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with drowsiness, succeeded by racking pains, followed by high fever, complete dilatation of the eyeballs, and death. In other cases it resembled jaundice, beginning with vomiting, but ending in muttered delirium and a low typhoid state, from which the patients but seldom recovered. In two or three cases the men died suddenly, after a few days' restlessness, want of energy, and appetite. Seventy miles to our rear, in the Crocodile River valley, whole families were swept away by this fatal scourge, which continued increasing in severity till the 18th May, after which there were no more new cases. Arsenic, in heroic doses, with cinchona bark, was found to be the only reliable remedy in the low stages of the disease. At one time, of sixty-four duty-men thirty-two were ill. Of course the loss of life was considerable. The death-rate seemed to be utterly unaffected by the previous habits of the patients; and drinkers and weakly worn-out men went off no quicker than did fine fellows in good condition, who had never drank spirits, or committed reprehensible excesses, in their lives.

New-comers who had arrived during the summer were much more liable to an attack than those even partially inured to the climate. The strongest, and those who did not suffer directly from the fever, yet felt the weakening and lowering effects of the pestilential miasma that filled the bush-country. Both men and horses got weak, sluggish, and disinclined for continued exertion. Even keen sportsmen gave up the gun and the rod for the pipe and the novel. Such was the fever of 1877. In my account of the present war I shall endeavour to point out the differences between it and the fever of 1878, which, in the same district, also cost the country many valuable lives.

In February also, towards the end of the month, we were suddenly called on to take part in the active life of a more civilised part of the country. Poor Captain Van Deventer was summoned from the other fort, with twenty-five of his men, to watch over the peace in Pretoria; whilst we were called upon to maintain the authority of the law on the New Caledonia Gold Fields.

CHAPTER V.

THE LYDENBERG VOLUNTEER CORPS AT THE GOLD

FIELDS.

Surface diggings-The shop-boy aristocracy-An outrage-Peace-making— A gay and festive scene-"Sic transit.

THE "Caledonian Gold Fields" were from the beginning most improperly named. They were not in Caledonia, and they were, not Gold Fields-in fact, they had no pretence whatever to so broad and so significant a title. It had been known for years that "color" was to be got pretty well anywhere in the higher grounds of the Transvaal. "Color means a few specks, perhaps hardly even perceptible, in the bottom of the prospecting basin after the washing of a properly selected shovelful of dirt (I don't mean dirt in the filthy acceptation of the word, but in the sense of gravel, mud, and pay-dirt generally). In some streams-noticeably Jokeskey River, Elands Spruit, and the Blyde-coarser gold had been met with. In 1872 and 1873, rushes broke out in a corner amongst the lofty mountains that hem in the Transvaal territory east of Lydenberg.

The principal discovery, made by Barrington and Osborne, resulted in little mining settlements being started about Pilgrim's Creek—a gully which contributes some water to the Blyde. The place is only accessible by going up and then down a steep mountain, the dangers of the road across which must for ever dwell in the memory of those who have journeyed to the so-called Gold Fields. The descent into the valley of the Blyde is sufficient to ruin any animal, and strain to pieces even the strongest of Africander waggons.

The hill consists of soapy shale, and the fall is something like a foot in twelve. This difficulty overcome, however, the visitor finds himself on a comparatively level spot, towards which numerous gorges and rocky valleys open. The view from the bottom is not ugly. A few pretty falls of water are to be seen tumbling from the surrounding mountains, which are in many places clothed with bush, marking, by their variety, the different degrees of temperature and elevation. The Blyde itself is, except during flood-time, an insignificant stream, flowing between recent alluvial banks. The "Pilgrim's Creek," which joins it from the valley, or rather long glen, in which the principal diggings are situate, with a fall of about a foot in fifty, has scooped for itself a deep distorted channel, that is now loaded with mud and tailings. The ground to the right, looking upwards-that is, on to the left bank of the creek where the mining village was built-is so narrowed between mountain and stream that it only affords room for one street, and that a very indifferent one. Embryo mountains, in fact, rise up abruptly from the backs of the houses on the one hand, while the shanties on the other side of the miserable thoroughfare appear to be constantly in danger of slipping over a steep bank. There is a "diggings,' and nothing more.

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Attracted, however, by the puffs, and, I am afraid, the untruthful and exaggerated statements of persons interested in the prosperity of the place, during the years 1873, 1874, and 1875, large numbers of gold-seekers flocked to the new El Dorado. The place was no richer at its best than many parts of Wicklow; and I think I have heard of places, even in Sutherlandshire, where more gold was found and better wages earned within the last few years than ever rewarded the poor people that flocked to Pilgrim's Rest.

However, there was a rush which, no doubt, gratified its promoters. Natal shopkeepers made little ventures in that direction; and Lydenberg, through which all transport for the Fields had to pass, assumed quite a busy aspect. Stores were piled up with goods; a few new houses were hastily constructed, and waggons thronged the streets of the little quiet Dutch village. Bankers, lawyers, parsons, and a newspaper, appeared suddenly at Pilgrim's Rest, and, favoured

DIGGERS AND DIGGINGS.

97

by heavy rains, the first season of the rush proved lucky for at least a few.

But the gold was not there-at least not in sufficient quantities or sufficiently payable to justify all the fuss and expense gone to about the place. When the claims most easily accessible to water were worked out, the diggers had to go higher and higher on the terraces. This necessitated the expensive leading of water, by flumes and artificial constructions, to the workings. Australians came and cursed the place. Men failed there as they do everywhere else. The ground was what is called "patchy." One man might perhaps find a lump, or succeed in washing up well for weeks at a time, whilst his neighbours could never hit the lead,and this for the very good reason that there was no regular lead to hit. Science and experience were utterly inapplicable ; so that not unfrequently the best men had the worst luck. Geologists and mining engineers found themselves more at fault than the merest tyros in the art could possibly be. In fact, by 1875 the mining concern began to present a most unsatisfactory look-out. Then came bad seasons. The South African digger somehow falls into a habit of wanting all or most of the ruder portion of his labour done. for him by blacks. Now the Kafirs did not take comfortably to gold-digging, most of them preferring the far-easier and better-paid labour of the distant diamond-mines. The diggings had the dry-rot. Poverty began to set in, and became more and more sharply felt as the bulk of the population came to the end of their little means, which they had to spend on tools and necessaries, whilst waiting for the fruition of their golden hopes. This was especially saddening to the hucksters, petty chandlers, and shopkeepers, who had already, in fond anticipation of wealth to come, elevated themselves into an aristocracy. They became discontented, and ceaselessly pressed on Government the necessity of what they called "opening up the country." Everybody's rights should be set aside in (theirs) the digging interest. They were "the people," and the whole country should be taxed for their support. By-and-by to the evils of dear provisions and expensive transport were added those of neighbouring

war.

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The miners, though reduced in numbers by the most natural of all causes- -the poverty of their diggings—were, before and at the beginning of the Secocoeni war, a compact and influential little community of about 470 souls. Their discontent assumed the unpleasant form of hostility to the institutions they lived under. They wanted protection, and yet would not submit, in their own proper persons, to taxation. They desired that the whole country should be taxed in their interest; but they declined to live under its laws, and expected to be treated as a separate community, having distinct interests, which, in their opinion, were paramount and far superior to those of the State. They had a newspaper which soon fanned the flame. If the President was authoritative, the Gold Fields Mercury' called him an emperor; if he was too easy, the paper screamed for strong government.

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Some of these people, I have no doubt, really believed that if a change of government could be brought about, the rains would become more plentiful; farms, land, and houses would rise in value; while claims and chandlers' little shops would become priceless;-in fact, that nothing was wanting to their prosperity but the removal of one Government and the substitution of another. Accordingly they wrote letters to Natal and even to Sir Henry Barkly-representing themselves to be poor abandoned British subjects, in danger of being swallowed up at every moment by countless Kafir enemies. I am sorry to say that they went even a little farther than the truth in their representations. They filled the English press of neighbouring colonies with most absurd and exaggerated stories of Boer cowardice, volunteer atrocities, mis-government, and continual acts of petty tyranny and weakness, which had no foundation save in their own fears, their own turbulence, and their own reckless strivings after wealth where its materials did not exist.

At the very moment when they were loudest in calling for protection against Secocoeni, they did their utmost to prevent a garrison being secured for Fort Burgers. In fact, they always did their best to embarrass the President and cripple his government. The after-history of these miserable people will point out, by the logic of incontrovertible fact,

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