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/ Gold in the Lowveld |
The principal topic of conversation throughout the Transvaal towards the end of 1882 was gold. Duivel’s Kantoor (Kaapse Hoop) was a centre for rumours about new finds. There was undoubtedly much gold in the vicinity. The difficulty facing prospectors, in fact, was not to find gold traces, but to sort out the innumerable traces and find the ones which would lead to payable gold.
While the rank and file of diggers brawled in the saloons with the mixture of bar-props, stiffs, gamblers and confidence men who formed the scum of every gold rush, the prospectors proper – the hard-bitten pioneers – worked tirelessly to find new stikes.
Every prospector working in great secrecy. They were not only afraid of the frenzied rush of diggers which followed any leakage of news of a stike. The thought was also present that it was quite likely that the Government would immediately grant a concession over the find to some company promoter, who would promptly interdict the original prospector and the diggers from working and gather all the profits of the find for himself.
In this atmosphere, the merest rumour was enough to excite the crowds who lounged around the bars. The stores all bought gold; and the displayed nuggets and gold-dust on their counters, tantalizing the multitude by this evidence of wealth, although the sellers would never breath a word of as to the precise location of the discovery.
“Charlie the Reefer” was busy on his own somewhere in the tumultuous scenery of the Kaap. He had quite evidently made some sort of find, for about once every month he would return to the Duivel’s Kantoor, pay for fresh supplies with nuggets, send a pile off to the bank, deposit ƒ10 with the Gold Comissioner to cover any likely fine if he got into trouble, and the go to the round of bars, where he would be plied with strong drink by the crowds, who hoped to wangle the secret of his finds out of him. He never told them, and, drunk or sober, always managed to slip away and shake off anybody who attempted to follow him back to site.
Many prospectors would, instead of finding gold, meet there deaths in the Kaap Valley. It was riddled with fever in the summer season. The tsetse fly lurked in the bush of many of the deeper valleys, while wild animals were numerous. The grim name of the Valley of Death was applied to the place with some justification by the prospectors and those who remained on the heights at Duivel’s Kantoor looked down on the place in dread when the swirling mists enveloped it and strange, ghostly shapes seemed to form and float through the still air like phantoms.
By Christmas 1882 Duivel’s Kantoor was a fair-sized town of shacks and tents. Canteens and stores were there in abundance, and trade was booming. Social life, other than brawls, was also being organized; and the first concerts were being held in Hayes’s store by R.D. Spence and Alf Lane. Some difference was made to the town early in the New Year, when a tremendous gale leveled every building in the place overnight; but it was soon restored to its habitual noisy and excitable state.
The most resolute of all the prospecting groups of the Kaap area was a trio consisting of Ingram James, Magnus Jefferies and a Frenchman, Auguste Robert, known to everyone as “French Bob”. They had come to the Duivel’s Kantoor early in the rush, but soon abandoned the place and wandered down into the Kaap Valley to prospect. It soon became apparent that they were enjoying some success. Instead of asking storekeepers for credit, they started paying for supplies in gold; and when they eventually banked a few nuggets, the Duivel’s Kantoor crowd were mad with curiosity, and a number of attempts were made to track down a homeward-bound party.
The renowned Tom McLachlan had largely lost interest in the Kaap area since his pioneering prospecting. Beyond the eastern edge of the Kaap Valley, marked by the great massif known as the Khahlamba (rugged mountain barrier) lay the beautiful highlands of Swaziland; and in that jumble of hills and rivers he had recently built himself a shack and was concentrating on prospecting the vicinity.
At the end of September 1882 McLachlan laid his last visit to the Kaap area, and this became the occasion for an event which became renowned in digger lore. McLachlan found the diggers prepared to do anything for information of someone else’s discovery. They plied him with drink and questions. About his own activities he refused to say a word, but he told them he knew where French Bob and his party were finding their gold. The diggers eagerly plied him with more drinks and, mellowed by their hospitality, he agreed to show them the way as soon as he had finished his local business.
Two hundred diggers, together with Ziervogel, packed their kit and prepared for the new rush. McLachlan finished his business earlier than he had said. He left immediately, telling the diggers to meet him at a certain rendezvous on the 2 October. When the eager diggers reached the place they found a note under the stone, telling them to go on to a second place. When they reached the new rendezvous the diggers found still another note, with fresh directions.
So it went on for days, with McLachlan leading the weary two hundred through the most inaccessible country. Over the next few weeks, stragglers from the party gradually returned to the Duivel’s Kantoor, all breathing threats against McLachlan. Like most of the other diehard prospectors, he despised the rabble who only wanted to rush another man’s discovery, and he had decided to play them a prank. Very wisely, he never returned to the Duivel’s Kantoor.
The actual site of the discovery made by French Bob and his party was a small alluvial deposit along the banks of a tributary of the Ngwenyana River, known as the North Kaap. Ingram James had been responsible for the actual discovery. With his two partners, he worked his discovery in secret for as long as he could; but inevitably it had to be found by the others sooner or later. Early in 1883, Harry Culverwell stumbled on their workings, pegged a claim for himself, and spread the news. There was a wild scramble from the Duivel’s Kantoor, and within days the three original prospectors found their camp had become the nucleas of what was known as Jamestown, in honour of the first discoverer.
The Jamestown rush was profitable but short-lived. A few good nuggets of up to fifty-eight ounces each were found there; but the deposit was very patchy and was soon exhausted. Fever was also a great handicap.
Jamestown had one important function apart from the gold yielded by its own alluvial stream. It was the first miners’ settlement actually built in the Kaap Valley, and it acted as the depot for most of the subsequent prospecting in the area.
From Jamestown, French Bob and his partners rummaged about the whole length of the Kaap Valley. Some months before, Moodie had offered a reward and favourable working terms to anyone who discovered gold on his farms in the valley. The reward attracted the attention of many people. The whole valley was being thoroughly ransacked, and the great mountain jumble on the eastern end, where the oddly-named Shiya-lo-Ngubo (River where you can abandon your clothes) stream flows, were dotted with the lonely little tents of prospectors.
French Bob and his party found many traces of gold all over the valley; but shortage of water dissuaded them from attempting to work several finds, including one on the afterwards famous Sheba Hill. Eventually, in May 1883, they camped on a little creek in the south-eastern end of the valley.;
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