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Page 11
At the Nooitgedacht Mine I saw the process performed of pan washing of
the previously crushed quartz. I also went to the stamping house, where
a machine for crushing has been erected of twenty stamps. I inspected
the mine generally, and its various shafts already sunk. The work
appeared to me to be well and systematically conducted. Before leaving
this mine the great gold cake lump, weighing 1,370 ozs., which was being
forwarded, the day I was there, to the Paris Exhibition, was put into my
hands. It seemed a wonderfully big lump of the precious metal, which is
so earnestly sought for by every race of civilised man.
I also went over another mine, at present in the early stage of its
development, but which struck me as being conducted, as far as the
working management was concerned, on good, sound, business
principles--belonging to the Klerksdorp Gold Estates Company.
My stay at Klerksdorp much impressed me with the idea of the future of
this town of yesterday's growth. It is only fifteen months ago, (a
little more than a year) that the whole of the town on the side of the
stream where the Union Hotel is situated, was begun. The inhabitants
already number some thousands; and the indications I have seen in the
mines, of great prospects of gold being found in large and payable
quantities, are very strong. Klerksdorp may yet become a second
Johannesburg, whose remarkable and rapid development I was told, would
astonish me.
[Illustration: Decorative]
POTCHEFSTROOM.
After leaving Klerksdorp, we travelled the next day in our wagon
thirty-two miles, halting for the night at Potchefstroom, which is not
only one of the oldest, but one of the most important of the Transvaal
districts. Recently the presence of gold-bearing reefs has been
demonstrated in many parts of the division. On our way we passed, during
the afternoon, a spot on the road where a flock of not less than fifty
of those unclean birds, vultures, were hovering over and around the
carcase of a recently dead bullock. These birds are the scavengers of
this part of the world; they feed greedily on carrion, and rapidly pull
a dead animal completely to pieces, leaving only the bones, which
afterwards lie bleaching on the Veldt, to mark the spot where it has
fallen in death--whether it be either horse, or mule, or bullock--left
to die, worn out with fatigue by its unfeeling owners.
Before leaving Potchefstroom, the next morning, I paid a hasty visit to
the Fort and Cemetery, rendered so tragically historical in connection
with the Transvaal war. It was here that my lamented friend, the late
Chevalier Forssman, was shut up with his family for ninety days, and
lost during the siege, two of his children, a son and a daughter. I was
much struck with the picturesque appearance of Potchefstroom. It has a
population of about 2,000. Another long two days' journeying of about
sixty-four miles, through a prettier country than the wide wilderness
of the boundless and treeless plain, we had hitherto passed through in
the Western part of the Transvaal, brought us to Johannesburg.
[Illustration: Decorative]
[Illustration: Decorative]
JOHANNESBURG.
We had some little trouble in finding our way into the town, as for the
last two hours the daylight failed, and we had to grope our way along at
a snail's pace in total darkness. This, in a country of such rough roads
and deep and dangerous gulleys and water-courses, was a most intricate
and difficult proceeding. Eventually, however, we reached our
destination about nine o'clock at night.
This "auriferous" town is indeed a marvellous place, lying on the crest
of a hill at an elevation of 5,000 feet above the level of the sea.
Along its sides are spread out every variety of habitation, from the
substantial brick and stone structures, which are being erected with
extraordinary rapidity, to the multitude of galvanised iron dwellings,
and the still not unfrequent tents of the first, and last comers. It is
indeed a wonderful and bewildering sight to view it from the opposite
hill across the intervening valley. Scarcely more than two years have
elapsed since this town of twenty-five thousand inhabitants commenced
its miraculous existence. The excitement and bustle of the motley crowd
of gold seekers and gold finders is tremendous, the whole of the
live-long day. The incessant subject of all conversation is gold, gold,
gold. It is in all their thoughts, excepting, perhaps, a too liberal
thought of drink. The people of Johannesburg think of gold; they talk of
gold; they dream of gold. I believe, if they could, they would eat and
drink gold. But, demoralising as this is to a vast number of those, who
are in the vortex of the daily doings of this remarkable place, the
startling fact is only too apparent to anyone who visits Johannesburg.
It is to be hoped that the day will come when the legitimate pursuit of
wealth will be followed in a less excitable, and a more calm and
decorous manner, than at present regretably prevails.
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