when Brooke and Jacobs arrived. Brooke performed in the 
 Barrack Theatre and Jacobs at the Commercial Exchange. 
 
 The next dramatic performance was given by Mr. Sefton 
 Parry at the Commercial Exchange ; he himself taking the 
 -character of Sir Charles Coldstream in " Used Up," and the 
 late Mr. James Lycett, many years landlord of the London 
 Hotel in Greenmarket Square, playing the Blacksmith. Parry 
 played Sir Charles as well as ever he played anything, and 
 Lycett was the Blacksmith to the life. The performance was 
 loudly applauded, and Parry was encouraged to go to England, 
 get a company together and bring them out. When he arrived 
 with his wife and company he built a wooden theatre at 
 the top of Harrington-street, and fitted it up very tastefully. 
 His company was a very good one and included Wm. Brazier, 
 who had been playing leading characters at the Princesses' 
 but had parted company with Mr. Charles Kean. Mrs. 
 Parry was a pretty little actress. Parry at the close of 
 the season went to Port Elizabeth and did well there. On 
 Parry's second visit to the Cape he turned two houses 
 belonging to Mr. Glynn, at the bottom of Harrington- 
 street, into a very admirable and convenient little theatre. 
 A perfect miniature of an English play house. He had another 
 successful season there to the best of my recollection, two 
 seasons. Jt was at the Cape Sefton Parry laid the foundation 
 of his fortune, for it Mas with the money he made in the Colony 
 that he built his London house and started the companies which 
 completed his fortune.
 
 205 
 
 In the interval between Parry's first and second visit 
 dramatic company was established in Cape Town of amateur 
 members, and they became lessees of the Harrington-street 
 building. Amongst the leading amateur actors were Mr. 
 William Groom, Mr. William Sherman, Mr. John Ross, jun., 
 Mr. Aldridge, Mr. Westroff, Mr. Gall, Mr. George Prince,. 
 Mr. E. Christian, and the actresses were Mrs. Hutchinson, Miss 
 Hutchinson, Mrs. Maston, Mrs. Forrester, now of Beaconsfield, 
 and Miss Wilters. They gave some performances which com- 
 pared favourably with those of Parry's professionals. Their 
 first performance was " Still Waters Run Deep," which was 
 well put upon the stage and well played to crowded houses, for 
 it was repeated " by desire." I have seen it performed many 
 times since, but I think never better than it was on the first 
 night of the Cape Town Dramatique Club in Harrington-street.. 
 It might be that I being President of the Club was the more- 
 easily elated. After that the Club put not only melodrama, 
 comedy and farce on the stage, but went in for the ballet, with 
 marked success. Messrs. Aldridge, who died in the cottage 
 behind the Theatre Royal, Kimberley, and Westrop made up 
 for ballet girls, with fine effect, dressed exquisitely, and a la- 
 Alhambra girls, did ballet dancing to perfection. The Club 
 apartments in Darling-street were most tastefully and expen- 
 sively furnished, the pianos and furniture being all of walnut 
 to match. At the end of the first season the Club had a balance 
 of 800 in the Bank. 
 
 After the Club, Mr. Charles Fraser, afterwards reporter for 
 The Eastern Province Herald at Port Elizabeth, and the 
 gentleman who played off " Hard-ships " upon Messrs. Hudson 
 and Innes, of the Customs, as related in my Reminiscence,, 
 opened in the little theatre in the Buitenkant, Cape Town, in 
 which Mr. English had been giving sundry entertainments after 
 the style of " Wooden's Carpet Bag," which drew such crowds 
 during the Crystal Palace Exhibition of 1851. Mr. Fraser and 
 his brother were capital comedians, and he got a very excellent 
 company together, but he left the stage for the Press, having 
 entered into an engagement with Mr. George Impey. The 
 aforesaid Charles, as good a fellow, and as good-natured, as 
 ever fell into Colonial Press ranks, was, the last time I saw 
 him, Editor of The European Mail in London. Poor old boy,, 
 he did not then look like the young fellow who skipped about
 
 206 
 
 the stage in the Buitenkant, for asthma had worn him 
 clown and aged him terribly, and he had to sit and work in 
 an office heated to a degree in which hot-house plants would 
 have thriven. 
 
 Since the theatrical period in Cape Town which commenced 
 in 1855 a taste for the drama has been infused into and culti- 
 vated in all the principal towns of South Africa Port Elizabeth, 
 Graham's Town, Kimberley, Du Toits Pan, Pretoria, and 
 .Johannesburg. The Natalians are well to the front as patrons 
 of the drama every company from Natal that I have met with 
 have reported a success there which has been encouraging, and 
 I am convinced that the Natalians are more liberal to actors 
 than the people of any other part of South Africa. There was 
 a time when Kimberley took the lead, but not now Johannes- 
 burg has cut Kimberley out altogether. The Cape Town 
 audiences, considering that it is the metropolis with a large 
 educated population, do not at all come up to the average that 
 might be expected. 
 
 Since Sefton Parry's time we have had no end of theatrical 
 companies from London and other parts of the world. Madame 
 Duret kept a company going in the Cape Town Theatre for a 
 Tery long time. She was a splendid actress. I saw her first 
 playing Shakesperian characters with G. V. Brooke in 1851, 
 .and she had been performing the same characters with him in 
 Australia after that. The best all-round actress who to my 
 mind has trod the Cape boards was little Mrs. Tellet. There 
 was nothing she played that she did not play well, and she was 
 ready for anything and everything, from Lady Macbeth to 
 " Nan, the Good-for-nothing." Of course she was not up to 
 Madam Duret or Miss Berrange in their special line. I always 
 placed Miss Berrange in the first rank in melodrama. Captain 
 Disney Roebuck unquestionably did a good deal to improve the 
 Colonial stage. I should say that Frank Wheeler has given 
 the theatregoer of South Africa as much thorough enjoyment as 
 .any actor. He has made a welcome for himself in every town 
 of South Africa in which a theatre stands. Tom Paulton did 
 pretty much in that line whilst in this country, but he did not 
 so far afield as the Wheelers. His versatility was marvellous, 
 as was that of Mrs. Paulton. They and their company, which 
 underwent little change, kept the Kimberley people amused for 
 a very long time, and Mr. and Mrs. Sinclair were no less
 
 207 
 
 successful and quite as popular. Mr. Searelle is the King of the 
 the South African stage just now. 
 
 The most successful entertainments ever given were those of 
 the Harvey-Leslie Christy Minstrels. They remained in South 
 Africa for over two years, playing all the time, and attracting 
 full houses wherever they went. They were the best band of 
 Christys I ever heard ; preferable, to my thinking, to Burgess's 
 -at St. James's Hall, for every member of the band was a 
 performer in the first rank of his own line. Dougherty alone 
 was worth the whole cost of the ticket ; he wag always running 
 over with humour when at his corner and the bones in his hands, 
 and his was humour which came at the instant, fresh and 
 sparkling from his lips. He manufactured jokes, and never 
 repeated. His humour came as fast as he could give expression 
 to it. And he was not only a corner man. He could dance 
 splendidly and in comic opera he was first-rate. Then there 
 was Leslie, who had an enchanting voice. Braham, who sang 
 modern English songs with much taste. His voice was clear, 
 and with plenty of ring in it. Cox, as a violinist, was as good 
 as was ever heard on the St. James's stage, and Truro, as a 
 basso, was a tremendous fellow. Turner's violoncello per- 
 formances were far above the average, and, best of all, Mr. H. 
 Harvey was a first-rate manager and kept his team well in hand. 
 The Harvey-Leslie Minstrels took some thousands of coin away 
 with them. But Harvey made a financial mistake with hip 
 Opera and Variety Companies. It is to be always admitted that 
 .his Opera Company did much to inculcate a taste for high-class 
 music. Than Turner no finer tenor was ever heard in South 
 Africa, and few elsewhere whose voice was so pure and had so 
 much ring in it. It was like a silver bell. This company 
 initiated operatic performances in this country. 
 
 I should have mentioned before that the first Christy Minstrels 
 who visited South Africa were Joe Brown's Band of Brothers. 
 Joe was the champion jig-dancer of the world when he came to 
 South Africa, but he was surpassed when Dougherty stepped 
 out as a rival, but then Joe had grown old and a bit stiff. Joe's 
 party were the first band of vocalists who gave South Africa a 
 taste for nigger part singing. They were the first to sing 
 "Come Whre My Love Lies Dreaming" in this country. I 
 wonder how many times it has been sung in the country since 
 they first delighted Cape Town with it at their performance in
 
 208 
 
 the Harrington-street Theatre ? I don't think the last statisticaF 
 return of Government has any mention of it. The figures would 
 take up all the breadth of a very wide column. I have heard it,. 
 I am certain, as many times as I am days old, and that will be- 
 precisely 26,280 days to-day. I have heard it sung by no end 
 of Christy Minstrels in England and the colonies. I have heard 
 it sung in Republics and Crown Colonies, sung by amateurs as 
 well as professionals, sung by real, unadulterated thick-lipped 
 niggers, as well as by those of sooty imitation, sung by ladies 
 as well as gentlemen, and by white-faced as well as by black ;. 
 but it never seemed to be so thrilling in its effect as on the night 
 it was first sung by Joe Brown's Minstrels. That night it 
 certainly was " the song that reached my heart."
 
 REMINISCENCE 
 
 No. XXXI. 
 
 THE LATE BISHOP RICARDS HIS LIFE AND DEATH. 
 
 I MADE the personal acquaintance of the late Bishop Ricards 
 first in 1864 thirty years ago. The first time I saw him he 
 was in company with Bishop Morau, who is now in New 
 Zealand, at the banquet given in honour of His Excellency 
 the late Sir Philip Wodehouse in the Graham's Town Court- 
 house, on the occasion of the removal of the Cape Parliament 
 to that city. From that time to the day of his death our rela- 
 tions were sufficiently intimate to enable me to form a fair 
 estimate of his worthiness of character, of the greatness and 
 scope of his genius, of his self-sacrificing spirit, of his earnest- 
 ness in the cause of true religion, of his tolerant spirit towards 
 his fellow-men, irrespective of creed, class, colour, or degree. 
 The late lamented Bishop was not only a profound theologian 
 ; and an equally profound scholar, but he ranked high in the 
 world of art and science, and was apt at everything he undertook ; 
 and there were few things he did not undertake for the improve- 
 ment, the welfare, and the amusement of the people amongst 
 whom he lived and amongst, whom he moved. As far back 
 :as 1854, in addition to the duties and responsibilities of a 
 priest which he faithfully fulfilled and discharged, he kept 
 a school for the education not of Catholics only but for the 
 youth of all creeds, he edited a Catholic newspaper (" The 
 Colonist "), and not only edited it but always assisted in 
 printing it, and many times he himself printed it and pamphlets 
 without any assistance whatever, and did bookbinding for his 
 own and the Catholic library and for some of the Catholic 
 literati in addition. There was no newspaper that ever came 
 P
 
 210 
 
 out of Graham's Town with more brilliant leading articles than 
 " The Colonist." It was a weekly paper, and, as well as I 
 remember, double-demy in size. The Graham's Town journals 
 employed no shorthand reporters in these days. In fact there 
 was no necessity nor scope for them. The news and items 
 of " The Colonist " were well culled, tersely written, and there 
 was never an inch of "space" wasted or badly employed. 
 The reverend editor never made an attack upon his contem- 
 poraries, was never in a wrangle with them or with anybody, 
 and the impartiality and excellence of his leading articles so 
 commended them to the editors of his Colonial contemporaries 
 that the articles were quoted freely by journals of all political 
 parties. The late Bishop never held extreme views on any 
 social or political subjects, and in his editorials his statements 
 of fact were accurate and his deductions strictly logical. As 
 compared with the local contemporaries of " The Colonist," 
 the absence of party colouring for its columns was strikingly 
 conspicuous. 
 
 In the sciences of astronomy and chemistry he was a master,, 
 and his acquaintanceship with geology and mineralogy was 
 not slight. For years the telescope and microscope were 
 delightful means of recreation and research to him. His love 
 of art and literature was a passion. The gems of art he 
 collected from time to time were varied and valuable, and on 
 each occasion of a visit to Europe he brought back with him 
 valuable and unique additions to his art stores. He was a 
 fair linguist, spoke and wrote several languages, was a good 
 Hebrew scholar, and his library was extensive, comprehensive, 
 and varied. The literature of many languages was represented 
 on his library shelves of all the Continental and dead languages 
 certainly. His contributions to literature were considerable,, 
 and those on Catholic doctrinal subjects are regarded and 
 accepted as authorities by the members of the Church to which 
 he was attached, and his published works had a wide circulation 
 and are well known throughout Christendom. As a preacher 
 he was unrivalled ; his sermons were masterpieces of English 
 composition, elegant in style and full of fire and force. Two- 
 of them are especially in my memory one delivered at the 
 opening of St. Augustine's Church at Port Elizabeth, and the 
 other an ordination sermon from the text, " We are co-ad jutors 
 of God," preached in the Roman Catholic Chapel, Hill-street,.
 
 Graham's Town. Both sermons were delivered whilst Dr, 
 Moran was bishop, and the deceased was subordinate to him in 
 the priesthood. The latter sermon was published in extenso in 
 the " Great Eastern " newspaper, for although Bishop Ricards'a 
 sermons were always uttered extemporary, they were closely 
 studied before delivery and committed to paper. He had the 
 rare and extraordinary gift of being able to commit to memory 
 and to repeat word for word that which he had previously 
 written. On the occasion of the ordination sermon, which I 
 myself heard, I held the manuscript in my hand during its 
 delivery, and the fidelity with which he adhered to the original 
 was marvellous. There is no Catholic church or chapel in the 
 Colony in which his voice has not been heard, no place in the 
 Colony where he had not personal friends. 
 
 He was celebrated throughout South Africa for his public 
 readings of Dickens and Lever, the general opinion being that 
 his rendering of the works of the former author was his best, 
 but in that opinion I never shared. To my mind his reading of 
 Lever was never excelled in this country nor in any other. At* 
 Irishman born and bred, he understood Irish humour better than 
 English, and he was more at home with Mickey Free than with 
 either Sain or Tony Weller ; but both authors Dickens and 
 Lever received great justice at his hands. For institutions and 
 charities his readings were in continual request, and he seldom 
 visited a town or city but he was solicited to give a reading, and 
 with his generous good nature he never refused a request when 
 time and leisure permitted it. 
 
 He was ready alike to afford amusement and to give instruc- 
 tion. With an unlimited fund of wit and humour himself, he 
 contributed unstintedly to the love of wit and humour of those 
 with whom he was thrown into association. He had a world of 
 anecdote wherewith to set the table in a roar wherever he was, 
 either at home or abroad. Our South African poet in his 
 " Wanderer's Rhymes," has commemorated " Tom's Dinner," 
 given at the Albemarle Hotel, London, at which Bishop Ricards 
 was a guest, as follows : 
 
 First came " the Bishop," good and true, 
 
 Aa bright a soul as ever drew 
 
 The breath of life. 
 ... 
 
 While, shall I say it something lent 
 
 A fillip to the merriment, 
 
 P2
 
 212 
 
 As one by one the Bishop's gems 
 Tales, epigrams, and apothegms 
 Fell from bis lips, we all confest 
 Here was an " artiste " at his best, 
 As laughter rose to lips and eyes, 
 We gave him with applause, first prize. 
 
 Wherever he went he " won golden opinions from all sorts of 
 men," and during the time he kept school, which he did up to 
 the day he succeeded Bishop Moran, he had the affection, the 
 unqualified love, of his pupils without exception, and those of 
 them who are alive to-day will say that it was not only technical 
 education he laboured to impart, but it was a labour of love with 
 him to educate the higher nature of those committed to his 
 charge, and in this he succeeded. It was his greatest reward 
 that his " boys " were truthful, and as incapable of meanness as 
 youths can be taught to be. 
 
 Neither his pupils nor the adult residents of Graham's Town 
 will ever forget the theatrical representations which " Doctor 
 Ricards " (for that was his title then) provided for their 
 amusement. His pupils were the actors and he stage manager, 
 scene painter and scene constructor, for in addition to his other 
 .accomplishments, he used the brush and painted scenery (aye, 
 and made the scenes) as if " to the manner born." His energy 
 in the days of which I am writing was inexhaustible. I have 
 many times seen him first celebrate early Mass to commence the 
 day with ; Mass over, painting a scene in preparation for an 
 evening's theatrical performance at nine o'clock opening 
 .school, where he would remain until twelve. Between 
 twelve and two, just taking sufficient time for lunch, attend- 
 ing a rehearsal of the piece to be performed. In school 
 again at two, remaining until four, from which hour until half- 
 past five more fitting up of the stage. After six o'clock dinner 
 back at the extemporised theatre giving the final touch to 
 everything, and arranging the properties or " making up " the 
 young actors. The performances invariably attracted full 
 houses. People of all denominations attended, and very fre- 
 quently more applied for admittance than could obtain it. Of 
 course these dramatic representations only took place in one 
 season of the year winter, but during the other months the 
 *' Doctor " was equally busy from early morning until after 
 evening service, and he seldom got an unbroken night's rest.
 
 213 
 
 His night calls to attend the sick and dying were very frequent, 
 and many and many a time he has had to walk from his residence 
 to Fort England first and to the police camp afterwards a 
 distance of about four miles in the middle of the night, and not 
 unfrequently he would have to commence his day's duties with- 
 out having been in bed the whole night. But he never com- 
 plained. Earnest in his calling, and religiously impressed 
 with the conviction that he had done no more than 
 his duty, he laboured on, always cheerful, ever ready with a 
 cheering word for the sick and a pleasant one for all the health- 
 ful he met. 
 
 In addition to all this work in his own parish, he did much 
 work outside. On his being consecrated Bishop, school-keeping 
 was no longer in accordance with his office, nor possible to be 
 performed if it were, and he then devoted himself to more com- 
 prehensive schemes of education the most comprehensive that 
 was ever conceived by any one mind in South Africa, either of 
 layman or cleric. His heart was always full of desire for the 
 education of the people, not of any one class, but of every class 
 from the highest to the lowest. His great scheme of all was 
 intended to be applied to the Eastern Province of the Cape 
 Colony, from Humansdorp to the extreme limits of British 
 Kaffraria. The following is a brief outline of the scheme. 
 First a college, with trained professors, for pupils who could 
 remain until their education was complete chiefly those who 
 were intended for a profession. Then the next a school, with 
 competent masters, for boys who were required to assist in 
 bread-getting for the families to which they belonged. Thirdly,, 
 schools for those who could ocly attend occasionally ; and 
 lastly, evening schools for grown-up lads and young men who 
 were at work all day. The Bishop having formulated the plan* 
 and made the arrangements for school buildings, &c., proceeded 
 himself to Europe, and selected teachers, and enlisted aid from 
 various quarters, not from the Colony only, but from the 
 Diamond-Fields, the neighbouring Republics, and Bechuana- 
 land. Some of the schools were started in other parts, and 
 then his lordship 'purchased the Sunday River estate of 
 the late Mr. James Kirkwood and introduced Trappists to 
 work it. 
 
 The Trappists failed to work the estate profitably, owing to 
 bad seasons and other untoward circumstances. Some portions of
 
 214 
 
 the education scheme failed to fulfil his lordship's expectations 
 and he became involved in vast obligations of various kinds, 
 was responsible for large money payments, and the entangle- 
 ments told upon his health, serious nervous depression unfitted 
 him for work, and he was advised by his medical advisers that 
 a visit to Europe for change of air and scene was necessary to 
 the restoration of his health. He left his work and the Colony 
 a broken-down man, himself impressed with the belief that he 
 was going Home to die. He, however, after the sea voyage and 
 a short time in Europe recovered both health and strength, paid 
 a visit to his native home and people at Wexford, and returned to 
 the Cape quite himself and accompanied by additional priests and 
 nuns, and he at the same time brought books and appliances for 
 scholastic work, and amongst other things a superb altar piece 
 for the Graham's Town Convent Chapel. Crowds of people from 
 Graham's Town and neighbourhood people of all classes and 
 sects, assembled on the railway platform to welcome him on his 
 return. His return was a joy to everyone. He was welcomed 
 with an unparalleled enthusiasm ; the crowd following him 
 to his residence, where a reception took place in the Convent 
 grounds in the evening. All Graham's Town attended the 
 reception. 
 
 The Bishop then set to work with renewed energy, but he in 
 a very short time became disheartened to find that the complica- 
 tions and burthen of obligations which broke him down before 
 were not diminishing, and he estimating that they were greater 
 than he could ever discharge, again fell ill. He had had several 
 repeated attacks of nervous depression, and visits to Europe had 
 restored him ; but his last attack seemed to take all the vitality 
 out of him. In vain distant friends wrote, whilst those at hand 
 told him not to concern himself about his money obligations 
 incurred, not on his own account but for the promotion of the 
 welfare of his people, that they would be discharged ; that his 
 vicariate was rich enough to discharge the debt, and in vain 
 they did discharge it. At the last it was seen that his breakdown 
 was hopeless. For a long time he was unable to leave his apart- 
 ment, but everything was done that could be done by both clergy 
 and laity to comfort him, and as long as his physical strength 
 remained, bis mind was clear, and to the last he possessed an 
 intelligent recognition of all that was going on around him. 
 He died the death of the righteous, and has left behind
 
 215 
 
 him monuments of his genius grand in their conception, 
 stable in their completion, and from which will result 
 blessings to the age in which we live, and to generations 
 yet unborn. 
 
 To perpetuate the memory of this excellent, zealous, and able 
 servant of God and his people is now our duty. Let us do it 
 well.
 
 REMINISCENCE. 
 
 No. XXXII. 
 
 OLD MEMORIES THE BISHOPS ROMAN AND PROTESTANT HIGH 
 
 AND LOW CHURCH DIVISIONS AND DISTURBANCES 
 
 PARLIAMENT REVOKES LAND GRANT GIVEN TO BISHOP 
 
 GRAY THE LONG TRIAL THE COLENSO CONTROVERSY 
 
 BISHOP GRAY DEFEATED. 
 
 THE pleasantest of revivals is unquestionably the revival of 
 old memories. They bring back to us loved faces tbat we shall 
 see no more on this earth but in recollection and dream faces 
 associated with happy times, with broken social circles pleasant 
 yet to think of, merry-makings and junketings, the playmates of 
 our yduth, convivial associates who have left us for their eternal 
 rest, the heroes we idolised, the good and great held up to us a& 
 examples, the men of mark who outstripped us in life's race, the 
 wits and the wise, who, if they left us nothing else at their 
 taking off, bequeathed to us a wealth of wit and wisdom of more 
 than money value, and for which legacy, the only one, we are 
 not called upon to pay tax to the tax collector. 
 
 The discovery that " thoughts force their way against the 
 will " was not reserved for one of the greatest of England's- 
 poets to make. It is everyone's experience who has any 
 thought with force in it, and thus it is that sad memories intrude 
 themselves with gloom and sadness in their train. But as it is 
 not my aim to revive that which all would rather forget, I shall r 
 as I have done from the commencement, content myself with 
 reminiscences which are cheering and worthy of being recorded 
 some for the mere pleasure they give and others for their 
 historical value. 
 
 In the panorama which time has painted in a memory of 
 nearly half a century there are strong lights and shades, which
 
 217 
 
 to me seem marvellous, and make one feel that life measured by- 
 events is much longer than life measured by years. Features- 
 crowd upon one which have not had a ray of sunshine on them 
 for scores of years, and yet are as vivid and real to memory as- 
 if they still smiled upon their surroundings. Yet scenes of the 
 past, which melted out of life's reality years and years ago come 
 back in all their freshness, and many of them like " things of 
 beauty " will be " joys for ever," and some of us who took part 
 in them, and are living yet, store them up and prize them as 
 beyond all price. There are facts in history which the world 
 never ought to be allowed to forget. There are men, now no- 
 more, whose achievements, successes in life, victories, inventions,, 
 bravery, philantbrophy, self-denial, and patriotism ought never, 
 and will never be utterly forgotten. The good, the great, and 
 the wise are not, when they shake off their mortal coil, to be 
 dismissed with no more than an epitaph or an obituary notice.. 
 The work they commenced, and some of them completed, in their 
 lifetime still exists, and with their work their names should) 
 ever be associated, and sometimes they are for centuries, and' 
 some will be to the end of Time. South Africa has had, and 
 still has, as fair a proportion of able and worthy and distin- 
 guished men as any part of Her Majesty's dominions, or indeed 
 as any part of the world for the matter of that, and they have 
 risen into prominence in every rank of life as judges, bishops,, 
 at the Bar and Side-bar, M.D.'s, F.R.C.S.'s, engineers, surveyors,- 
 politicians, preachers, chemists, mechanics, .accountants, artists,, 
 miners, scholars, travellers, discoverers, journalists, teachers,, 
 botanists, horticulturists, farmers, builders, machinists, and the 
 like, and many of those of them who have " gone before " hare 
 left behind them names worthy of all honour, aye, and 1 
 many whose names deserved to be and will be perpetually 
 remembered. Of the judges the names and deliverances of 
 Sir John Wylde, and Justices Meintjes, Musgrave, Bell, 
 Watermeyer, Fitzpatrick, Connor, Harding are " house- 
 hold words " to-day, and are as familiar in the mouths of the- 
 living judges and the men of the long robe as they ever were, 
 although some of them left this world many, many years ago. 
 The overflowing eloquence and exhaustive deliverances of our 
 first Chief Justice will never be forgotten by those who heard 
 them, nor will the profound legal dictum of Mr. Justice 
 Meintjes, the calm, sententious judgments of Mr. Justice
 
 218 
 
 Musgrave, the subtle and logical judgments of Mr. Justice 
 Bell, the firm, penetrating, impartial, and accurate decisions 
 of Mr. Justice Watermeyer, the wit and humour of Fitz pa trick, 
 whose judgments were indisputable, and whose decisions, 
 promptly arrived at, were unimpeachable. Harding' s Digest 
 of our Colonial law is still in the hands of every legal practi- 
 tioner. South Africa has as good reason to be proud of its 
 judges as of its bishops. The first Bishop in South Africa 
 was, I believe, Bishop Devereux, but I am not quite sure. 
 He at any rate was the first Roman Catholic Bishop, and he 
 it was who shaped the course which the Church to which he 
 belonged was to take. He was a magnificent scholar and a 
 <livine worthy of the admiration which was accorded to him 
 whilst living, and the memory of him which has been cherished 
 in the Catholic circles of South Africa since his death and is 
 cherished still. The first Bishop of the English Church was 
 Bishop Gray, the work of whose lifetime in the service of his 
 Church was stupendous. English Churchmen owe him largely 
 for it is to his pioneering that they owe much of the position 
 they boast of to-day. Whatever mistakes he made, and he 
 made many, were made in his zeal for the welfare of the Church 
 in which he held high office. His earliest work was the 
 building of churches and schools throughout the Colony, com- 
 mencing, of course, in the Western Province. This after laying 
 out his diocese in parishes. In districts where the English 
 services had never been heard, but wherever " two or three " 
 Episcopalians could be " gathered together," he built churches 
 and schools, for he was, as all our bishops Roman Catholic 
 and English have been, earnestly bent on advancing the 
 education of the people not of the whites only, but of the 
 coloured people as well. There is no question that to the 
 bishops and clergy of these two Churches much of our advanced 
 education is to be attributed. They led the way. And espe- 
 cially the coloured classes who are at all educated owe them 
 thanks. Bishop Gray had no sooner settled down to his work 
 in Cape Town and its suburbs, and had taken the Church at 
 St. Helena under his wing, than he pushed his church work 
 through the districts of Simon's Town, Caledon, Swellendam, 
 Malmesbury, George, and Oudtshoorn ; and for many years 
 Bishop Gray's work ran smoothly, its progress was rapid, and 
 he had no trouble until the Governor became his too liberal
 
 219 
 
 patron and there arose divisions in the Church, especially 
 amongst the clergy ; and a party of laymen outside the Church, 
 jealous of the patronage he was acquiring and viewing his 
 accumulating power with something akin to dread certainly 
 with dislike became his lordship's most uncompromising oppo- 
 nents. The divisions of the Church were very marked. The 
 'High could not tolerate the Low and the Low would not 
 tolerate the High. It was Trinity against St. George's at 
 the headquarters, Cape Town. The fights were fast, and furious 
 -inside and outside ecclesiastical boundaries. Sir George 
 Gray, when Governor, had given as a free grant to Bishop 
 Gray a large slice of the Government Gardens for church 
 purposes, and Bishop Gray had laid the foundation of a build- 
 ing on it, or had begun to do so. This roused the public, and 
 the late Mr. Chas. Fairbridge, then one of the members for 
 Caledon, brought the matter before the Parliament, moving 
 that the grant be cancelled and the ground restored to its 
 original purpose. Mr. Darnell was Mr. Fairbridge's Parlia- 
 mentary colleague, and that hon. member took up the cudgels 
 ior the Bishop, but the Grayites in the Assembly were few, 
 if they were not far between. Mr. Fairbridge had on his side 
 Mr. -Saul Solomon and Mr. Arderne, who were not Church- 
 men High or Low, but Nonconformists of a very decided 
 type, and all the Nonconformist members of the Dutch 
 Church and Low Churchmen acted together as one man, and 
 the grant was cancelled by a large majority after a very long 
 debate, not the mildest that had taken place in the House* 
 There was no difficulty in getting that " august Assembly," 
 as Mr. Porter dubbed the Legislative Council, to co-operate. 
 The President, Sir John Wylde, was a Churchman with Ritual- 
 istic tendencies, but he was the only one in the Council at all 
 of the High order of Churchmen. The late Mr. Henry Blaine, 
 one of the Eastern M.L.C.'s, had become attached to the 
 Church, but he must still have had some Wesleyan leanings, 
 as he had been a member of that Church through all his early 
 Jife. Mr. George Wood, sen., was a Nonconformist, and so was 
 Mr. Samuel Cawood. -Mr. Joseph Barry was an Evangelical 
 -of Trinity Church, and a staunch and generous supporter of the 
 Rev. Mr. Lamb, who would neither attend nor obey the Synod 
 which the Bishop convened. The M.L.C.'s, who were members 
 of the Dutch Reformed Church, naturally voted with the
 
 220 
 
 Nonconformist members, and the decision was dead against the 
 Bishop, much to his lordship's concern and to the chagrin of 
 His Excellency Sir George Grey, who although the most popu- 
 lar of Governors, could not stem the tide of public feeling in 
 this affair of the land grant. This was the first check given 
 to Bishop Gray, and seemed to be the forerunner of many 
 others which soon followed in its train. The next untoward 
 event which the Bishop met with arose out of his proceeding 
 against the Rev. Mr. Long, the incumbent of Mowbray, who 
 refused to read from the pulpit a notice sent him of the 
 Synod called at S. George's. The reverend gentleman was 
 backed by his congregation almost to a man. Bishop Gray was 
 at that time under the impression that he had the same power 
 over his clergy that an English bishop in England had over the 
 clergy in his diocese, and he took the same proceedings against 
 the reverend incumbent of Mowbray that Bishop Philpott, as 
 Bishop of Exeter, did over the Rev. Mr. Shore, of Totnes, for 
 disobedience. Finally, after much acrimonious stir in the 
 Church, the matter came before the Snpreme Court of the Cape 
 Colony, the Bishop defending the action in person, and in doing 
 so showed a vast knowledge of common law as well as of 
 ecclesiastical law, and his ability shown in his conduct of the 
 defence, as was remarked at the time, proved that he would have 
 made as good a lawyer as bishop. The Court, however, decided 
 against his lordship, and the Bishop appealed to the Privy 
 Council, where the decision of the Court below was confirmed, 
 and the Bishop was cast in all the costs. This weighed heavily 
 upon his lordship, but what weighed more heavily upon his 
 heart was his defeat in the Colenso business. Bishop Gray 
 charged Colenso, then the Bishop of Natal with heresy founded upon 
 books published by the latter : St. Paul to the Ephesians and; 
 the Pentateuch. Bishop Colenso refused to acknowledge the 
 Bishop's authority in the matter, treated the summons sent him 
 to come to S. George's, Cape Town, to be tried with contempt, 
 and Bishop Gray then solemnly excommunicated him in every 
 church which he could control in South Africa ; but Bishop 
 Colenso, like the Jackdaw of Rheims, was " none the worse." 
 He left his position and his pulpit, his congregation, who were 
 much attached to him (he was the most eloquent and gifted 
 preacher in the Colonial Church), and again Bishop Gray 
 appealed to the Privy Council, to be again defeated and cast in>
 
 221 
 
 costs. It was particularly galling to him that Her Majesty 
 *ook Bishop Colenso by the hand on his arrival in England and 
 that his lordship was an invited guest at Windsor. 
 
 My idea was, and it was a view shared in by others, that 
 Bishop Gray never enjoyed his full health after his return from 
 the Privy Council in the Colenso case. And then, worst of all, 
 there burst upon him the Twell's outrage in Bloemfontein. 
 Verily, his burthen became greater than he could bear. No 
 bishop was ever more conscientious than he. His lordship 
 spent his whole fortune on the Church, and when he died left 
 such records of his work as it has fallen to the lot of few men to 
 do. The churches and missions which he built and instituted 
 perpetuated his memory from one end of South Africa to the 
 other. He lived for his work and took no pleasure outside it. 
 
 The two divines who were the first South African bishops 
 not only endeared themselves to the clergy and laity of their 
 own denominations, but won the respect of the whole popula- 
 tion. 
 
 Bishop Devereux was succeeded by Bishop G-riffithes, and 
 Bishop Gray by Bishop Jones. I shall return to ecclesiastical 
 events in future sketches, deeming, as I do, what I have written 
 to be sufficient on church matters for one sketch.
 
 REMINISCENCE. 
 
 No. XXXIII. 
 
 MUNICIPAL ADVANCEMENT OLD PETER THE DWELLING-PLACES 
 
 OP THE POOR A SLAVE'S STORT OPENING OP MEIR- 
 ING'S POORT PRESS PRIVILEGES IN PARLIAMENT. 
 
 THAN Municipal no other of our public institutions here has 
 made more progress. They took their lead from that in Green- 
 market-square, Cape Town, In 1845 the Cape Town 
 Municipality was as much, if not more, a political than a 
 sanitary corporation, and by the time Sir Philip Wodehouse had 
 arrived as Governor it had become so impressed with its political 
 importance that it tendered its assistance to His Excellency in 
 the government of the country, and got pretty Avell snubbed for 
 its presumption. Sir Philip wrote back to the Municipal 
 Secretary, the medium through which His Excellency received 
 the official document tendering him the services of that self- 
 inflated body, informing them that he was impressed with the 
 idea that he should be able to govern the country with the 
 assistance of his Executive without the helping Municipal hand, 
 but if he could aid the Cape Town Municipal Commissioners in- 
 improving the sanitary condition of the town, &c., they would 
 find him ready at all times to give them a lift. This was a snub 
 the Commissioners had not bargained for. They naturally put 
 their backs up at it, and it was the more felt by them because 
 the insanitary state of the town had become so notoriously 
 unbearable that the press had been calling on the Government 
 to take the management of the city (I ought not to have spoken 
 of it as a town) out of the hands of the Municipal Council and 
 into their own hands. The remark of His Excellency about his 
 being prepared to give the Commissioners a lift was, as-
 
 223 
 
 interpreted by the Commissioners, an indication that the Govern- 
 ment was thinking of taking over the management of the city 
 and abolishing the Municipality. Of course, no such thing had 
 entered His Excellency's mind. 
 
 In the forties the Cape Town Municipal body was a queer 
 mixture of social elements. It consisted of two Boards a 
 Board of Commissioners and a Board of Wardmasters, and the 
 two Boards were always at daggers drawn, as it would seem 
 from the Ordinance which called them into existence the framers 
 of the Ordinance intended they should be. A Wardmasters' 
 meeting, as I have said before, was as good as a play, and as 
 there was no charge for admittance, these meetings invariably 
 attracted crowded audiences. The performances were most 
 amusing, and the audience used to applaud their favourite actors, 
 and hiss those who were dull or unpopular without reserve 
 or restraint. It would be difficult now to remember whether 
 the noise and uproar in the body of the hall or in the Ward- 
 masters' reserve were the greater. It was more uproarious 
 than enough at both ends of the hall, and as it is hard to 
 choose between rotten apples, one need not bother about the 
 question as to whether the elect of the Wards or the crowd 
 who came for the fun of the thing were the most uproarious. 
 
 The Municipal elections were more stirring then than our 
 Parliamentary elections are nowadays. There was one candi- 
 date, Peter Tonkin, who had been a Wardmaster from his youth 
 up. Peter was the funny man at all the Wardmasters' meetings, 
 and it was for the fun he gave rather than for any work he 
 did that he held the position of first favourite with the crowd. 
 Peter's grammar had been neglected in his school-days, and 
 this in the estimation of the crowd was his chief charm. The 
 crowd didn't care much about the state of the town, whether 
 the drains were the receptacle for dead dogs and cats, or not. 
 The people of the city had come to be accustomed to publicity, 
 and the noisome, pestilential perfumes of sewers and drains. 
 They had not begun to realise that dirt and disease were related 
 to each other, and no note was taken of death-rate, or any other 
 rate but that levied by Commissioners and Wardmasters. Things 
 grew worse and worse until in the fifties, when the press 
 laboured its utmost to bring about Municipal reform, but even 
 then with but little result. Houses of all shapes and sizes were 
 built, without any drainage being thought of, much less provided.
 
 224 
 
 "The population grew, and bad to be provided for in the way 
 -of house-room. People built where they liked and how they 
 liked, with no object but that of rent. The Rogge Bayites 
 swarmed like rabbits iu the midst of piles of fish offal, shells 
 of cray fish, with other muck, and the back of the butchers' 
 shambles was ankle deep in the outpourings of slaughter-houses, 
 with an occasional mixture contributed by the boys of the 
 " barley tub," who selected the handiest places for their 
 deposits. Neither police nor Municipal authorities concerned 
 themselves much about the matter. The Capel ditch received 
 the chief part of the back street filth of the Caledon-street 
 locality, and on the Castle ramparts the atmosphere was thick 
 and odoriferous so much so indeed that the military frequently 
 remonstrated, but no remonstrance availed much. 
 
 I remember having my attention drawn to the filth and 
 unwholesomeness of the slums by Archdeacon Lightfoot, of 
 St. George's, and at his solicitation went with him to inspect 
 them. The result of a tour with the reverend gentleman was 
 a series of articles under the head of "The Dwelling-Places 
 of the Poor." Some of the homes of the lower classes of 
 the coloured poor were pictures of wretchedness and misery, 
 ghastliness, and unhealthiness. One out of many has fixed 
 itself upon my remembrance from that time to this. It was 
 the dwelling-place of a barley-tub boy. We found him asleep 
 in a cellar he rented from one of Mr. Wicht's tenants at the 
 top of Wale-street, or rather in the cellar of u house just off 
 >ihe street. He was lying asleep on the floor, the floor being 
 wet mud. He had been having a booze and had just recovered. 
 There was not an atom of furniture in the place. The floor 
 was just as it had been dug down to, not a plank or stone on 
 any part of it, not a chair or table in it, the walls as blank as 
 those described by Hood in the home of the sempstress who 
 thanked her shadow "for sometimes falling there." We roused 
 the poor wretch. I asked him what work he did, "Empty 
 barley-tubs, baas," was his answer, and the following conver- 
 sation took place : 
 
 " How much do you earn a week ?" 
 
 " About a pound, baas." 
 
 "More than three shillings a day then ?" 
 
 " Don't work every day, only Mondays, Tuesdays, and 
 'Wednesdays."
 
 225 
 
 " What do you do on the other days ?" 
 
 " Get drunk and sleep, baas." 
 
 " Did you ever go to church in your life ?" 
 
 " When I was a slave. The baas used to make us go then." 
 
 He was an old man, I should say drawing on to sixty years 
 of age. 
 
 " Don't you ever get ill in this place ?" 
 
 " Sometimes, baas." 
 
 " What do you do then ?" 
 
 " Lie still till I get well." 
 
 " Don't you ever see the people upstairs ?" 
 
 " Yes, when I pay 'em." 
 
 We asked him whether he would rather be a slave or his own 
 master, as he now was, and he answered sharply, " A slave, for 
 then," said he, " I was taken care of." 
 
 Whatever might have been his preference in the early days of 
 his liberty, I did not believe him when he said he would like to 
 be a slave again at that time. He had become accustomed to 
 his rags and his filth, to get drunk when he pleased, and to 
 sleep when he did not feel inclined to work. His humanity had 
 degenerated until he was not a remove from the brute beast that 
 loves to wallow in its own filth, which he positively did ; the 
 air of the dungeon was poisonous. We found scores of such 
 cases. In St. John-street I found a family living in an old 
 Dutch oven, in a wretched building in which three families 
 spent their existence enough to breed a plague. The appear- 
 ance of my articles in print moved the Municipal Commissioners 
 a bit, but not very effectively. Mr. Hercules Jarvis was Chair- 
 man of the Commissioners for years, and he used his position 
 more for the sake of the political advancement of himself and 
 friends than for any other object, and by its means became a 
 M.L.A. in the first place and a M.L.C. in the second. Mr. 
 , Jarvis for years and years had the Municipality completely 
 under his thumb. His word was law at the Town-house, and 
 lie was regarded as if he had inherited the chair and was the 
 indisputable owner of it. There were no Mayors and Town 
 Councils in those days, nor for some years after. When Mr. 
 .Jarvis fought the Council election with Messrs. Stein, Barry 
 and others, he ruled the Municipal roost and counted on his 
 Municipal influence to place him at the top of the poll, but he 
 was disappointed. " Municipal Reform " had become a city cry, 
 
 Q
 
 226 
 
 and on the eve of the election, the Town-house was covered from 
 the dome to the basement with immense flaring placards in red, 
 white, and blue (Mr. Stein's colours) with " Municipal Reform" 
 in immense type printed on thorn. This was the work of 
 Stein's agents, who made that " Reform " an electioneering cry. 
 This and the disappointment of not getting first place in the 
 polling return, caused poor Mr. Jarvis great vexation of spirit. 
 I am not sure that he could have been fairly blamed for making 
 capital out of his official position at the Town-house. No 
 merchant of any standing, nor capitalist, would have anything 
 to do with Municipal work. Ultimately, however, Mr. James 
 Mortimer Maynard and Mr. Ralph Arderne, who ranked 
 amongst the largest house proprietors and the wealthiest of 
 Cape Town capitalists, came forward as candidates for seats as 
 Commissioners, but I don't know that much benefit to the city 
 came of it. In their tenure it is true that the Board of Ward- 
 masters was swept away, but the town had less fun for their 
 money, but very little less dirt. 
 
 Graham's Town and Port Elizabeth, in the Eastern Province,, 
 following the example of Cape Town, also went in for Munici- 
 palities, and the meetings of Municipal Commissioners in those 
 places afforded very attractive material for the journals then 
 published in the city and the town. There was more hubbub 
 than work done in both of them for many years. Not many of 
 the Upper Ten of either city or town evinced much ambition for 
 seats at their Municipal Board two or three leading men in 
 each place came forward and were elected, and one of them filled 
 the chair at each Board, as can be seen by their portraits painted 
 in their honour. The work devolving on a chairman of a 
 Municipal Council was not light, nor has the work of Mayors been 
 light since Town Council supplanted Municipalities. There is 
 now scarcely a town of any size from one end of South Africa 
 to the other that has not a Mayor and Town Councillors in 
 some cases burgesses. I do riot remember of any such scenes 
 in a Natal Council being reported in a Natal journal as we have 
 had in the Cape Colony as for instance a Councillor having 
 his wig snatched off, or the gross personalities which at one time 
 made the reports of Municipal meetings so interesting to the 
 general reader. There may have been such scenes for all that ; 
 but the Natal journals perhaps thought it more creditable to 
 repress them than to turn them to financial account.
 
 227 
 
 I remember on one occasion that the Cape Town Town 
 Council endeavoured to shut out the public, and only to admit 
 those who they thought would go with them. Dean Douglas 
 was the Dean of St. George's at that time, and the reverend 
 cleric, who was an out-and-out Municipal reformer, threatened 
 to burst opea the door, and would have done it too, for 
 the Dean was a fine muscular Christian, but the threat was 
 sufficient to unbar the door. When Sir Philip Wodehouse 
 announced in his 1863 prorogation speech that he intended to 
 convene the 1864 Parliament in Graham's Town, the Mayor and 
 Town Councillors of Cape Town, being moved thereto by Mr. 
 Saul Solomon, the leading M.L.A. for the city, held an indigna- 
 tion meeting. They had given it out that this indignation, 
 meeting would be the means of getting Sir Philip recalled, and 
 they expected that their resolution which was to effect all this- 
 would be carried unanimously and were exasperated to find that 
 this could not be done. Mr. A. J. Matthieson " Sandy," a^- 
 he used to be designated, who was an out-and-out Conservative 
 turned up at the meeting with Mr. James Wylie, a politician 
 of the same party, and Mr. Matthieson moved, aiid Mr. Wylie 
 seconded, an amendment to the resolution. They had a larger 
 following than the popular party had counted upon, and although 
 the resolution was not carried it served to divide the meeting. 
 
 The Town Councils of the present day in every division of 
 South Africa contrast very markedly with the original local 
 bodies, and certainly their more recent proceedings contrast very 
 favourably for them when compared with the late sessions of the 
 Cape Parliament especially when compared with the last 
 session. I don't think, however, that the idea which prevailed, 
 and was frequently expressed by ihe lovers of local government 
 twenty years ago, has been realised. It was that the Municipal 
 institutions would be training schools for public speakers to fill 
 Parliamentary seats. The b. st speakers in Parliament have 
 not been members of a Town Council, and the worst have. 
 
 It is surprising when looking tuick to the ceremonious open- 
 ings of public works from twenty to thirty or forty years ago 
 works which it was then predicted would have a vast permanent 
 influence on the future of tLie Cupe Colony to see how many 
 of them have fallen into disuae, uuJ some of them not worth the 
 money they cost even for tu_ plans of them. There is, to 
 start with, Meiring's Poort, iu inc Hex Kiver district. The late
 
 228 
 
 Sir J. C. Molteno, K.C.M.G., when he was tut plain " Mister 
 Molteno," the member for Beaufort West, session after session 
 assured the House of Assembly that that work would have a 
 tremendous and enduring influence on the opening up of Beau- 
 fort West. He induced the Parliament to vote large sums year 
 after year. The poort was opened with great eclat. Public 
 men from the extreme West went all the way to take part in 
 the opening ceremony. There were no railways then, and the 
 journey up was both difficult and tiresome. Colonel Armstrong 
 was the Civil Commissioner of the district, and he presided at 
 the luncheon given in marquees at the entrance of the poort, and 
 the worthy Magistrate and Mr. Molteno in their speeches 
 prophesied that this work would lead to the employment of no 
 end of labour, the cultivation of a vast acreage of land, and 
 that no end of export products would find their way to the ports, 
 and this to all eternity. Who hears a word about Meiring's 
 Poort now ? I don't believe that one-fiftieth part of the people 
 in Beaufort West even have ever been through it, nor do I know 
 of more acres cultivated by reason of its existence or a ship-load 
 of products, the result of its existence, having been exported 
 from any port in the Colony. The Lady Grey Bridge at the 
 Paarl, when it was opened by the old local Board, was, we were 
 told, to bring about no end of public profit. Has it ? That 
 venerable Colonist of ancient times, Mr. Ernest Landsberg, still 
 in the flesh, made no end of a speech at the dinner, foretelling 
 generations of benefits. Mr. Landsberg was then a member, 
 and a very active and zealous member, of the old Road Board, 
 and a rare advocate for the construction of new roads and bridges. 
 If anyone had told him when he made his dinner-table speech 
 about the Lady Grey Bridge on the opening day that he would 
 live to see his bridge cut out by steam communication, and 
 become comparatively useless, he would have doubted the man's 
 sanity. Howison's Poort the entrance to Graham's Town 
 which cost thousands to construct and repair, which was traversed 
 by wool-wagons and mail carts, horsemen and pedestrians in 
 crowds, it would now puzzle the oldest inhabitant of the Eastern 
 .Metropolis to point out the locality of. It has disappeared 
 is blotted out by steam. Bain's Kloof and Mitchell's Pass 
 twenty or thirty years ago were crossed and re-crossed by traffic 
 seemingly inexhaustible. The Darling Bridge Hotel was the 
 resort of health and pleasure seekers from all directions. Furney
 
 229 
 
 & Swain's beds were always occupied at nights, year in anJ 
 year out. Sporting men still alive could recount some stories 
 of full hags and jolly evenings connected with their runs out 
 from Cape Town, the Paarl, and Wellington to Darling Bridge. 
 The Tulbagh Kloof and Mitchell's Pass were the spots for 
 picnics before the railway age set in. When was there & 
 picnic last at either of the places ? Has anybody for years 
 driven over the hard road across the Flats, which was one of 
 the wonderful achievements of the late Mr. John Montagu 
 when he was Colonial Secretary ? Jf so, his name should be 
 entered upon some public record and preserved for the enlighten- 
 ment of future generations. What a wonderful world of change 
 it is that civilised mankind inhabit. 
 
 There is a great difference of opinion expressed as to the 
 gallery attendance in the House of Assembly with the atten- 
 dance at the debates on prominent questions during the 
 first twenty years of the Cape Parliament. Some who remem- 
 ber the former Parliaments who I have met (they are not a 
 great many) are much divided on the subject. I have over 
 and over again been asked to decide the question. From what 
 I have myself seen of late years, I do not think that the 
 Parliament attracts so many into the galleries as the Parlia- 
 ments did during the first twenty years of their existence. It 
 cannot be fairly said, as some of my friends say, that the charm 
 of novelty is gone. Every new session brings its own novelties,, 
 and as the settled population of Cape Town is much larger, 
 and there are twenty times as many visitors to the metropolis 
 now as then, one would say the attendance should be much 
 larger now than then, unless the general public have lost a 
 good deal of their taste for politics. That I am not going to 
 enter upon. Mine are reminiscences, not political articles, and I 
 am merely to state what I remember as having occurred " in 
 the days when I was young" or, at least, younger. la 
 the first sessions, especially at evening sittings, hundreds of 
 persons who applied for admission were frequently unable to 
 obtain it, although they" might have been in possession of a 
 member's or even a Speaker's ticket. I have seen a thousand 
 persons around the entrance to the gallery long before the 
 hour for opening, and after the gallery has been full, every 
 seat occupied, and chairs placed in front of the gallery, at 
 least two hundred were crowded round the windows. I
 
 230 
 
 remember that on one occasion, in 1865, the gallery remained 
 crowded from two o'clock in the afternoon to six o'clock next 
 morning, and from my seat in the House I was able to recog- 
 nise the same faces at the end as at the beginning of the 
 sitting. I have known the Speaker, when the House was 
 disturbed by noises in the gallery, threaten to clear the House 
 of strangers, but I never saw the threat put into execution. 
 
 I received a letter a few days since from " An Up-Country 
 Member," asking me if it is competent for journals to be repre- 
 sented by reporters at the meetings of Select Committees. I 
 have thought it better to answer the letter in my " Remini- 
 scences " columns than to answer it privately. There is nothing 
 in the rules of the Cape House upon the matter, and any question 
 arising which is not provided for in the rules must be settled 
 by the practice of the House of Commons. There is a rule of 
 the House of Assembly to the effect that strangers be not 
 admitted ; but that they do admit reporters into the Select Com- 
 mittee-rooms of the House of Commons, I know from my own 
 personal experience, for when I was reporter to an English 
 newspaper in 1849 and 1850, I myself reported proceedings 
 which took place in the Committee-rooms of the House whilst 
 Select Committees were sitting. I may mention one case in 
 point. It was when the petition of Barry Baldwin against the 
 return of Mills for the borough of Totnes was referred to a 
 Select Committee. I was surprised when I attended to report 
 the proceedings in the matter of the alleged Kimberley desti- 
 tution to find that Sir Gordon Sprigg, who had been a short- 
 hand writer for Gurneys in the Committee-rooms of the House 
 of Commons, was under the delusion that it was illegal and 
 never customary to admit reports of the proceedings of Select 
 Committees to be taken. I should have thought he would have 
 noted the presence of short-hand writers not of the staff to which 
 he belonged, as Gurney's reporters in my time sat at the 
 table with the members of the Select Committee, whilst the 
 reporters for newspapers sat at a separate table near the door. 
 I had better say here that Sir Gordon did not object to the 
 proceedings being reported. I was, however, not permitted to 
 take a report of the proceedings in question in our House of 
 Assembly through the casting vote of a member whose motive 
 I pretty well understood. 
 
 On occasions when I have reported the proceedings of Select
 
 231 
 
 Committees in the House of Commons I never had to apply for 
 admission into the Committee-room. I walked in as a matter 
 of course. When the Committee paused in taking evidence for 
 the purpose of consultation, the reporters were requested to 
 withdraw, which we did until we were personally known to the 
 Committee, remaining outside until the consultation was over, 
 when we were re-admitted. After we became parsonally known, 
 we were merely informed that the Committee was iu consulta- 
 tion and we did not leave our seats. Of course no reporter 
 abused his privilege, and not a note was taken of the consulta- 
 tion. This recital of my experience will be a sufficient reply 
 to my correspondent's letter at least I hope so. I would just 
 say here, if any reader of my Reminiscences is at any time of 
 opinion that I have misconceived an occurrence, or that my 
 memory has failed me in the statement of a fact, I shall feel 
 obliged if he will write me direct, when I promise I will deal 
 with his letter fairly, and if I find I am wrong, confess and 
 rectify it. As a rule my memory serves me well, but the best 
 of memories may be at fault sometimes, especially when the 
 circumstances related are frequently those of nearly half a 
 century ago. I am writing entirely without notes.
 
 KEMINISCENCE. 
 
 No. XXXIV. 
 
 THE FIRST OF THE RIVER DIAMOND INDUSTRY ROBINSONIA 
 
 HOW SOCIETY FORMED ITSELF EARLY DAYS OF THE 
 KIMBERLEY MINE INTERESTING INCIDENTS. 
 
 As I before remarked in these Reminiscences, the remarkable 
 incidents arising out of the rise, progress and settlement of the 
 Diamond Fields alone would fill a volume as large as a family 
 Bible, and it is therefore impossible to include them in any 
 ordinary compilation of Reminiscences to be issued in a book such 
 as I am publishing, but there are some of them of such historical 
 value that they cannot be omitted from this work. For 
 instance, those which have to do with the starting of an industry. 
 It is somewhat difficult to follow the early diggers, who were 
 here, there and everywhere looking for the richest spots. One 
 day at Hebron, another at Pniel ; the next the same party, or a 
 portion of them, would be trying some fancy spot, down the 
 river miles away, and then return again to their old diggings. 
 The experiences of Mr. J. B. Robinson, who was one of the 
 first pioneers of the gold industry as well as of the diamond 
 industry, are full of interest. 
 
 When the crowd reached the Vaal River their first work was 
 to find out in what localities diamonds had been found, and they 
 discovered that Mr. J. B. Robinson had a gang of natives at 
 work up the river, and finding no end of diamonds in the Hebron 
 direction, but that the Natal party, the first successful diamond 
 hunters, had made a pile out of the Colesberg Kopje, whicli was 
 near the banks of the river, about three quarters of a mile below 
 the site on which the town of Barkly was afterwards built. The 
 first arrivals decided on trying their luck on the Hebron side
 
 233 
 
 and made their way thither. They had made the journey up in- 
 all sorts of vehicles ox and mule wagons were for the most 
 part the vehicles by which the journey had been made. These 
 were much dilapidated, as were those who rode up in them. 
 The tales they bad to tell each other of the journey up-bad 
 roads and no roads, boulders and bogs, lost cattle, horses, .and 
 mules (some drowned in crossing rivers, others worked to death, 
 and a few losses from hcrse-sickness), afforded material ample 
 enough for fireside yarns when the night fires were blazing.? 
 Diamond digging on the banks of the Vaal was never very 
 light work at any time, but those who made the first start at 'it, 
 had not only to dig as they never dug before, but they had to 
 undergo privations which they had not counted upon when they 
 left their homes. For six months at least they had not an ounce' 
 of vegetable diet of any sort, and then upon privations of all 
 sorts fever set in, medical aid was not early within reach, and the 
 diggers had to nurse and doctor each other in turns the nursing 
 was kindly if roughly done. It was not only medical advice- 
 that was wanting, but there were not medical eomforts either, 
 and many a poor fellow went over to the great majority who 
 might have been alive to-day had he been cared for then. For 
 the most part the men down with the fever, as well as those in 
 health, slept on the ground with nothing to lie upon but a rug. 
 I don't believe that out of the 6,000 first arrivals twenty had a 
 mattress. Of course every party brought supplies, more or less, 
 and all had made provision for being jolly, but when sickness 
 came, and it did come in its severest forms fever and dysen- 
 tery there were no means of coping with it. Those who came 
 to search for diamonds had for the most part, nearly all one 
 might say, been tenderly brought up ; had been used to home 
 comforts when in health, to have medical advice when ill, and 
 to be gently tended and nursed when ailing. Out of fifty there- 
 were not five who had ever made a basin of gruel in their lives, 
 and if they could have made it a packet of Embden groats was 
 not to be had within a hundred miles of the place. 
 
 Yet with all the privations and hardships, the number who 
 died was comparatively few. Of course out of such a number 
 of sick some died, but the funerals were few and far between, 
 It was a standing joke in the later days of the diggings that 
 more men owed their lives than lost their lives through want of 
 doctors. And to whatever cause it is to be attributed, the
 
 234 
 
 death-rate increased as doctors did. The more doctors, the more 
 deaths. But then other diseases came with increased population, 
 and accidents befel the diggers that made the surgeon indis- 
 pensable. 
 
 Until after midsummer, 1870, the population of the Diamond- 
 fields were simply crowds as many crowds as diggings. 
 There were Hebron, Klipdrift, Pniel, Blue Jacket, Cawood's 
 Hope, and one or two other smaller diggings. At each of these 
 Jack was as good as his master. As soon as disputes began to 
 take place it was seen that there must be some kind of govern- 
 ment, and Diggers' Protection Societies and Diggers' Committees 
 were established. By-and-bye it came about that there were 
 two great divisions the Pniel and the Klipdrift divisions. The 
 Pniel people would have no connection with Klipdrift, and 
 Klipdrift would have nothing to do with Pniel. Each had a 
 Central Government of its own, with as many branches as 
 there were diggings on the side of the Government on which 
 the Central Government sat. The branches had each a 
 Diggers' Committee of their own. On the Pniel side, 
 over which the Free State claimed some sort of jurisdiction, 
 which the President was never able to enforce further than 
 came of sending a magistrate to sit and adjudicate upon such 
 case?, civil and criminal, as were brought before him. All claim and 
 mining differences were dealt with by the Diggers' Committees, 
 elected by the diggers. With the exception of the magistrate, 
 the people on the Klipdrift side was governed in the same way, 
 nnd on that side the elected committees settled everything. In 
 Klipdrift itself the Central Committee appointed a magistrate, 
 who presided over a Court in which civil and criminal cases 
 were heard and decided. There were "tronks" or prisons on 
 each side of the water, and at one time men convicted before the 
 Klipdrift Magistrate of being " fou " were placed in the stocks. 
 I don't remember of anybody ever being put into the Klipdrift 
 prison, in fact it would not have been of much avail to do so, 
 for the walls were so loosely put together that a prisoner might 
 have pushed his way out without much difficulty. 
 
 There is one British official whose name should for ever be 
 associated with the history of the Diamond-fields, and respected 
 by every Englishman in this country who has a spark of the 
 national spirit in him, and it is the name of General Hay, who 
 was acting as Her Majesty's High Commissioner, Governor of
 
 235 
 
 the Cape Colony and Natal at the time 1870, when the Free 
 State and Transvaal were scheming to get possession of the then 
 Diamond-fields. His Excellency was uo sooner petitioned to 
 proclaim the territory British than he did it, and it was through 
 his prompt action in that matter that the British flag has waved 
 over the territory from that day to this. 
 
 General Hay had not had much experience in civil adminis- 
 tration, but he had lots of the true British mettle in him, and he 
 never lost a chance of showing it. Amongst other things for 
 which he was remarkable was his love of field sports, and it will 
 not be much out of place for me to relate one incident in illus- 
 tration of this. Whilst he was Acting Governor and Sir 
 Richard Southey was Colonial Secretary, the latter waited on 
 him on one occasion, on the day the mail steamer was to leave 
 with the mails for England, and requested His Excellency not to 
 be out of the way, as there were despatches which must be sent 
 off by that mail. "Despatches or no despatches," said the 
 General, " I am going to Wynberg to the cricket match, and I 
 am not going to lose that match, no matter what the importance 
 of your despatches may be." " But you will have to sign them 
 before they can be sent," added the Colonial Secretary, " and I 
 cannot get them ready before noon.'' " Then you won't find me 
 here," said His Excellency, and when the despatches were ready 
 His Excellency was on the Wynberg cricket ground, to which 
 place the Secretary went in search of him. The General's 
 passion for cricket was irrepressible, and his habit of reading 
 every despatch placed before him for signature was quite 
 as strong as his passion for cricket. When he was 
 asked by the Secretary on the cricket ground to sign despatches 
 he decidedly objected to have his attention diverted from the 
 game going on, and Sir Hi chard Southey had to return to Cape 
 Town with the despatches unsigned. Sir Richard was always 
 very ready with an expedient in cases of emergency. The mail 
 could not be allowed to go without the despatches, and there 
 was nothing for it but to detain the steamer for twenty-four 
 hours, and this was done. What would be said of Sir Henry 
 Loch if he did such a thing now ? Sir Henry Loch is sensible 
 of his great responsibility he is a civil administrator, and as 
 such has a reputation to sustain. General Hay was Acting 
 Governor, much to his distaste, and did not care how soon he 
 was relieved of the responsibility. His love of cricket would
 
 236 
 
 not have shocked the military authorities, would not even have 
 been a surprise at the Horse Guards, and no military man cares 
 to be at the bidding of the civil authorities, and when military 
 men are set at civil administration they most generally make a 
 sad hash of it, as the people of Griqualand West and the 
 Transvaal know to their cost. The Cape Metropolitans have 
 had some experience of it too. Those now living who remem- 
 ber the rule of Sir Harry Smith would hardly care to see that 
 rule revived. 
 
 But for the bounce and bungling of a blatant and conceited 
 military martinet at the head of the Transvaal Government and 
 the bumptiousness of " our only General," we should not have 
 had the disgrace of a Transvaal war, with its consequent loss 
 of life and prestige, which threw back the country fifty years 
 at least, and has been the cause of more heart-burnings than 
 will be cured for the next half-century. 
 
 The rapidity with which towns in the Diamond-fields sprung 
 into and vanished out of existence can only be realised by those 
 who were eye-witnesses of the transformation scenes of that 
 eventful period. Dm ing the years 1870 and 1871 both banks 
 of the Vaal on which diamonds were found sprung from barren- 
 ness and desolation into, first camps of canvas, then into 
 wattle-and-daub cottages, and ultimately into what looked like 
 permamently established towns in which there were banks, post- 
 offices, hotels, club houses, court houses, newspaper offices, 
 music halls, billiard saloons, hospital, and church, and before 
 1871 had got far in its course the whole vanished and left 
 nothing much behind but empty sardine and canned meat tins, 
 paper collars, broken pipes, and mud walls. In 1870 and the 
 beginning of 1871 from sixty to eighty ferry boats plied for 
 hire on the river, and were going to and fro from dawn to mid- 
 night ; by June of the same year there were but two boats and 
 one ferryman left. In the stirring months of the period there 
 were horses and carts running to and fro between Klipdrift and 
 the down river diggings ; by midsummer 1871 a horse and cart 
 could not be got for love or money. The property of the 
 diggers was of just the description that was the delight of Mr. 
 Wemmick it was all " portable " every scrap of the pro- 
 perty wa& portable with the exception of the church and bank. 
 The bank had been portable at one stage of its existence, but 
 at the time of which I am writing it had become fixed, and so
 
 237 
 
 tad the church. All the rest was splendidly adapted for a 
 moving population, and when in 1871 it was known that the 
 Du Toit's Pan dry diggings was yielding diamonds without 
 washing, the river diggers, sick of standing knee deep in water 
 cradling and being wet all the week round, moved to a man 
 with all their belongings. The newspapers with their presses 
 and type, the canteen-keepers with their barrels and bottles, 
 the smith with bellows and anvil, the shoemaker with lapstone 
 and hammer, the clock and watchmaker with all his time- 
 keepers and jewellery, the chemist and druggist with his drugs, 
 the doctors with their instruments, marched off in long proces- 
 sions for the new diggings, but all admitting whilst they were 
 going that they had had a good time in Klipdrift. And they 
 had during the latter part of the time. They had their weekly 
 dances, concerts, and public readings, and had just begun to 
 discover how to live luxuriously. 
 
 They celebrated the Queen's Birthday a birthday regatta 
 and a ball ; and on Christmas, 1870, they had the orthodox 
 ^Christmas dinner of beef and plum pudding. They celebrated 
 the birthdays of every member of the Royal Family right 
 loyally each in its turn, and with great Protestant zeal let off 
 squibs and crackers on 5th November, and even the little native 
 piccaninies had learned how to cry out " Down with the Pope," 
 in common with all Protestant Christendom. I honestly believe 
 that nine-tenths of the people who were at the river diggings in 
 1870 and 1871 were more happy than they ever were before or 
 have been since. If ever there was a land of liberty perfect 
 liberty, religious, political, commercial, and social, it was there 
 and then. 
 
 True it is that a great number of those who were first on the 
 dry diggings made rapid fortunes. The Colesberg Kopje, after- 
 wards called the Kimberley Mine, was unquestionably the 
 richest diamondiferous locality that anyone has ever known to 
 this day. Men who set out to work of a morning, not knowing 
 where their dinner was to come from, became richer thun any 
 member of their family had ever been before it was time for an 
 eleven o'clock snack, and many a digger who left Klipdrift ou 
 the pony of shanks in 1871 was riding in his carriage in London 
 before the close of 1872.
 
 REMINISCENCE. 
 
 No. XXXV. 
 
 MEN OF MARK IN EAST AND WEST PUBLIC STOEPS AND* 
 
 SCENES. 
 
 AMONGST Cape Town reminiscences there are none more vivid' 
 than those which have the late Mr. James Murison as their most 
 prominent figure Captain Murison as he was commonly called 
 by the world at large, and Murison amongst his peers. The 
 deceased as a blufi hearty man, one of Nature's gentlemen, 
 
 Was pleasant with the grey -haired ones, 
 And joyous with the young. 
 
 He entered business after many years at sea, when he had 
 command of vessels trading in and out of Table Bay. From 
 the day he landed in Cape Town to the day he died he was 
 a public favourite. Having accumulated a somewhat larger 
 amount of wealth than it generally falls to the lot of captains 
 of trading ships to do, and become a small ship-owner, he 
 resolved to abandon the sea, and establish a home in the 
 neighbourhood of Cape Town. His agents (Messrs. Dean & 
 Johnson) knew his worth, and so did every resident partner 
 in that firm his worth in a business as in a money point of 
 view. Upon the basis of the old-established business in 
 Adderley-street, the now deceased Captain Murison, in con- 
 nection with Mr. W. G. Anderson, established the now eminent 
 firm of Anderson, Murison & Co. From the moment that 
 Captain Murison became known as a partner in the firm, his 
 characteristic good nature, his love of fun and frolic, his integrity,. 
 and his readiness to help forward an advance movement brought 
 him a host of friends. He was always ready to draw a cheque 
 for the afflicted and necessitous, and to draw a cork in good
 
 239 
 
 fellowship for friends who dropped in either for business or 
 pleasure. He became part and parcel, and a very important 
 part and parcel, of Adderley-street. The stoep of Anderson 
 & Murison was as much frequented as the stoep of the 
 Exchange, and the figure of the captain was as much identified 
 with the street as S. George's Cathedral, the old Post- 
 office, or the Commercial Exchange, and since his place has 
 been vacated it stands a blank ; no one has yet been recog- 
 nised as the man to fill his place as he filled it. When, men 
 go to Cape Town from other parts of the Colony, or captains 
 arrive in Table Bay, they find something missing. Cape 
 Town does not seem to them to be the Cape Town they 
 once knew ; however it may seem to be to those who 
 reside there and see each other day after day, but even they are 
 conscious of something lacking. They may not always 
 attribute it to the loss of their jocund, good-natured, patriotic 
 old friend, the captain of whom they think and talk plea- 
 santly, praisingly, and regretfully, but it is to that loss that 
 much that is not now to be found is to be attributed. Captain 
 Murison was always starting something of interest, either a 
 steamer trip with picnic party to Hout Bay or Robben Island, 
 a dance, a dinner, a new charity or a new company, or some 
 concern of public importance or interest. He was a director of 
 a bank, member of Parliament, had a seat on the Harbour 
 Board, was a member of the Chamber of Commerce, a pillar 
 of the Congregational Church, and indeed it would be difficult 
 to point out a public movement or work with which he was not 
 attached in some way. His house at Sea Point was open to 
 all comers. The theatre had his support as readily as the 
 church, and he was equally ready to subscribe for a pal as for 
 the distressed afflicted poor. Public entertainers had in him a 
 ready and liberal patron. He went in for amusements as he 
 did for business with all his heart. When he breathed his 
 last, half the laughing power of Adderley-street went with him, 
 and that was not all that went with him. He was a mau of 
 strong affections, and when his wife died he was broken- 
 hearted, and never rallied from the shock. It might be said of 
 him with truth that he died of a broken heart. 
 
 When my memory takes an Eastern direction, it brings to me 
 pleasant days spent in the metropolis of the Eastern Province 
 in the companionship of a crowd of friends now no more, and
 
 240 
 
 standing out prominently io the midst of that crowd is one, who, 
 like those above mentioned, was full of energy, mental and 
 physical, who laboured with all his heart and soul to better the 
 land and the people upon which and amongst whom he was 
 born. I allude to the late Mr. George Wood the younger. 
 If he had died of a broken heart it would not have been much to 
 wonder at, for no man worked so incessantly for others as he 
 .did, and met with such returns of ingratitude as he. It was 
 not doing to others as he would be done unto that inspired him 
 to do good to others, for he never thought of nor sought for 
 good for himself. He had not a particle, not a speck of self- 
 seeking in his whole composition. Here was another man of 
 restless energy, never still, working from dawn to midnight, 
 grudging himself the leisure and recreation as necessary to the 
 sustenance of health as food and clothing. Sharing with his 
 brothers in the duties and responsibilities of one of the largest 
 mercantile businesses in the Colony, with financial work upon 
 his hands involving hundreds of thousands per week, alone 
 sufficient to occupy an ordinary man's time and powers of thought, 
 he made time for public work of the most trying and distract- 
 ing kind. He always had from the day I knew him first, a 
 emile and a good kind work for everyone, and when a kind act 
 was needed, he was ready to perform it, whether for an individual 
 or for the community in which and for which, I may add he 
 lived . 
 
 What with his duties and responsibilities as bunk director, 
 Mayor of the City, member of Parliament, and Advocate- 
 -General at home and abroad, it was always a marvel to me how 
 he found time for business, but he did, and then, as if he had 
 not enough to do he set about showing the farmers how to 
 .cultivate their land and to improve their stock. He imported 
 thoroughbred cattle, crossed them with Colonial bred, imported 
 machinery and implements for the improvement of land cultiva- 
 tion, and gave large personal attention to his live-stock, promoted 
 agricultural exhibitions, took Kowie Harbour affairs in hand 
 occasionally. I don't know when he slept ; sometimes I used 
 (to think he never did. Everybody in trouble came to him for 
 help or advice, sometimes most times for both, and he was 
 patient to hear, giving them his time when he had no surplus 
 time to give. It was a rare thing that he sent anyone who 
 .came to him away without giving him what he wanted. When,
 
 241 
 
 the Parliament met in Graham's Town in 1864, he was princely 
 in his hospitality to members of both Houses and to all the 
 officials. His banqueting of them is a matter of history 
 that has been preserved by Eastern citizens to this day, but 
 long before be died he had been made to feel the bitter- 
 ness of vile ingratitude. Men who had been lifted by him 
 from misery into the lap of luxury selfishly forgot the good 
 turns he had done them. They who had called him " The 
 Prince of Good Fellows " proved themselves to be an ungrateful 
 and thankless set. For the only bit of real life that Graham's 
 Town ever had, much of it was due to his influence, administra- 
 tive ability, generosity, and judgment. There are some still 
 who talk fondly of him, cherish his memory, and prize the 
 reminiscences which include his past presence above, all 
 that is ordinary in their common life, and I am one of them. We 
 have his counterpart in his brother, Mr. J. E. Wood, M.L.A., 
 to-day. 
 
 I have written previously of the Commercial Exchange Stoep 
 of Cape Town, and I may now go en to say that what the stoep 
 of the Commercial Exchange was to Cape Town in the days of 
 which I am now writing that is, from about 1856 to 1875 the 
 stoep of the Town-hall of Port Elizabeth was to the Liverpool 
 of the Cape. It was upon that stoep that the leading Eliza- 
 'bethans, merchants, professional men, and the representatives 
 of the press and other public institutions were to be seen 
 collecting before going to business of a morning. Port Elizabeth 
 was always an earlier place than Cape Town. The Bay stores 
 were opened with the dawn, and the mercantile store men rose 
 with the lark, and very frequently with a lark, to receive the 
 loads of wool and other produce which poured into town before 
 .breakfast of a morning. Main-street on each side was lined 
 with piles of bales and bundles, and Main-street earned its 
 breakfast before it ate it. But this bustling, busy business did 
 .not necessitate the presence of the heads of firms. They came 
 to business about the same time as did the merchants of the 
 metropolis, and they prefaced their day's work in much the same 
 wav that is, they met on the stoep of the Town-hall, wished 
 each other the top of the morning, discussed the popular topics 
 of the day, learnt about shipping and markets, were usually warm 
 About something the then Table Mountain Government had been 
 up to, or threatened to be up to, talked over the latest from 
 B
 
 242 
 
 Europe, the state of the wool market, a little literature as well 
 as politics and shop, if in the winter season, " when the strong 
 winds do blow" off the Cape coast, the prospect of "lame ducks." 
 In the " lame duck " business Algoa Bay had by far the largest 
 and most profitable windfalls, as it was the most accessible port 
 for ships in distress coming eastward. There is no pleasanter 
 carving to a port merchant than that of cutting up a good plump 
 lame duck well stuffed with a valuable cargo, especially when 
 she is lamed to abandonment. There is a slice for everybody, 
 for outsiders as well as for those inside the mercantile circles. 
 
 The stoep conference had always plenty to talk about, and 
 the first half-hour of the morning was invariably pleasantly 
 beguiled. Earliest in these morning groups it was almost 
 certain to find Mr. Pearson, now senior member for that con- 
 stituency, Captain Salmond, Mr. J. S. Kirkwood, Mr. John 
 Paterson, Mr. Harries, Mr. Rutherfoord, and then would come 
 Mr. Alfred Ebden, Messrs. Fred, and Henry Deare, and Mr. 
 Deitz of the same firm, Mr. D. P. Blaine, Mr. A. J. Macdonald, 
 Mr. W. J. Anderson, Mr. M. Kemp, Mr. G. Chabaud, Mr. 
 Charles Jones (now the colleague of Mr. Pearson, M.L.A.), 
 Mr. Sydney Hill (Savage and Hill), Mr. Birt, Mr. George 
 Impey (of the " Herald "), Mr. George Hudson (of the 
 Customs), Mr. Pinchin, Mr. Stewart, Mr. W. Hume, Mr. 
 Stewart (the founder of th e present Standard Bank), Mr. Bars- 
 dorf, Mr. John Holland, and occasionally Mr. Alfred Wyldtv 
 C.C. and R.M., with a score of others whose names do not 
 occur to me at the present moment, and when Mr. J. Owen 
 Smith and Mr. Keith rolled up, as they sometimes did, tho 
 jokes went fast and furious. For wit and humour no man 
 of business in Port Elizabeth was ever more celebrated than 
 Mr. John Owen Smith, whose enterprise, business habits, 
 and straight-spokenness will be remembered as long as the Port 
 Elizabeth obelisk stands, no man was fonder of fun and frolic. 
 The Port Elizabeth mornin g groups never died out, but grew 
 as the place and the business of the population and place grew, 
 and they were the best means of gathering and disseminating 
 information. On the stoep of the Town-house, and with these 
 assembled groups, were conceived some of the plans which 
 have led to combination and schemes out of which came many 
 of the improvements which gave to Port Elizabeth the impetus 
 which led to its present prosperous and proud position. After
 
 243 
 
 those I have mentioned who formed first groups came worthy- 
 successors who continued to hold the stoep to the present day. 
 From one of these groups we have had some of the most gifted 
 of our politicians and Cabinet Ministers notably one of the 
 most eloquent speakers who have been heard in the Legislature 
 of the country ; Mr. John Miller, a model Treasurer-General ; 
 Mr. Pearson, who has been a prominent member of more than 
 one Cabinet ; Mr. Alfred Ebden, whose influence in the Legis- 
 lative Council was as great as that of any man who ever sat in 
 it, without question or exception ; Mr. Harries, the leader of the 
 old Separation Party ; and I might give other instances. Let 
 no man think that these groups have been useless, or that their 
 morning half-hours were so much time wasted. But for them 
 there would never have been the Chambers of Commerce which 
 have wielded, and do still wield, so much beneficial power over 
 the affairs, not only of Port Elizabeth, but over the public life 
 of the whole colony. I say long life to the stoep group of 
 Port Elizabeth, and may its shadow never be less. The recol- 
 lection which brings these men back to our mental vision is 
 one of mixed pain, gladness, and pride. They were men to be 
 proud of, men of whom any country might be proud. It was 
 a gladsome thing to have known them, but it is a painful thing 
 to contemplate that so few of them are with us now, that so 
 many of them we shall never see again in this world, and that 
 we hare nothing of them but their memories to cherish ; but 
 having so little let u^ cherish and perpetuate the little we- 
 have.
 
 KEMINISCENCE. 
 
 No. XXXVI. 
 
 A VOICE FROM BEAUFORT WEST ON IRRIGATION DAM-MAKING 
 AND DAM BURSTING PROMISES TO IRRIGATE THE LANDS 
 NEAR THE VAAL STILL UNKEPT THE BARKLY HOSPITAL. 
 
 I HAVE just received a letter from a very old and much- 
 respected friend at Beaufort West, who, whilst kindly and 
 warmly expressing his appreciation of " my reminiscences," and 
 admitting their general accuracy, takes exception to my having 
 said that although there have been irrigation proposals before 
 the country since the first day Parliament was convened, though 
 nothing has been done to give practical effect to these pro- 
 posals as yet. He reminds me that a number of landed 
 proprietors have spent thousands of pounds upon irrigation, 
 but have had little encouragement for their enterprise. I thank 
 him for his reminder, but if he will refer back to what I wrote 
 he will see that I was referring to public and general schemes, 
 as carried out by Government and with Government or Muni- 
 cipal assistance, or altogether by Governments and Municipalities 
 in other parts of the world. I had not forgotten, and by no 
 means intended to overlook the efforts that have been made to 
 irrigate their lands by landed proprietors in the Western 
 and Eastern Provinces of the Cape Colony, of irrigation carried 
 out in the Free State and the Transvaal. I have not forgotten 
 the magnificent dam constructed by the late lamented Mr. 
 Robert Hare at Groenfontein, and that of Mr. Distin, of 
 Tafelberg, nor the efforts at dam-making in Beaufort West, but 
 none of these enterprising efforts have been encouraging in 
 their results, but rather go to show how futile it is for individual 
 owners of farms to attempt to carry out irrigation on any large
 
 245 
 
 scale, or for Municipalities to be attempting water supply on a 
 large scale without experienced professional designers and 
 executants. 
 
 It will neither be uninteresting nor uninstructive if I relate 
 here the experience of Beaufort West in the way of dam- 
 making. As I know all the details, I will give them, in the 
 hope that the Minister of Agriculture especially, and others 
 generally, may give a little closer attention to the subject than 
 they have been remarkable for doing hitherto. Those who do 
 will see that irrigation in this country is not to be effected 
 easily or cheaply. In 1871, Mr. A. Devenish, of Uitzedt, in 
 the district of Victoria West, the owner of his own estate, and 
 one of the most enterprising of South African agriculturists, 
 and as good a farmer as ever produced a fleece of wool or sent 
 a bale of snow-white to market, and who had one of the largest 
 and most valuable flocks in that part of the country, resolved 
 upon irrigating his estate of 44,000 acres. In fact, he was one 
 of a family of progressive men. The Devenishes were amongst 
 the most prominent men of the districts in which they lived, 
 and Devenish will be prominent in the records of Victoria West 
 and Beaufort West as long as these districts have a record with a 
 name in it. Mr. A. Devenish having resolved to irrigate his 
 44,000 acres, set to work in the most practical way to do it, as 
 he did with all else he took in hand. He employed the best- 
 known surveyor in the district, Mr. A. B. Brand, to make the 
 survey, to prepare the design, and to superintend the work. 
 The dam was to be 600 yards in length, with a water slope of 
 2^ to 1. The work went on swimmingly, and was to have cost 
 when completed 3,000. 
 
 When 2,000 had been spent, that is, when two-thirds of the 
 work had been done, Mr. Brand was standing at the door of his 
 residence, saw a most peculiar atmospheric phenomena that 
 startled him, and he called his family to come and witness it. 
 About ten miles off two densely black clouds passing over a 
 range of mountains were approaching each other from opposite 
 directions, and the whole atmosphere seemed to be impregnated 
 disagreeably with something indescribable, almost suffocating. 
 The black clouds met, and there was such an explosion as though 
 the great globe itself had burst ; the lightning flashed and 
 forked from all directions, and then along came the water, 
 rushing and roaring it was heard coming for miles before it
 
 246 
 
 really did coine, and when it came it was one vast boiling sea 
 through the gorge in which Victoria lies. It first filled a 
 great basin-like plain and then through the tunnel-like gorge, 
 sweeping all before it one-third of the village, with its houses* 
 shops, stores, merchandise, furniture, roofs from house walls, 
 bales of wool, carts, horses, and cattle. When the deluge ceased 
 over a hundred corpses were found lying along the side-ways 
 where streets had been. Ninety-six corpses were laid out in 
 the library, and there was lamentation and mourning and woe 
 in every remaining home. Funerals occupied days, and the 
 whole town was craped for months after. It was a time of 
 depression, bad enough before the flood, afterwards it was ruin. 
 It need hardly be said that Mr. Devenish's irrigation works 
 shared the fate of the rest, were swept away with a large 
 portion of his stock, and he was left a loser of over 4,000. 
 This occurred on the 28th of February, and it was leap year, an 
 overleap year Mr. Devenish considered it. This is one illustra- 
 tion of dam-making results and an endeavour to carry out 
 irrigation by individual effort, and it certainly is not encourag- 
 ing. 
 
 In 1869 Beaufort West had tried its hand at waterworks and 
 had come to grief, but then Beaufort West had no one to blame 
 but itself for that disaster. It had decided to provide water 
 enough to supply the town and the farmers for irrigation purposes 
 and settled upon plans and cost. A Mr. D. G. Villiers, a leading 
 man of the district and a Municipal Commissioner, who had 
 made little dams which might be more aptly called water-holes, 
 thought himself man enough for the work, and the Municipal 
 Commissioners thinking so too, gave the whole work into his 
 hands, and he became designer and executant. The dam was 
 built on the side of the hill on the upper side of the town ; the 
 embankment being of 1^ to 1 water slope and 1 to 1 land slope, 
 with a breadth of top of 3 feet, the capacity of the dam being 
 572,000,000 gallons. It was fed by, the Kuil's River, which is 
 a periodical river having a drainage of about 80 square miles, 
 and subject to very heavy freshets during summer thunder 
 weather. After the dam was sufficiently complete to hold water, 
 about 10 feet of water was allowed to flow into it. This it held 
 very well, but directly a succession of rains came and filled the 
 dam, a subsidence and slip took place in the water slope, after- 
 wards traced to a roadway up the embankment which had not
 
 247 
 
 been properly dealt with. In October, 1869, a breach of 250 
 feet occurred in the embankment, and the water rushed through 
 the breach down upon the town, carrying away houses, stores, 
 merchandise. Every street was a river. From 30,000 to 40,000 
 worth of property was destroyed, but happily there were no liv^s 
 lost, greatly attributable to the bursting of the dam taking place in 
 the day time, and the inhabitants having been forewarned by 
 Captain Tinley, who was Civil Commissioner of Beaufort West 
 at the time, and who, from the first time he saw the work, 
 predicted what would come of it. It was afterwards discovered 
 that no fouudation trench had been cut a very common error 
 in this country and there was no puddle core. A lesson to 
 people carrying out water schemes not to put their trust in 
 amateur designers and executants. The dam was restored 
 under the direction of Mr. A. B. Brand since the catastrophe, 
 and has supplied Beaufort West with water for the last 
 twenty-five years, and has been the making of the town and 
 district. 
 
 I have been trying to remember how many times it has been 
 proposed to turn the Vaal River to irrigation account, but upon 
 my word I can't. Times out of number 1 have heard that it is 
 just going to be done, and I have no doubt I shall hear it repeated 
 many times more before anything practical comes of it. There 
 is a fine country to be irrigated at the lower end of the district, 
 and if it were irrigated it would soon be cultivated, and we should 
 have a good supply of articles of home growth, cheaper bread 
 and beef, and a score of other necessaries. We are a wonderful 
 people for " going to go " and " going to do." I remember the 
 time well when we were going to make Barkly a fine business 
 town, and one of the most picturesque and attractive waterside 
 retreats in South Africa. The sloping river banks were to be 
 gardens, where strawberries, raspberries, and all the fruits 
 of the earth were to grow in abundance, and the river was to 
 supply the inhabitants with a fish diet of barbel and springers. 
 Churches were built that the inhabitants may be spiritually as 
 well as temporarily provided, and a hospital was built that the 
 ailing as well as the healthy should be looked after. The church 
 is the only one thing of it all that is left to its original purpose. 
 The hospital building has been turned to all kinds of account since 
 it was built. It has been burnt down and re-built since the 
 foundation-stone was laid. All that remains of the old building
 
 248 
 
 are the stone walls and the granite slab inserted in them, whicb 
 bears the following inscription : 
 
 THE BARKLY HOSPITAL. 
 Foundation-stone laid July 16, 1872, 
 
 BY 
 
 MRS. J. B. BARRT. 
 Committee : 
 
 John Campbell, Esq., C.C. and R.M. (Chairman). 
 Mr. Justice Barry Mr. W. Myhill 
 
 Mr. W. 8chultz Mr. E. Webster 
 
 Mr. M. linger Mr. J. Strong 
 
 Mr. I. S. Gordon, Honorary Treasurer. 
 Mr. R. W. Murray, Honorary Secretary. 
 Ben. W. Hall, M.R.C.S.E. and L.M., Medical Officer. 
 Mr. S. Stent, C.E., Architect. 
 Mr. W. Pike, Clerk of Works. 
 
 Since it was proclaimed a hospital, it has been a school and ever 
 so many other things. It is now a Convalescent Home under 
 the management of Dr. and Mrs. Stubbs, and is giving a 
 belter return for the money it cost than it ever did before and a 
 better managed Government institution does not exist in South 
 Africa nor any other where that I know of. The doctor and 
 his lady who have the House under their control make the 
 patients in their charge feel at home, which goes a good way to 
 restore persons in the early stages of convalescence to perfect 
 health. Strong's stone building, that was the Standard Bank,, 
 has been turned into shops, and Unger's office, in which 
 hundreds of thousands of pounds' worth of diamonds changed 
 hands every month, has fallen into the hands of the retailer, but 
 the residence of that gentleman is surrounded by an orangery,, 
 which shows in its luxuriance how fruitful a district Barkly 
 might be made if any one of the irrigation proposals had beer* 
 carried out.
 
 REMINISCENCE. 
 
 No. XXXVII. 
 
 A GRAND LESSON ON IRRIGATION DEDICATED TO WHOEVER 
 IT MAY CONCERN, AND TO THE COMMISSIONER OP PUBLIC 
 WORKS ESPECIALLY. 
 
 THE leading article in the " Cape Times " of Wednesday last 
 which reached me this morning, suggests to me reminiscences- 
 which extend over many very many years. The writer of 
 that article says, that " after having for years vainly looked for 
 salvation from the discovery of minerals and from the wealth 
 earned by acting as common carriers to the hosts of miners and 
 speculators, whom the search for precious minerals attracts, the 
 people of this country are beginning to learn the folly of their 
 hopes, and are asking themselves whether, after all, there does 
 not lie in the skilful cultivation of the soil a safer and surer way 
 to private fortune and more permanent prosperity to the 
 country." How many times have they been asking themselves- 
 this during the last half-century ? By far a greater number than 
 anyone has kept account of. After every disappointment follow- 
 ing on a race for wealth in some bubble-blowing speculation,, 
 either at home or abroad, in rushing off to Australia, as they did 
 in 1851 and 1852, in the mad exodus from all parts of the Colony 
 to the mythical copper centres of Namaqualaud, as they did in 
 1855 and 1856, and such like, they have invariably asked them- 
 selves the same question, and have always arrived at the same con- 
 clusion, but always 'ready to rush off again from the cultivation 
 of the soil, whenever it has been rumoured that there are fortunes- 
 to be made without any industrial effort, no matter what the 
 direction. Always ready to occupy the laud, to speculate in 
 land, but not cultivate it. Returning to the subject of irrigation,.
 
 250 
 
 the most important of a-11 subjects to this country, I propose to 
 give my remembrance of a projected scheme which followed 
 upon the flood which washed away the irrigation works of Mr. 
 A. Devenish, of Victoria West. At that time Mr. J. G. Gamble 
 was Colonial Hydraulic Engineer, with Mr. A. B. Brand 
 assisting in the waterworks in the district of Beaufort and 
 Victoria West. Mr. Brand, who had given much attention to 
 the subject of irrigation and was deeply impressed with its 
 necessity to enable the country to grow its own breadstuff's and 
 accelerate productiveness generally, devised a scheme which if it 
 had been carried out would by this time have saved the Colony 
 millions of money, have given labour to tens of thousands of men, 
 and have brought thousands of acres into cultivation that have 
 never yielded a pennyworth of anything to anybody. 
 
 Mr. Brand's scheme was to block up the Salt River's poort. 
 This poort is situated at about thirty miles south-east from 
 Beaufort in the Murraysbnrg direction. The poort is upwards 
 of 400 yards in width at the point selected for the dam. The 
 natural facilities for the construction of the proposed reservoir 
 were described by Mr. Brand as being unrivalled in South Africa. 
 In this opinion Mr. Gamble coincided. The proposal was to 
 construct a stone and cement wall 100 feet in height. The 
 capacity of the reservoir was estimated to be 50,000,000,000 
 gallons, being about a hundred times the storage capacity of the 
 Beaufout West dam. The water would by this plan extend 
 eleven miles up the river valley. The greatest width about six 
 miles. The perymeter, or distance round the lake when full, 
 thirty-five miles. The most extraordinary feature in connection 
 with the basin of the dam is the fact that this enormous lake 
 would have an average depth of 19 feet, the greatest depth being 
 83 feet. That result obtained, the flood water would escape through 
 natural overflow formed by a nek or depression in the ridge on 
 the Murraysburg side a little over two miles from the poort. 
 The great importance of this feature will be readily understood. 
 The feeding stream to be the well-known Salt River, which has 
 a drainage area of about fifteen hundred (1,500) square miles. 
 The Salt River is known to run more frequently than any of the 
 Karoo rivers, not only on account of its vast gathering grounds, 
 but on account of its being fed by the Nieuwveld as well as by 
 the Karoo stream?. The value of this is that the river is fed 
 by both the summer and winter rains. There can be no
 
 251 
 
 question that the feeding stream would have sufficient capacity 
 to fill the reservoir, and preserve a high-water level. I 
 should have mentioned that the overflow nek is rock-bound, and 
 therefore not liable to scour. The width of the nek is nearly 
 equal to that of the poort. 
 
 The object of the designer in proposing this scheme was to 
 provide a sufficient supply of water for the irrigation of the 
 Salt River's vley, which would bring something like 50,000 mor- 
 gen into cultivation. The nature of the soil is what is generally 
 known as red Karoo ground, being an alluvial deposit of great 
 fertility of twenty to thirty feet in depth, and is especially well 
 adapted for wheat-growing, and would be practically inexhausti- 
 ble. This vley, in fact, has been a natural receptacle for the 
 salt and carbonaceous matter brought down by the river in 
 suspension for ages past. It need hardly be added that a soil 
 capable of producing wheat is equally well adapted for other 
 crops common to the country, for stock-feeding as well as cereals. 
 Even with the efforts of those who have operated upon this soil 
 in the district, taking advantage of opportune rains for ploughing, 
 which, unfortunately, rarely occur, have realised incredibly 
 heavy yields, for instance, of wheat, exceeding 100 to 1. I 
 know of one case in which 130 to 1 was realised. 
 
 As far as I can remeaaber, this proposal was made in about 
 1882. At any rate, it was during the administration of Sir 
 Hercules Robinson, and when Sir J. C. Molteno was Premier 
 and the Hon. J. X. Merriman the Commissioner of Crown 
 Lands and Public Works. The scheme was well received by 
 the Government, and a Parliamentary Commission was ap- 
 pointed to inspect the site, to take evidence, and report. The 
 Commission consisted of the Hydraulic Engineer (Mr. Gamble), 
 the Surveyor-General (Mr. De Smidt), Mr. J. S. Kirkwood, 
 then member for Port Elizabeth ; Mr. Auret, member for 
 Victoria West, and Mr. G. Alston. The result was that the 
 Commission reported in favour of the scheme, the whole cost 
 of which was to be 150,000, and no doubt this would have 
 been carried out but that Mr. Gamble reported as Hydraulic 
 Engineer that he was not prepared to recommend the Govern- 
 ment to go into such a gigantic and costly work. One of the 
 reasons given for not carrying out the work was that the 
 Government had just expended eleven millions of money in 
 railway construction, and, therefore, it was not advisable to
 
 252 
 
 increase the debt by the addition of another 150,000. No- 
 doubt Mr. Gamble, who was an exceedingly timid man, joining: 
 in this view, shrunk from the responsibility of advising the 
 Government to go on with the work. Mr. Brand, on the other 
 hand, contended that irrigation and railway works should ga 
 on hand in hand, so that the former should feed the latter, 
 dwelling on the fact that the Colony had to import breadstuffs- 
 to the value of from 200,000 to 300,000 annually, and those 
 inferior in quality to the wheat grown in Cape soil. Mr. Brand 
 appeared to have had the support of all the influential farmers 
 and landowners of the district, as well as that of the Hon. J. 
 X. Merriman, and reference to the Blue-book containing the 
 evidence taken by the Commission will show that some of 
 the members of the Commission, notably Mr. J. S. Kirkwood 
 and Mr. Auret, strongly supported the immediate carrying out- 
 the proposed work. Mr. Kirkwood thought, with such a feasi- 
 ble scheme before them, it was shameful to be sending money 
 out of the country for the benefit of other countries, with 
 whom we were doing no business and were certainly getting 
 no return. 
 
 Both the Commission and the public naturally thought that 
 with so plain and practical a scheme, clearly explained with- 
 all its details, a report from the Parliamentary Commission 
 in its favour without qualification or conditions of any kind, 
 approved of by the people of the district, the members for 
 the division, and the Commissioner of Crown Lands and 
 Public Works, that the irrigation of the part of the Colony 
 described was nearly as good as accomplished. The press- 
 of Cape Town applauded the scheme aud pictured the future 
 of that vast tract of country, then bare and barren, as a land,. 
 if not of milk and honey, so covered with fields of waving 
 corn, rich pastures, fodder for cattle, with new towns and 
 villages dotted over the wide expanse, an agricultural popu- 
 lation busy with ploughs, and all the modern agricultural- 
 machinery, the blacksmith's anvil chorus filling the air, to the 
 accompaniment of steam saw mills and all such transformations- 
 as well-directed industry affects. But after waiting patiently 
 month after month they at last learnt that nothing was to 
 come of it all, that the country was to remain as it was, and 
 all because the Hydraulic Engineer shrunk from the respon- 
 sibility of advising the Government to carry out the work -
 
 253 
 
 because forsooth it was spending large sums in making railways ! 
 That which the " eminent expert " prevented being done in 
 1881 is- nndone still, and as far as one can see is as likely to 
 be as far off at the end of the next thirteen years as it is to-day. 
 At the close of 1917 we shall in all probability be importing 
 not only our breadstuffs from other countries, as we are now, but 
 beans, peas, maize, &c., &c., that we could grow ourselves, 
 leaving the land unploughed and telling the world there is 
 no market at the Cape for more agricultural labour or more 
 agricultural machinery. That is to say unless some enter- 
 prising capitalists, each on his own account, takes irrigation 
 in hand. There may be some, but it needs no prophet to 
 foretell that if there may be a few of such here and there 
 through the country there will never be any such irrigation 
 carried out as to change the face of the country and in- 
 crease its productiveness and wealth as might be done by a 
 general aystem upon such sch ernes as that Mr. Brand proposed 
 for the acres in the Karoo. Here and there you do find a landed 
 proprietor and cultivator of the soil carrying out irrigation upon 
 a fairly extensive scale. 1 mentioned before the names of Hare 
 of Groenfontein, Distin of Tafelberg, and Devenish of Victoria 
 West. I might have mentioned one or two others who have 
 irrigated tracts of land of some extent, and might have included 
 that of Mr. Douglass, M.L.A., of Graham's Town ; but you 
 may count the number on your fingers and still have a thumb 
 to spare. Nearly all, if not all, of the irrigators have been 
 stock-farmers. I do not know of one who has irrigated any 
 large tract of land with a view to the growth of cereals or 
 fruit. There is one just about it now, however, who has for 
 some months been irrigating bis broad acres on the banks of the 
 Vaal River Mr. George de Pass, of Bellobank. He has about 
 40,000 (forty thousand) acres of land, and he is carrying out 
 a scheme designed by Mr. Brand, the basis of which is a reser- 
 voir which when completely full will contain 495,767,250 
 (four hundred and ninety-five million seven hundred and sitxy- 
 eeven thousand two hundred and fifty) gallons, and this water 
 will irrigate lands' on which Mr. De Pass will grow wheat, 
 fruit, and root corps. He has extensive orchards already pro- 
 ducing lots of fruit, which he will ultimately turn to canning 
 purposes, to displace some of the imported canned fruit trade 
 which drains the Colonial purse very heavily. But Mr. De
 
 254 
 
 Pass is only one true, he is one of a thousand in most senses 
 of the term, but there is plenty of room for five hundred such 
 establishments as his along the banks of the river, and had s 
 Government led the way as Sir Richard Southey proposed 
 doing when he was Lieutenant-Governor of Griqualand West, 
 the river banks would not have been the pictures of desolation 
 they are to-day. 
 
 There are positively to-day fewer mouths filled from the soil 
 of the lands adjacent to the Vaal River than there was before 
 it was in the occupation of the white man, and this ought not 
 lo be. There is very little benefit to the world in displacing 
 the black races if the lands from which they are displaced are 
 not to be made more productive ther eby. But without waiting 
 to discuss this, there is one little nut which we may amuse our- 
 selves in the cracking of, and it is that we have spent in 
 foreign-grown wheat alone during the last thirteen years at 
 least four millions of money, according to the roughest of 
 calculations, which we might have saved if we had only irri- 
 gated our wheat lands and cultivated them. 

 
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 KIMBERLEY 
 
 CAMEEA CLUB, 
 
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 J. GUILDS, ESQ. 
 
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 The Illustrated Official Handbook of the Cape and 
 
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