The Portland daily press. [volume] (Portland, Me.) 1862-1921, 1896-01-11

Iand-First Mining Company Formed
in 1S63-Romantic Chapter in the His-
tory of South Africa.
(From Chambers Journal.)
In the getting of gold-rhe metal-for
the purpose of possessing gold-as money
there has always been an element of
romance. Glow quickly nature falls into
revolt when gold becomes her object !''
as Shakespeare says. But if
Fer gold the MERCHANT plows the main,
The farmer plows the manor
what shall we say of him who pursues a
paper-chase of gold shares in the ''Kaffir
Cirousw This same '..Kaffir Circus Is
probably the most remarkable evolution
In the history Of finance since the days
OF the South Sea bubble. Lest the COM
parison be thought inTidious, seeing that
| South Africa has a solid basis of gold
bearing and other productive land, let US
hasten to add that the designs of the
South Sea Company were originally
much more practical and practicable than
has been commonly supposed, and that
the tremendous imitation of prices during
| the bubble" time was hardly, if at all,
greater than that of gold shares during
the South African "bcom." There is
material for the philosopher in the fact OF
the modern madness having occurred
IN connection with part of the world to
which King Solomon ths Wise sent for
supplies of gold and "almug trees" for
the mysterious Ophir has been located in
Mashonaland, and the Queen of Sheba
! identified with the Saba districts which,
though not in "the Randi" are curious
ly connected with the rise and progress OF
| the mania.
Let US briefly trace that romantic his
| tory, merely mentioning by the way that,
| even in European history, African gold
10 novelty, for the Portuguese brought
* gold dust and negro slaves from
Cape Bojador $50 years ago. The ruins
of Mashonaland were discovered in 1864
by Karl Mauch, who also discovered the
gold field of Tate on the Zambesi, of
which Livingston had reported that the
natives got gold there by washing, being
too lazy to dig for it. When Karl Mauch
came back to civilization people laughed
at his stories of ruined cities in the CEN
ter of Africa as travellers fables but
number of Australian gold diggsrs
thought his report Of the Tate gold field
good enough to follow up.
&c. about 1867. band of them went out
and set up small battery on the Tate
IlivaT for orrchiro tho c,,artz This ,,nav
be called the first serious attempt at gold
mining in South Africa since the days
of the lost races who built the cities
whose ruins Karl Mauch discovered, and
which Mr.. Theodore Bent has described
A Natal company assisted the Tate dig
gers with supplies. and enough gold was
found to justify the formation of the Linn
popo Mining Company in London. This
was in 1868, and was practically the foun-
dation of the ''Kaffir Circus,' though its
founders knew it not Sir John Swim
burno was the moving spirit of the en-
pensive machinery, only to meet with a
good deal of disappointment. The d1a-
mond discoveries in Griqualand soon
drew away the gold seekers. who found
the working expenses too heavy to leave
gold mining profitable, and for time
the Tate fields were deserted. They were
taken up again however, twenty years
later by Kim berley enterprise, out of
which developed the Tate Concession and
Exploration Company, to whom ox-King
Lobengula granted mining concession
over no less than 300. coo square miles of
Matebeleland.
just as the Australians wers breaking
ground on the Tate Thomas Baines, the
traveller, was making up his mind to
test the truth of titles of gold in the far
interior, which the Portuguese from Da
CANA onward had received from natives
small expedition, aud in 1870 received
from Lopengula permission to dig for
gold anywhere between the Rivers
Gwailo and Ganyona. Some seventeen
years later this same concession was re-
peated to Mr.. Rudd, and became the bas-
Company of British South Africa.
In the course of his journey Baines en-
camped on the site of the present City Of
Johannesburg, without having the least
idea OF the wealth beneath him, and in
tent only upon that he hoped TO find far
Their inland. On the map which he pre-
pared of this journey is marked the tfarm
of H. Hartley, pioneer of the gold fields,
in the Witwatersrand district. Hartley
was known to thu Beers as '"Oude Baas,"
and WAS famous elephant hunter, but
as ignorant as Ba1nes himself that he
was dwelling on the top of gold reef.
And it was not in the Mitwatersrand,
foremost as it now is, that the African
gold boom began.
While the Tate diggers were pursuing
their work and Baines his explorations,
a Natalian named Button went, with an
experienced California miner named
sutherland, to prospect for gold in the
northeast of the Transvaal. They found
it near Luxembourg, and companies were
rapidly formed in Natal to work 1t. Such
big nuggets were senG down that men
hurried up, until soon there were some