The daily morning journal and courier., 1896-01-13

once whereas diamonds may not be diamonds after all, and may be spoiled, lost or stolen before they can find | purchaser,
 ! It is to be noted that much as the
 Transvaal republic has benefitsd from
 gold mining, the Boers were at first
 much averse to 1t, and threw all the
 obstacles they could in the way of the
 miners. And 1t was this attitude of
 the Boers, especially toward the Lyden-
 burg pioneers, that led to the next de- | velopment.
 l One of the tributaries of the Croco-
 dile river (which flows into Delagoa
 Bay) is the Kaap river, called also the river of the Little Crocodile, which wa
 ters a wide, deep valley into which pro- 1 jects the spur of a hill which the Dutch | pioneers called De Kaap 0he cape). Be-
 yond this cape like spur the hills rise 1 to a height of 5000 feet and carry wide plateau with innumerable boulders | of fantastic shape-the DuivePs Kan toor. The mists gather in the valley
 and dash themselves against De Kaap | like surf upon headland; and the face
 of the hills Is broken with caves and e,t1iGIlSSt oS IL pS lLS aSeipAi VI eHN | sea, but really by the action of the
 weather. Upon the high lying plateau
 of the Duivel's Kantoor were number of farms, the chief of which was held | by one G. P. Noodle.
 | One day a Natal trader named Tom | Mclaughlin had occasion to cross the plateau in the course of a long trek, | and he picked up with curiosity some of
 the bits of quartz he passed or kicked | aside on the way. On reaching Natal
 he showed these to an old Australian
 miner, who instantly started up coun- | try and found more. The place was
 rich in gold, and machinery was as | quickly as possible got up from Natal,
 on to Noodles farm. On this farm was | found the famous Pioneer reef, and
 Noodle, who at one time would gladly
 have parted with his farm for few
 hundreds, sold his holding to a Natal company for something like a quarter
 of million. Then there was a rush
 of diggers and prospectors back from
 the Lydenburg district, and the De Kaap " boom set in. The beginning
 was in 1883, and two years later the l whole Kaap valley and Kantoor plateau
 was declared a public gold field. Two l brothers called Barber came up and 1 formed the center of a settlement, now the town of Barberton. Every new reef
 sighted or vein discovered was the sig
 nal for launching new company--not
 now in Natal only, but also i'm London, | to which the gold fever began to spread Out was checked again by the l De Kaap reverses).
 l Some fifteen Natalians formed a syn
 dicate to "explolt'' this country on
 their own account. Some were store
 keepers in the colony, some wagon traders and some merely walters on l fortune. Only eleven of them had any money, and they supplied the where's I withal for the other four, who were sent 1 up to prospect and dig. After six
 months of fruitless toll, the money was
 all gone, and word was sent to the | four that no more aid could be sent to I them They were down on their luck" when, as they returned to camp on l what was intended to be their last I'cvcnfng there, one Edwin Bray savage l ly dug his pick into the rock as they
 walked gloomily along. But with one swing which he made there came a | turn in the fortunes of the band, and of 1 the land, for he knocked off a bit of
 quartz so richly veined with gold as to l betoken the existence of something 1 superexceilent in the way of reef" 1 Ali now turned on the rock with pass
 slonate eagerness, and in a very short l time begged out what was destined to
 be known as "Bray's Golden Hole.' | But the syndicate was by this time pretty well cleaned ont and capital was
 needed to work the reef and provide machinery, etc. So a small company was formed in Natal under the name ] of the Sheba Reef Gold Mining Con-
 pany, divided into 15,0o0 shares of fl
 pound each, the capital of f15,000 being equitably allotted among the fifteen
 members of the syndicate. Upon these 1 shares they raised enough money on ] loan to pay for the crushing of 200 tons 1 of quartz which yielded eight ounces of ' gold to the ton, and at once provided 1 them with working capital. Within a very few months tha mine yielded 1 10000 ounces of gold and the original l shares of fl each ran up by leaps and
 bounds until they were eagerly com- ] peLeQ TOT dJ IlUV Sdf0. WHlHin a year | the small share capital (f15000) of the
 original syndicate was worth in the
 market a. million and a half sterling. This wonderful success led to the float ing of 8 number of hopeless or bogus
 enterprises, and worthless properties
 were landed on the shoulders of the Brit
 ish public at fabulous prices Yet, sur-
 rounded as it was by crowd of 1 fraudulent imitators the great Sheba mine has continued as one of the most
 wonderfully productive mines In South l Africa. Millions have been lost in
 swindling and impossible undertakings | in De Kaap, but the Sheba Mountain,
 in which was Bray's Golden Hole, has
 really proved mountain of gold. l The De Kaap gold field had again
 sunk under a cloud of suspicion, by req | son of the company swindling and share gambling which followed upon the
 Sheba success, when another startling
 incident gave fresh impetus to the golden madness.
 Among the settlers in the Transvaal l in the later seventies were two brothers ] called Struben, who had some experi- |