CHAPTER III THE JOHANNESBURG GOLD FIELDS SOUTH AFRICA has many stories concerning the early history of the Witwatersrandt gold district, so that it is well-nigh impossible to discriminate between the fiction and the truth. One of the most probable stories has it that the former owner of the Randt region died recently in an almshouse in Surrey, England. He had a marvellous war record, having fought with the British army in the Crimea, at Sebastopol, in the Indian Mutiny, Zululand, and at Majuba Hill. With his savings of four thousand dollars he is said to have purchased fifteen thousand acres of land in the southern part of the Transvaal. He was obliged to forfeit his property to the Boer Government in 1882, because he had taken up arms against the Boers when they were fighting for their independence. The actual discovery of gold in the Trans vaal territory is credited to a German named Mauch, who travelled through that part of the country early in the century. He returned to Berlin with wonderful reports of the gold he had found, and attempted to enlist capital to work the mines. Whether his reports were not credited, or whether the Germans feared the natives, is not recorded, but Mauch is not heard of again in connection with the later history of the country. In 1854 a Dutchman named Jan Marais, who had a short time before returned from the Australian gold fields, prospected in the Transvaal, and found many evidences of gold. The Boers, fearing that their land would be overrun with gold-seekers, paid five hundred pounds to Marais, and sent him home after extracting a promise that he would not reveal his secret to any one. A It was not until 1884 that England heard of the presence of gold in South Africa. man named Fred Stuben, who had spent several years in the country, spread such marvellous reports of the underground wealth of the Transvaal that only a short time elapsed before hundreds of prospectors and miners left England for South Africa. When the first prospectors discovered auriferous veins of wonderful quality on a farm called Sterkfontein, the gold boom had its birth. It required the lapse of only a short time for the news to reach Europe, America, and Australia, and immediately thereafter that vast and widely scattered army of men and women which constantly awaits the announcement of new discoveries of gold was set in motion toward the Randt. The Indian, Russian, American, and Australian gold fields were deserted, and the steamships and sailing vessels to South Africa were overladen with men and women of all degrees and nationalities. The journey to the Randt was expensive, dangerous, and comfortless, but before a year had passed almost twenty thousand persons had crossed the deserts and the plains and had settled on claims purchased from the Boers. In December, 1885, the first stamp mill was erected for the purpose of crushing the gneiss rock in which the gold lay hidden. This enterprise marks the real beginning of the gold fields of the Randt, which now yield one third of the world's total product of the precious metal. The advent of thousands of foreigners was a boon to the Boers, who owned the large farms on which the auriferous veins were located. Options on farms that were of little value a short time before were sold at incredible figures, and the prices paid for small claims would have purchased farms of thousands of acres two years before. In July, 1886, the Government opened nine farms to the miners, and all have since become the best properties on the Randt. The names by which the farms were known were retained by the mines which were located upon them afterward, and, as they give an idea of the nomenclature of the country, are worth repetition Langlaagte, Dreifontein, Rantjeslaagte, Doornfontein, Vogelstruitsfontein, Paardeplaats, Turffontein, Elandsfontein, and Roodepoort. The railroad from Cape Town extended only as far north as the diamond mines at Kimberley, and the remainder of the distance, about five hundred miles, had to be traversed with ox-teams or on foot; but the gold-seekers yielded to no impediments, and marched in bodies of hundreds to the new fields. The ma chinery necessary to operate the mines and extract the gold from the rocks, as well as every ounce of food and every inch of lumber, was dragged overland by ox-teams, and the vast plains that had seen naught but the herds of Boer farmers and the wandering tribes of natives were quickly transformed into scenes of unparalleled activity. On the Randt the California scenes of '49 were being re-enacted. Tents and houses of sheet iron were erected with picturesque lack of beauty and uniformity, and during the latter part of 1886 the community had reached such proportions that the Government marked off a township and called it Johannesburg. The Government, which owned the greater part of the land, held three sales of building lots, or stands," as they are called in the Transvaal, and realized more than three hundred thousand dollars from the sales. The prices of stands measuring fifty by one hundred feet ranged from one dollar to one thousand dollars. Millions were secured in England and Europe for the development of the mines, and the individual miner sold his claims to companies with un 66 |