Chapter XI: Part 11

WEDNESDAY, MARCH 19.—The De Beers Company represents one of the greatest corporations in the world. You hear of De Beers in every conversation when in Kimberley. De Beers owns private cars for use on the railways; De Beers gives millions to public enterprises, and to the government; De Beers owns parks, hotels, street-railways, and eight of the greatest diamond mines in the world.... De Beers was a Dutch farmer on whose land diamonds were found. He never made much out of the discovery, and has been dead a good many years, but, like our John Brown, his soul goes marching on. Cecil Rhodes and Alfred Beit were the real geniuses of Kimberley and its diamond fields, and they are represented in monuments here, but De Beers is heard of much more frequently because his name was given to the trust which took over the mines.... Diamonds were originally discovered in South Africa in 1867, by some Dutch children playing on the Orange river. Three years later, the great Kimberley deposit was found, and now the output is twenty-seven million dollars a year. It is a saying around Kimberley that if the De Beers company should put on the market all the diamonds it has on hand and could produce, diamonds would sell at a shilling a gallon, but the De Beers company only sells as many as it can get a good price for. Diamond-mining, according to experts, will continue at Kimberley for at least a hundred years; it has not been thought necessary to make figures beyond that time. South Africa produces ninety-five per cent of the diamonds of the world, and the De Beers company is the principal factor in the diamond-production of South Africa. The De Beers company does not represent the De Beers family, but many noted English and French capitalists, with a sprinkling of Americans; the diamond trust is one great trust in which Americans have little interest.... Originally, the diamond mines at Kimberley were divided into thousands of claims, 31×31 feet, but Cecil Rhodes saw that diamonds would soon become very cheap unless conditions were changed; so by hook and by crook he formed the great De Beers trust, which now produces only as many diamonds as the world will pay high prices for. Prosperous America takes the greater part of the output, and dull times in America means dull times in Kimberley. Alpheus Williams, an American, is general manager of the De Beers company, and many of the officials under him are Americans. There are other diamond mines in South Africa, including alluvial diggings, and the Premier mine near Pretoria, where was found the great Cullinan diamond, which weighed, before cutting, 3,025 carats, or a pound and a quarter. But Kimberley is the centre, and will remain so, unless other discoveries are made. At the end of 1908, it was estimated that eleven tons of diamonds, valued at $350,000,000, had been found at Kimberley. Diamonds weighing over an ounce are not infrequent; the largest found at Kimberley weighed over four ounces.... Before the passage of the Diamond Trade Act, thefts amounted to five million dollars a year, but the De Beers company regulated stealing as well as output, and the losses are now insignificant.... The finest diamond-cutting is lately being done in New York, and not in Amsterdam, as formerly. The diamonds cut in New York show more fire than diamonds cut in Amsterdam; they have a greater number of facets, and represent finer and better work. Cutting adds forty per cent to the value of diamonds, and an attempt is being made to put a tax of 20 per cent on all uncut diamonds sent out of South Africa. No cutting is done here, and the passage of such a law would add enormously to the country’s labor roll.... The average man, in thinking of a diamond mine at Kimberley, imagines a great open hole in the earth, and thousands of men working at the bottom of it. As a matter of fact, no such mining is now done in Kimberley, although visitors may see great holes in which such mining was formerly carried on. Diamonds are now mined very much as gold is mined. Shafts are sunk to great depths in the earth, and drifts run in every direction from the bottom. Some of these shafts are more than three thousand feet deep, and the diamond dirt is hoisted and treated very much as gold-bearing rock is hoisted and treated.... Diamonds are found in blue dirt, in what the miners call “pipes.” These pipes are the craters of extinct volcanoes, and taper toward the bottom like a funnel. The pipes are round, as may be seen in the old open workings, some of which are a thousand feet deep. The deepest working in any “pipe” is now at a depth of three thousand feet, but a diamond drill has been sent down a thousand feet further without the blue dirt giving out; so no one knows how deep they are.... The old open holes in the ground were found very expensive to work at a depth of eight hundred or a thousand feet, so the blue dirt is now hoisted by means of modern cages operating in timbered shafts, as coal is hoisted; down below, drifts are run, and the blue dirt hauled to the hoisting-shafts as is done in coal-mining. As the blue dirt is exhausted, the shafts are sunk deeper, and drifts run lower down. The “pipe” at the biggest diamond mine at Kimberley is three hundred yards across at the top, and, as I have already said, this tapers toward the bottom like the funnel you use in pouring vinegar into a jug. The Premier mine, near Pretoria, is very much larger than any mine at Kimberley, being eight hundred yards across at the top. This great Premier mine, which you hear little of, mines forty thousand tons of blue dirt per day, and employs twelve thousand men, as against twenty thousand employed in all the Kimberley mines. The Premier dirt, however, is worth only one dollar per ton, whereas that at Kimberley averages something like three times as much.... Briefly, the process of finding the diamonds is as follows: The blue dirt in which the diamonds are found is brought to the surface precisely as coal is hoisted, and mined in about the same way. It is then placed in little iron cars, and hauled to a level field, where it is spread over the surface to a depth of two feet. This is done to permit the weather to disintegrate the dirt, and render its washing easier. Today I saw a field of four thousand acres covered with this blue dirt. It will remain out in the weather a year before it is treated in the washing-mills.... You might pause a moment and think of that four-thousand-acre field, covered to a depth of two feet with the blue dirt in which diamonds are found. The four-thousand-acre field I saw represented the output of only one mine; there are eight in the Kimberley district, only two of which are known to be duffers, as they say here; that is, of little value.... And you may rest assured that this four-thousand-acre field is carefully guarded; it is surrounded with a barbed wire fence fourteen feet high, and on top of the fence are four wires spread out in such a way that no one could possibly climb over. At night, the fence is illuminated with electric lights, and there is a patrol of armed guards day and night. But you might be turned loose in the four-thousand-acre field, and not find a diamond in a year; the process of finding them is very intricate, expensive, and difficult. Many of the natives who work in the diamond mines have never seen a diamond: they see only the blue dirt.... After the blue dirt has lain out in the weather a year, and been plowed up at intervals with steam plows, that all portions of it may have a chance at the sun, it is washed in enormous mills, and reduced in the proportion of one to four million: that is, for every pound of diamonds found, four million pounds of blue dirt are mined, hoisted, exposed in the field a year, and then run through the washing-mills.... In these washing-mills, the blue dirt is first crushed between rollers, and then run through shaking washing-pans three different times. What is left is then taken in cars to another mill, called the pulsator, and here the precious dirt is again washed three times. Finally the diamonds and the heavier pebbles remaining after six washings, go in a stream of water over a shaking-pan, the bottom of which is covered with vaseline. The diamonds stick to the vaseline, for some reason yet unexplained, while the pebbles roll away with the water. The diamonds on the screen are then easily collected and sorted. Some of the sorters, greatly to my surprise, were negroes in charge of white men.... Today I saw the result of one day’s washing from one mine; a pile of rough diamonds, many of them as small as pin-heads. One of them was said to be worth a thousand dollars. Dozens were of fairly good size, but the bulk of them were very small. These small diamonds will be used in cutting the big ones. There were many straw-colored diamonds, and some of them were black; the black ones will be used in diamond drills. It seemed to me that there were half a pint of these diamonds; Adelaide says a pint. But anyway, three or four thousand men, aided by the most enormous machines I have ever seen, work a day, and turn out—what? A half-pint or pint of bright stones of no actual value except in cutting glass and in diamond drills. The diamonds when found are in all sorts of shapes, but some of them look somewhat like diamonds after they have been cut. When taken out of the washing-machines they look like ordinary rock crystals; but they do not flash or sparkle. Cutting gives them that quality. The De Beers company last year made ten million dollars profit, I am told, and I am also told that one gold mine at Johannesburg last year made half that amount.... The mining of the blue dirt is done by natives who live in compounds, or quarters, and who are never permitted to leave the place until they quit, or are discharged; but no native is employed who will not agree to work at least four months. Today I visited one of these compounds, occupied by 2,500 natives. The place looked to be a thousand feet square. In the centre is a place where the men bathe after coming from underground. The houses where the men sleep form the square, and thirty men are provided with sleeping-bunks in one room. The bunks are in tiers, three deep, and reminded me of my quarters on the ship “Maunganui” between Wellington and Sydney.... In front of the houses the men do their cooking, at open fires, with wood furnished by the company. The men earn an average of eighty-two cents a day each, and are compelled to board themselves. They usually live in messes, one man in the mess doing the cooking for a week. The company has stores in the compound where all sorts of provisions may be had at about cost.... The men come from the interior, and, when they arrive, are given a number. This number is retained until the man quits, or is discharged. There is a system of piece work, and some of the men make $1.25 a day. The eight-hour system prevails, but the system of team work is such that all the men work steadily; the company sees to it that there are no shirkers. So the De Beers company has the services of excellent workmen at an average cost of eighty-two cents a day. There is a modern hospital in the compound, and men who are injured are treated free, and, in addition, receive their usual wages while laid up. The compound is much cleaner than an ordinary negro village, and many of the men remain with the company for years.... There is a good deal of water in the Kimberley mines. In one of them, 25,000 gallons an hour is pumped without trouble from a depth of 1,500 feet.... The blue dirt is hauled from the mine to the field, where it is exposed to the weather for a year, in iron cars holding about a ton each. The cars are pulled by an endless cable, and one of the sights of Kimberley is these cars going and coming without attendance on a double-track railway two or three miles long. The cars run in bunches of three, about twenty yards apart, and reminded me of ants coming and going.... When the blue dirt is ready to be treated, it is hauled to the washing-mills in the same cars, and in the same way. At the washing-mills there is a large residue known to contain no diamonds, and this is carried to the top of the dump and thrown away, and thus are formed the gray mounds seen around the town of Kimberley.... The Transvaal government has an interest in the Premier diamond mine near Pretoria, and gets sixty per cent of its profits. The government’s share amounts to two and a half million dollars a year. Whenever a diamond mine shows a disposition to amount to a good deal, the De Beers company buys it. The stockholders in the De Beers company have gradually acquired a large interest in the Premier mine, so that there is a “gentlemen’s agreement” in the disposition of diamonds.... A great deal of hauling is done from Kimberley to points off the railroad, and donkey teams are used in freighting. Every time I go on the streets I see donkey teams of ten to fourteen span hitched to enormous freight wagons. The donkey teams are usually driven by three Kaffirs.... The favorite vegetable in South Africa seems to be cabbage. At the public markets I see particularly big stacks of it, but little else. In the public market of Kimberley, vegetables are placed on the ground; I saw string beans lying on the ground, in the filth of the market-place, this morning.... Kimberley is very dusty and dirty. The days are about as hot now as they are at home in July and August, but the nights are much cooler. An American woman who has lived in South Africa nineteen years, says she has never slept a night without blankets over her.... I was frequently told in Kimberley I should look up a man named Brink, the only man in the town who could give away diamonds, if so disposed, and not be responsible to anyone. I did not see Brink, but I saw a man who sent me permits which enabled me to see most points of interest. The De Beers officials are very polite to visitors, and anyone who comes recommended may easily see all there is to see.... Kimberley has one long business street which is very creditable, but outside of that the town does not look very well. Rain is very scarce, much scarcer than at Johannesburg, and when the wind blows, all doors must be closed, owing to the dust from the mine dumps. It is much hotter here in summer than in Johannesburg, and general conditions of living worse. I shouldn’t mind living in Johannesburg, but I don’t believe I could be content in Kimberley.

THURSDAY, MARCH 20.—Today we traveled from Kimberley to Bloemfontein, and the same polite conductor was in charge of the train. He not only gave us a compartment to ourselves, but presented me with a Zulu war-club which I am bringing home as a souvenir. When the Zulus go to Kimberley to work in the mines they are not allowed to take their war-clubs into the compounds, and sell them at low prices. The one I have is a fancy affair, and probably the late owner worked on it for two weeks. It looks as though it has been in action, and has probably cracked a good many heads.... We were compelled to wait nearly three hours at Bloemfontein for a train to Johannesburg, and dined at Polly’s Hotel Cecil. Mr. Polly is a model hotel man, and knows his business so well that his place is constantly crowded, while the opposition hotel, just across the street, and a newer and larger place, is almost deserted. It is surprising what a clever man can do to a dull one; if Mr. Polly wants the larger and newer hotel, my prediction is that he will have it in six months.... We walked about Bloemfontein for an hour in the moonlight. I like this town, because it is dull, and the people are consequently polite. I have always been accustomed to dull towns, and like St. Louis better than Chicago because St. Louis people are not so struck on themselves. Every citizen of Chicago is as badly spoilt as a pretty woman.... It being the night before Good Friday, which is a holiday here, there was a rush of passengers for Johannesburg, and the friendly conductor could not get us a compartment to ourselves. But I was quartered with two very interesting and polite men in a compartment for four, and rather enjoyed the night ride.... Let the passenger conductors on American railroads prepare to scream with horror and indignation over an incident I am about to relate. The train on which we rode from Bloemfontein to Johannesburg was composed of twelve coaches, nearly all of them used as sleepers at night. The conductor not only took up the tickets, and looked after the train, but he acted as porter in all the sleepers, and made up the beds. The crowd was so large that we did not get our beds made up until midnight, although we left Bloemfontein at nine o’clock. We paid sixty cents each for the use of the beds, when we finally got them. The beds were done up in separate bundles, two sheets, two pillows and two blankets in each bundle, and the conductor of the passenger train was compelled to take these out of lockers, and change all the seats into beds. He had no help whatever, and all the time he was at work, passengers were snarling at him in an impudent way. I have never before seen anything like it anywhere. At every station the conductor was compelled to go out to the platform, and, when the train started, he didn’t say “All aboard,” but “All seats.” Translated, “All seats” means: “The train is about to start; all passengers take their seats.”... After we got to bed at midnight, country boys were constantly racing through the corridor outside, and looking into our compartment for seats. We could not lock the door, and, although the train was crowded when we left Bloemfontein, we took on passengers at every station. In American sleeping-cars, you engage a sleeping-berth in advance, and after bedtime the cars are quiet; no racing through the aisles. Here you take your chance of getting a bed. A similar train on an American railway would have had a train conductor, a Pullman conductor, and a porter in each sleeping-car. The door of our compartment was thrown open a dozen times during the night, but my two companions, important mining men, were accustomed to it, and were not annoyed. The beds were narrow, but clean and comfortable; I had no fault to find except the racing of country boys through the corridors. There were three of us in a compartment that would have seated eight. I suppose the country boys had a right to chase us out, and demand that five of them be given seats in the compartment, but fortunately they did not do it, and we slept a little toward morning.

FRIDAY, MARCH 21.—We returned to Johannesburg at 8 o’clock this morning, and it was a little like getting home. We found two excellent rooms awaiting us at the Langham, as the proprietor expected us, and we soon forget the discomforts of the night ride. We found an invitation to dinner awaiting us at the hotel, and among other agreeable guests we met at this agreeable affair was Edwin N. Gunsaulus, American consul. Mr. Gunsaulus of course keeps in touch with American affairs, and he gave us a good deal of news from home. The consul is a cousin of Rev. Frank Gunsaulus, the noted American preacher and lecturer, and comes from a town in Ohio smaller than Atchison. Another fact that endeared him to me is that he formerly ran a weekly newspaper, and was editor, publisher, business manager, reporter, and one of the type-setters.... I may as well tell here of the reprehensible conduct of an American now a resident of Johannesburg. I refer to Isham F. Atterbury, formerly of St. Joseph, Missouri, but now manager of the African Realty Trust. I expect the American women to be as indignant over his conduct as the American passenger conductors will be over the treatment of the conductor of the train on which we traveled last night. Mr. and Mrs. Atterbury were also guests at the dinner, and the story I shall relate of Mr. Atterbury’s conduct I had first-hand from his wife’s lips. Mr. Gunsaulus also heard the story, and I called his attention to it particularly by recommending that, as American consul, he do something about it.... The story is as follows: For years Mrs. Atterbury kept house, and slaved, as American women do, in preparing delicacies for her husband to eat, in order that she might keep him good-natured. But human endeavor has a limit, and Mrs. Atterbury’s slaving for her husband’s comfort finally resulted in a collapse, and a trip to a sanitarium. After her partial recovery, they went to an English boarding-house, which Mrs. Atterbury declares is worse than an American boarding-house, to live. And here is where Mr. Atterbury’s baseness developed: _he ate as heartily of the boarding-house fare as he had ever eaten of his wife’s cooking_.... Although the incident happened years ago, Mrs. Atterbury is still mad about it. “And,” she added, in telling of her wrongs, “some people say I am a pretty fair cook. After that, I quit the kitchen for good, and have been boarding ever since.”... Their young gentleman son, Manfred Atterbury, is afraid to take sides in the controversy, but he did say that his father doesn’t pay much attention to what he eats; that when he goes to the table he usually carries American newspapers or magazines with him, and doesn’t eat anything at all unless his attention is called to the fact that the body requires a certain amount of nourishment.... The American women I meet here all say American men are more considerate of their wives than the men of any other nation. I believe that at home we men are rather unpopular as husbands, and that our conduct attracts a good deal of unfavorable criticism from American wives; but abroad we are everywhere toasted because of our devotion to our women-folks.... At the dinner tonight, an American woman said: “Another reason I want to go home: I want to see pretty girls again.” There are not many pretty women over here, whereas America is full of them; particularly in dull towns.... Another guest at the dinner tonight was H. T. Hofmeyer, a prominent Boer lawyer of Johannesburg, and who has just served two terms as mayor. He is much interested in American newspapers, magazines, books, and citizens. The ex-mayor and Mr. Gunsaulus, the American consul, were quite impatient with me because I had arranged to leave Johannesburg at 10 P. M. on Monday evening, whereas they said no train left at that hour. So we all took a walk to the railroad station, to get the facts. It turned out that I was right about it, and the consul and Mr. Hofmeyer walked all the way home with me, in explaining how they happened to be mistaken.... Merchants everywhere work the words “reduction” and “cut prices,” for all they are worth. Wherever we have been, we have encountered “reduction” sales, and merchants side by side abuse each other in the placards displayed. “This is a real reduction sale,” one placard read; “do not be deceived by false pretenses elsewhere.” One shoe store in Johannesburg displays this sign: “Shoes for next to nothing.” Every storekeeper thinks he is a public benefactor, because of his low prices.

SATURDAY, MARCH 22.—When I left home I was told that the name of this town is pronounced Yohonnesburg by its citizens, but I find that they call it “Joburg” almost universally.... In Durban, the best people ride in rickshas; here, these vehicles are used very sparingly. A law has been passed whereby their use will be entirely prohibited in two years. It is claimed that the ricksha men become overheated while running, and contract consumption.... A sign frequently seen in Johannesburg reads: “This house and stand for sale.” It is equivalent to “This house and lot for sale.”... I was out this afternoon with five Americans, and at 4 P. M. we went into an enormous place to drink a cup of tea. There were certainly fifty girl waiters, and hundreds of customers. The tea-room included a long balcony above the sidewalk, and similar places are very numerous in Joburg. I am told that tea-drinking is one English habit American residents soon acquire.... The ordinary natives work long hours here. This evening I heard a boss say to a gang of street laborers: “Remember that we begin work Monday morning at 5:30, not at 6:30.”... There are fourteen annual holidays here, observed by the whites as religiously as we observe Christmas, Thanksgiving, and the Fourth of July, but the natives do not seem to participate in them. If there is anything in having an abundant supply of cheap labor, South Africa should flourish.... Over in Missouri, many of the farmers have private graveyards. I find a similar custom among the Boer farmers in South Africa.... A big sign I saw at Bloemfontein contained this imprint: “D. Jones, writer.” Meaning that D. Jones was the sign-writer who made it. Near the Hotel Cecil in Bloemfontein I also saw this sign: “Hotel Cecil Toilet Club.” You might guess a week without guessing what the sign meant: the place was the hotel barber shop.... At hotels, I always hate to see the sign, “Fire Escape;” somehow it disturbs me. But the proprietor of the Langham thought up something more delicate; instead of the words “Fire Escape,” he uses “Emergency Exit.”... I am always meeting queer people; I met a woman lately who said she would as soon drink a cup of castor oil as a cup of rich cream.

SUNDAY, MARCH 23.—Johannesburg and Kimberley have experienced the usual high life incident to all boom camps. While great fortunes have been made, much money has been lost, and suicide is almost as common here as in Monte Carlo. Barney Barnato, one of the conspicuous figures in both camps, committed suicide at sea, by jumping overboard while en route to England. But his act was not due to lack of money, as he was rich at the time, and was just completing the finest residence in South Africa. The building is now used as a school; it was a gift for school purposes from the Barnato estate.... Barney Barnato came to South Africa as a circus clown; his real name was Barnett Isaacs, and he was a Hebrew. “Barney Barnato” was his circus name, and it stuck to him in the days of his prosperity, when he became a diamond broker, and married a “Cape woman;” that is, a negress. She was of light color, but so dark that she was never received socially. Kimberley and Johannesburg can forgive much in a woman, if she has money, but Mrs. Barnato was never forgiven. It is said here that she lived with Barnato before she was married to him, and he sent her to London to dispose of diamonds acquired illegally. Instead of depositing the money in a London bank in Barnato’s name, she deposited it in her own name, and Barnato was compelled to marry her to get his own money.... Barnato prospered greatly, and when Cecil Rhodes and Alfred Beit organized the great De Beers Consolidated Company, they were compelled to treat with him, as he owned many of the best claims. He was made a life director in the De Beers Company, and the evidence is that he was popular, and a good fellow. All the big interests here have holdings in Johannesburg as well as at Kimberley, so the towns are closely related.... In the days immediately following the Jameson raid, and just preceding the Boer war, Paul Krueger was an autocrat, and very unfair with the big English interests in Johannesburg, which is in the Transvaal. Krueger was then president of the Transvaal republic, and you hear it stated in whispers to this day that Barney Barnato, or some one for him, hired an adventurer named Von Veldtheim, a Londoner, to assassinate Krueger. In a quarrel Von Veldtheim killed Wolf Joel, Barnato’s uncle. Von Veldtheim was arrested, and while he was in jail, awaiting trial, Barnato committed suicide, fearing, it is said, that Von Veldtheim would tell the whole story when tried for his life. But Von Veldtheim plead self-defense, and was acquitted by the Boer courts. He returned to London, and again attempted to blackmail members of the De Beers Company. The English courts sent him to jail, and he is there now.... Cecil Rhodes was the best man of the lot, and he did much for South Africa, as he had ideals greater than making money. Rhodes was a bachelor, and, like many men of big schemes, a hard drinker. His death was due, I have often heard, to heavy drinking. He is buried at Bulawayo, in Rhodesia, which he placed on the map, and which is named for him. Alfred Beit was a financial man, and not a great deal can be said for him except that he was very capable, and accumulated an enormous fortune.... Of the original crowd of boomers, Dr. Jameson is about the only one still living, and he is everywhere highly spoken of. He was originally Cecil Rhodes’s physician, but had business ability, and, with the patronage of Rhodes, soon became an important figure in South Africa. It was this man who headed the Jameson raid, intended to turn the Transvaal republic into an English colony, but the Boers captured him and his men in less time than it would take to write the story. Jameson and his chief lieutenants were sentenced to death, and Cecil Rhodes, who really inspired the raid, got them off. This was accomplished by the payment of money to the Boer chiefs, and there was so much of it that you hear of Paul Krueger’s buried treasure almost as frequently as you hear of Captain Kidd’s. The row over the Jameson raid finally resulted in the Boer war, and the flight of President Krueger to Switzerland, where he died. There is still a good deal of friction between the English and Boers: an English paper issued this morning complains that at an agricultural fair to be opened in Johannesburg this week, only fifteen per cent of the exhibitors are Boers.... The week beginning with Easter is a holiday week, and the crowd in Johannesburg is so large now that tents have been erected in many places to accommodate the visitors. The streets this afternoon were packed, and certainly nineteen out of twenty were men. This is a man’s country.... The American consul told me today that he does not hear much of missionaries in this section, except of a few Mormons, who are unpopular because of the notion, probably mistaken, that they teach polygamy. We called at the consul’s office today, and were much pleased with the many pictures we saw there of American saints: Washington, Lincoln, McKinley, Roosevelt, Taft, Wilson, etc.... In going down in the elevator at the Langham hotel today, I saw a cheap book the elevator boy had been reading. Picking it up, I saw that the title was: “Buffalo’s Bill’s Warning.” So it seems American literature, which is said to be unknown abroad, is getting a start.

MONDAY, MARCH 24.—This evening we had six American guests at dinner at our hotel: Mr. Gunsaulus, the American consul at Johannesburg; Mr. and Mrs. Atterbury and their son Manfred, and Mr. and Mrs. Mark Cary. Mr. Cary had been at Capetown and Durban during our stay in Johannesburg, but returned late this afternoon, and drove direct from the train to the hotel. The hotel orchestra, as a compliment to our party, played American rag time. At 9:30 P. M. the entire party walked with us to the railway station, where we were to take a train for Bulawayo, en route to Victoria Falls. Our baggage had been sent to the station in advance, and we carried nothing except an enormous package of American newspapers: copies of the Chicago _Tribune_ and New York _World_.... The train did not get away until 10:25 P. M., being late, but our friends remained until we departed. I tried to coax them to go home, but they wouldn’t do it; when people are very nice to me it makes me as uncomfortable as when they are not nice enough.... When we arrived at the station we found a chart displayed against a wall showing that “Mr. and Miss Howe” had been assigned to a compartment large enough for four, and from the interest Mr. Gunsaulus and Mr. Atterbury took in the matter, I imagined they had a good deal to do with securing this very agreeable and unusual concession.... I should like to have the pleasure of entertaining Mrs. Atterbury, particularly, when she makes her long-delayed visit home. She has been away nineteen years, and if ever there was a true patriot, she is one; her enjoyment at being among Americans again would be worth witnessing. She is always talking of “going home,” and telling of the many nice people she knows there, and nothing would please me more than to assist in realizing, as far as possible, all her present expectations. Isham, her husband, has been promising a long time to take her home “next year,” but she now declares that if he doesn’t keep his promise by March 1, 1914, she will go alone. We spent half our time in Johannesburg with the Atterburys; in addition to innumerable meals we ate with them, they gave us one dinner at which we had four kinds of wine. So if her friends in St. Joe will let me know the date of her arrival, I will be at the station to welcome her.... Soon after the train conductor looked at our tickets, he proceeded to lug two huge bags of bed-clothing into our compartment, and make up two beds. We paid $1.20 for the use of the bed-clothing two nights; the charge would have been the same for one night. So that we will have a large compartment to ourselves two nights and a day, and pay only $1.20 above the regular fare. The beds were comfortable, though somewhat narrow, but we slept as well, I imagine, as people usually do on a sleeping-car. On our door and on our window were placards announcing that the compartment was reserved, and we were not disturbed during the journey. The South-African sleeping-cars are not at all bad, except that the train conductor has so much to do that he cannot keep them as clean as they should be. The conductor did not polish my shoes at night, but I knew he was very busy, and overlooked his neglect.... On one or two trains we have been on, there was a man who helped the conductor, but on at least two crowded trains on which we traveled, the conductor has had no help whatever in making up the beds; the most curious thing I have ever noted in railroad travel. There is a guard on the train, who is what we call a brakeman, but he does not assist the conductor in the chamber-work. When these conductors are taking the tickets, they are as haughty as are American conductors, but when they begin lugging in sheets, pillows and mattresses, they are as humble as the most timid traveler could wish.

TUESDAY, MARCH 25.—This is written on the Imperial Mail train, on the line of South-African railway extending from Capetown to Victoria Falls and beyond. This will eventually become the “Cape to Cairo” railway, extending from Capetown, on the seacoast in South Africa, to Cairo, in Egypt. You may recall that Colonel Roosevelt, on his famous hunting trip in Africa, went by rail as far as he could, and then tramped through the wild country to the end of the line extending south from Egypt, and then went to Cairo. Alfred Beit, one of the bonanza kings of Johannesburg and Kimberley, left six million dollars to be used in completing the gap between the African and Egyptian lines. When the “Cape to Cairo” line is finally completed, it will become as famous as the line from Moscow, in Russia, to a port on the Sea of Japan. This line was built by the Russians, and the distance from Moscow to Japan is now made in comfortable trains in ten days. Think of ten days of continuous travel in the same coaches, in the same train, and on the same railway! Great as is America, it has nothing like it; although we are talking of a line from New York to Buenos Aires, in South America. Thousands of miles of the proposed line are in operation, but there are gaps in Central and South America so difficult that it may never be completed, while the “Cape to Cairo” line may be a reality within the next twenty years.... Always remember that in South Africa there is no rich, black soil such as you see in Illinois, Iowa, eastern Kansas, and other of our best states. At least, I have not seen any. The soil in Africa is usually thin and red, and stones abound nearly everywhere. No part of Africa has as reliable a rainfall as the best parts of the United States. But nevertheless there is a fascination about this frontier country to an American; were I a younger man, probably the “spirit of the Veldt” would appeal to me more strongly than it does. All sorts of problems, including irrigation and dry-farming, are being worked out here. I have seen little country in Africa that looks any better than Kansas looks two hundred miles from the river, and the trouble is lack of a dependable rainfall. Along the coast there is so much rain that sugar-cane is grown without irrigation, and there is much good country, but today, eight hundred miles from the coast, we are in a dry, mountainous district which reminds one of Arizona.... Today we are seeing blanket negroes; native blacks who wear nothing but blankets, still a habit with some of our Indians. Between the lonely stations, we see native villages which seem as primitive as anything Africa can produce; at the stations, also, we see some negro men and women dressed as well as our best negroes at home. This morning we saw negro beggars for the first time: black children ran beside the train at a stopping-place, and, patting their stomachs, indicated that they were hungry, as a means of inducing the passengers to throw pennies to them.... At the stations, also, we see strong, capable Englishmen. These are the men who are engaged in working out the South-African problems, and they are undoubtedly making progress.... The white race can only flourish in certain parts of Africa; in sections four thousand feet or more above sea-level. Other portions of country must be left, for a long time at least, to the natives. Just what proportion of Africa is 4,000 feet or more above sea-level, I do not know, but I have seen the proportion stated as one-fourth in a certain section.... Most of the native male children we are seeing today are entirely naked, and their parents wear nothing but blankets when they come out to see the train go by; no doubt they wear less when not under observation.... Tomorrow morning we will leave the train at Bulawayo, for a two-days stay. This town is in Rhodesia, which is as big as half of Europe. All of this immense territory belongs to and is administered by a British company, and is not a member of the South-African union. In Rhodesia there are 25,000 Europeans and a million natives. The head of every native family is compelled to pay the British company an annual tax of $5, with $2 extra for each additional wife. Many of the native men who work in the mines in Johannesburg and Kimberley came from the poor villages we are seeing today. The villages are all alike: the houses are straw-covered huts, and the inhabitants seem to be as poor as people can be. The native men only work as a means of buying wives.... When Abel and Sampson return home, they probably return to wretched villages such as we are seeing today. Abel and Sampson are the servants at the home of Mr. and Mrs. Mark Cary, in Johannesburg. Abel has a sweetheart, and is saving money to buy her of her father. She is probably a fourteen or fifteen-year-old girl living in a village such as we are seeing today.... Since leaving Sydney, Australia, six weeks ago, we haven’t seen an American traveler. They seem to be very scarce in this part of the world. At one of the diamond mines we visited in Kimberley, there was a book in which all visitors registered. We looked through twenty or more pages without finding a visitor registered from the United States.... I have seen only two bunches of ostriches on the trip; the second this morning near Mafeking. This town was conspicuous during the Boer war, because of the operations of General Baden-Powell. It is a pretty and important place, and has railroad shops, as the Johannesburg branch joins the main line there. It has 1,400 people, but near it is a native town with three times as many.... In some places along the line, the soil is so thin that the railroad dump is made of stones; there is not enough dirt for the purpose. The telegraph poles and ties are of iron, which indicates the lack of timber. The track is excellent, and the train runs rapidly. We have become so accustomed to the narrow-gauge that we do not notice the difference.... The dining-car on this train is clean, and the meals very good. When we went in for the first meal, we were told to pay at the end of the journey; so tomorrow morning I will pay for three meals. Which is another unusual incident of railroad travel. We notice here that hotel and train employees always know our names. When we went into the dining-car for lunch to day, the waiter asked if we were Mr. and Miss Howe. Being informed that we were, the man escorted us to a table that had been reserved. We are charged seventy-two cents for lunch and dinner, and sixty cents for breakfast.... In Johannesburg and Kimberley, we frequently saw the native miners going to the station to take trains for their homes. Here at nearly every station we see native miners who have completed their visit home, and are going back to work.... In one little valley we passed through were a good many fields of kaffir corn, and in every case the workers were women and children. Possibly the men were away working in the mines.... The country in which we are traveling this afternoon is eleven hundred miles from Capetown, and the track is not fenced. The occasional bunches of goats and cattle—I see no sheep—seem to love the railroad track, and the engineer is compelled to slow up, and drive them off with his whistle.... This evening we are about as far in the interior of Africa from Capetown as the Mississippi river is from New York, and are beginning to have trouble with dust. I believe I have never been bothered with dust as I am here; but we cannot see it—it seems to be a part of the air.... We passed within thirty miles of Serome, containing thirty thousand people, and one of the largest native towns in South Africa. The chief of this tribe does not allow liquor to be sold in his territory, and is quite progressive. He rules over a territory a hundred miles square. In his town of Serome there are a good many white storekeepers and traders, who buy corn, skins, etc., and ship them to the railroad by ox teams. Serome is in a vast territory known as the “Protectorate;” the British government protects the natives in their right to rule through chiefs. British officials, usually army officers, are scattered throughout the territory, to advise and really rule the chiefs. The natives have their own petty courts, but the superior courts are British. We are well out of the Boer territory now. The Boers once planned to annex the vast territory now known as Rhodesia, which fact caused Cecil Rhodes to hurry into the country with an armed force, and claim it for the British.... The tracks of the South-African railway are uniformly good, and as night approached, the weather became cooler. The dust we experienced earlier in the day came from a desert where discomfort is always experienced.... At one place, we saw a negro hoeing corn in a field, stark naked. Whether the negro was man or woman, I could not tell at the distance, but as women do most of the field work here, I fear it was a woman, and that I saw a very improper sight while innocently endeavoring to broaden my mind by travel.... Railroad grading is done here with pick and shovel, and not with horse or steam scrapers. At one station a long siding was being put in, and the necessary cut was being made by negroes who used only picks and shovels.... The passengers on this train, which is a Limited, are a nice lot, and very polite. Although all men are supposed to be equal, the difference between the passengers on a Limited train and the passengers on an excursion train is very marked. The difference between the patrons of a first and second-class hotel may also be noted without difficulty.