Part 22

“I haven’t lost my American accent, have I?”

And she hadn’t; nor had Mrs. Cary, which is not surprising, since she visited her home in California last year. But poor Mrs. Atterbury has been here nineteen years.

“Isham,” she said to her husband, with genuine American enthusiasm, “I’m going home with them. May I?” When I took a kodak picture of the party, Mrs. Atterbury wondered that she “didn’t break the camera,” which no one will dispute is the genuine American language. Over here, people use the term “You see,” a good deal, which is equivalent to our “Don’t you know?” An Englishman says, “We can’t have the ocean in London, you see,” while an American says, “He was the smarter man, and had it all his own way, don’t you know?” Mr. Atterbury used the expression “You see” a few times, but otherwise we talked only the Kansas-Missouri-California language. At 1 P. M. we left for town, the driver nearly running over everybody on the way.

“The only trouble with this man,” Mr. Atterbury said, “is that he runs too fast, and I can do nothing with him.”

Was there ever a man who could control his automobile driver?... South Africa is the paradise of the lover of flowers. At a recent flower show in Pretoria, one hundred and seventy different varieties of roses were exhibited. But all flowers here are almost without scent, which is true of all countries where flowers are particularly abundant and grown without trouble.... Grass-seed is not sown broadcast here, but is drilled in, in rows. If well watered, it spreads and covers the ground. The grass-seed most generally used comes from Florida, or of a variety which originated in Florida.... The “American influence” has been very marked in Johannesburg. Indeed, had it not been for an American, probably the Rand (pronounced “Rond”) would be abandoned today, instead of producing a daily profit of nearly $200,000. In 1885 the mines apparently “played out,” and it was John Hays Hammond, an American engineer, who encouraged mine-owners to dig deep, and strike the vein further down. The Johannesburg ore is of low grade, much of it averaging only $4 per ton, while a little of it is worth $25. The ore from the great Homestake mine at Lead City, South Dakota, is worth only half as much, yet many fortunes have been taken from this mine. The Homestake mine at Lead City is the real source of the Hearst magazines and newspapers.... A good many years ago, three thousand American mining engineers were employed along the Rand, and a few of the best ones received from fifty to seventy-five thousand dollars a year, but now the number employed does not exceed four hundred. I have heard it hinted that as soon as the Americans taught the English how to mine and extract the gold from the Rand ores, there were bickerings over salaries, and the Americans went elsewhere. The American mining engineers are highly regarded for many reasons, but especially because of their quickness and cleverness in meeting difficulties. I have also heard it hinted that the existence of the Kimberley diamond mines is due to an American. Johannesburg is more like an American town than any other we have seen. This is another result of the “American influence;” the business methods here are snappy, after the American fashion.... Mr. Atterbury says that the raw native, taken from the farm and trained, makes a very efficient and faithful servant, but that the missionary negro is no account. Mr. Atterbury says that a bishop of the Methodist Church who had done much work in Africa, once said to him:

“I don’t know that I have ever actually converted a native to a better life. The natives so easily forget my teaching that I am sometimes troubled with the fear that all my work has been in vain.”

Wherever I go, I hear grave doubts expressed as to the missionary experiment.... Most of the Americans I meet here were originally in sympathy with the English, so far as the Boer war was concerned, but ended by being in sympathy with the Boers.... There is a man here named Sir Abe Bailey. It seems to me that a man with a title should not be called “Abe,” but “Sir Cecil,” or “Sir Chauncey,” or something else equally euphonious.... Natives are publicly whipped here, when they do not behave. And when a native is killed in the mines or elsewhere, the papers do not print his name; they refer to him simply as a “native.”... This evening we dined with Mr. and Mrs. Atterbury and their young gentleman son, Manfred, at the Grand National Hotel, where they live. Manfred Atterbury was born in Maysville, Missouri, but came here as a baby, and has never been back to the country of his birth. He is exactly like an American boy, except that he occasionally uses the expression, “You see,” which is used so much over here that I am contracting the habit myself. He has attended English and Boer schools, and, like the Texas congressman, doesn’t know where he is at. His mother, who took charge of her son’s education, as good mothers do, tells some amusing stories about it. One day the boy was sent to the foot of his class for pronouncing “Chicago” as it is pronounced everywhere in the United States. The teacher said the correct pronunciation was “Chic-a-go.” The young man also got in trouble because he pronounced “Ohio” as he had heard his father and mother pronounce it: the teacher said the correct pronunciation is “O-e-o.” The teacher was an Oxford man, and the English school books in use named only four American seaports—none at all on the Pacific. The history in use devoted only seven lines to the American Revolution, treating it as a trifling affair in which the English _gave_ the Americans their independence.... (When Americans abuse the English, it is customary for them to say, “Of course the English are, in many respects, a great people.” Mr. Atterbury said it at this stage of the conversation.)... Probably you know that in England and its colonies, the song, “For He’s a Jolly Good Fellow,” is sung very frequently, particularly at banquets and other places where grog is passed around. Mrs. Atterbury says that once an equal suffrage meeting was held in the banqueting-room of the Grand National. Only women attended, and they frequently sang, “For He’s a Jolly Good Fellow.” An equal suffrage meeting was being held in the banqueting-room of the Grand National the night I was there, but, greatly to our surprise, no windows were smashed. Several stout ladies appeared who, I thought, certainly had rocks under their aprons, but the meeting was quiet, and the noticeable protuberances turned out to be the middle-age spread instead of rocks.... The American party finally broke up at 10:20 P. M., with a statement from Mrs. Atterbury that an English paper here lately referred to an incident as happening in America in “the state of Cincinnati.”... We handled the English rather roughly, but I venture to say they get even; indeed, taking one roast with another, no doubt they are far ahead of us. I intend to have an American party at my hotel on Friday evening, and Mark Cary will have another on Saturday, when we will again attempt to catch up with the English. When the English roast us, I hope they are as fair as we are, and frequently say:

“Of course, in some respects the Americans are a remarkable people. No one will care to deny that.”

THURSDAY, MARCH 13.—This morning Mr. Atterbury found it necessary to go twenty miles into the country, to look at a farm, and took us with him. R. A. Davis, government horticulturist for South Africa, also accepted an invitation to go. Mr. Davis was born in England, but spent several years in California; he says he learned all he knows about horticulture in California, as that state is undoubtedly headquarters for horticultural information. In his way, he is as noted an expert as our F. D. Coburn, and it was a privilege to spend several hours in the country with him. Here is a South-African apple story I had direct from Mr. Davis. His son has an apple orchard of three acres, containing three hundred trees ten years old. Last year the younger Mr. Davis sold his apples for ten thousand dollars, or more than $3,000 an acre. These figures are gross; the cost of picking and marketing the fruit was fifteen per cent. We had two punctures during the ride, and Mr. Davis told me another big South-African story while the driver made repairs. The most prosperous farming country in the world is the ostrich district in Cape Colony; instead of owning one automobile, as do our successful corn and wheat farmers, the ostrich farmers own two and three automobiles each. The best ostrich country is known as the Oudtshoorn district, and is probably 70×60 miles in extent. Mr. Davis told of one irrigated farm of four hundred acres and 1,800 birds for which an offer of $560,000 was lately refused. The ostrich farmers are nearly all Boers, although many Jews live in the district to trade in the feathers. It is said that more than one hundred of the farmers in the bird district are worth more than $250,000 each. Alfalfa is grown extensively. One acre of alfalfa will graze five ostriches, and the average ostrich will annually produce feathers worth $25. Ostriches are raised in California and elsewhere, but conditions for ostrich farming are nearest perfection in South Africa. A good many ostriches run wild in Africa, but feathers from the wild birds are not good. Ostrich eggs or living birds cannot be taken out of South Africa, and some growers have fancy strains of birds that are worth from $2,000 to $2,500 per pair. One South-African ostrich king has devoted so much time to ostriches, and lived among them so long, that both Mr. Davis and Mr. Atterbury agreed that he had grown to look like an ostrich.... Mr. Davis says South Africa is a better fruit country than California, and that it will produce better oranges with less effort.... The two punctures caused us to be late, and Mr. Atterbury’s automobile driver, whom he called Bristow, fairly flew over the ground. I sat on the back seat with Mr. Atterbury and Mr. Davis, while Adelaide rode in front with the driver. Mr. Atterbury frequently tapped Bristow on the back with his cane, and said: “Too fast!” and Bristow slowed up for a time, but in a few minutes would be running faster than ever. The South-African roads are naturally good, as they are in western Kansas. Our road lay along the railway, and every mile or two there was a stone block-house, erected by the English during the Boer war, for the protection of the railroad. This line of block-houses extends from Capetown to a point four hundred miles beyond Johannesburg, a distance of something like fourteen hundred miles. The Boer war almost ruined South Africa, and resulted in the death of 25,000 English soldiers, and probably 4,000 Boer soldiers. In the concentration camps of the English, it is said 22,000 Boer women and children died, because of conditions which resembled the conditions under Weyler in Cuba. England spent millions and almost billions in the war; yet it was brought on by a handful of alien Jews. War is the most wicked, senseless thing men engage in.... No one disputes that the Boers were terrible fighters. Mr. Davis recalled a limerick composed by an English soldier during the war. It ran in this way: “There was an old Boer who hid in a trench with a bullet-proof lid. And when the English came nigh, he said with a sigh, ‘I can bag the whole lot’—and he did.”... South Africa does not encourage immigration. The Boers are in control, and they do not want new-comers, since they know that the immigrants must come mainly from England, and that every immigrant means another vote against them.... Mr. Davis told me that New Zealanders are much more popular in England than Australians; the Australians have entirely too much admiration for the United States to suit England.... The flower we call cosmos grows wild here; we saw many acres in full bloom.... Wherever we have been in South Africa, evidences of prosperity are abundant. The country is growing rapidly, and every man who can afford it is buying a piece of land with a view of putting out an orchard. Almost in sight of Johannesburg, good fruit land may be bought for $25 an acre. I make this statement on the authority of Mr. Atterbury, a practical real-estate man.... Possibly you think of the Boer farmers of South Africa as hard-working men. As a matter of fact, they are all gentlemen farmers; they do not go into the fields, and do hard manual labor, as do our farmers—no one works here except the negroes. Mr. Atterbury often goes into the country to look at land, and says he usually finds the Boer farmers sitting around the house, talking with the neighbors. Occasionally they go out into their fields, to see that the negroes are working properly, but they are above manual labor. During the morning, we met a good many Boer farmers with ox teams of from three to a dozen span; but the farmers always rode in the wagons, while their negroes walked and drove. In working ox teams here, a negro boy always walks ahead, and leads the head span, while two negro men walk behind, and use whips.... We returned to Johannesburg at 2 P. M., undecided whether to call the driver “Bristow, the Aviator,” or “Flying Bristow.”

FRIDAY, MARCH 14.—Yesterday evening, in company with Mr. and Mrs. Atterbury, we left Johannesburg for Pretoria, capital of the Transvaal and of the South-African United States. The distance is thirty-eight miles, and the road good. Flying Bristow made the trip in an hour and three minutes. Thirty-eight miles an hour in an automobile does not sound very fast, but ride it over country roads in South Africa, and you will agree that it is a terrific pace. I never before traveled at such a speed in an automobile. There are many hills on the way to Pretoria, and Flying Bristow crept up these, as the Atterbury machine is not a good hill-climber. It is a Talbott, made in England, and during the past two years has traveled 40,000 miles in attending to the affairs of the African Realty Trust, of which Mr. Atterbury is general manager. On a level, and down the hills, I have no doubt we traveled fifty miles an hour yesterday afternoon. Mrs. Atterbury rode in front, but had no more influence with Bristow than has her husband. When we stepped out of the machine at Pretoria, I remarked to Mr. and Mrs. Atterbury that we had just had a very speedy ride, whereupon Flying Bristow smilingly said that Mr. Schlessinger, his other employer, would consider our pace a slow one. So Mr. Schlessinger seems to be responsible for Flying Bristow. And if Mr. Schlessinger doesn’t look out, he won’t live to see his five institutions take a high place in South-African finance, for Bristow undoubtedly drives too fast. He has never had an accident, but one is coming to him, and I sincerely hope that when it arrives, neither Mr. Atterbury nor Mr. Schlessinger will be in the machine.... Mr. and Mrs. Atterbury spent a good many months in Pretoria during the Boer war; part of the time Mr. Atterbury was American consul. On one occasion the English shelled the Boer forts nearly all day, and every shell passed over the Atterbury home; one exploding shell broke a window in the American consulate. Mr. and Mrs. Atterbury say that a shell, in passing high above you, shrieks and screams like a living thing in distress. They know Pretoria as well as you know the town in which you live, so that we had excellent guides in our visit to the capital.... I had a room on the second floor of the Grand Hotel, facing the old Boer capital just across the street. During the war, President Krueger (Oom Paul) and members of the war board met daily in a room just opposite my room; people used to sit on the hotel veranda and watch the war board in session. We visited the modest home of President Krueger this morning, and the care-taker showed us over the one-story house. In one of the nine rooms is displayed three hundred bouquets of immortelles sent to Oom Paul’s funeral. A few of the bouquets were made of solid silver, and a few of beads; in addition to these, many of which were sent by kings and princes, three hundred bouquets of perishable flowers were sent. Oom Paul (Uncle Paul) died in Switzerland, having been compelled to leave his country during the war, but his body is buried in Pretoria. Mrs. Krueger died in the house we visited. She was a plain old woman, the wife of a farmer, and refused to go to Holland or Switzerland when it seemed impossible to prevent Pretoria falling into the hands of the British. Not only Lord Roberts, but Lord Kitchener, were compelled to come to South Africa and take personal charge of the campaign against the Boers. Mr. and Mrs. Atterbury saw Lord Roberts ride into Pretoria at the head of his troops. Across the street from Oom Paul’s residence is the church where he often preached, for he hated the devil almost as much as he hated the English.... The Boers were wonderful soldiers, and, being in their own country, they had a great advantage over the English. When they captured English prisoners, they didn’t know what to do with them, so turned them loose. It is related that General DeWett captured a certain English regiment three times, and this fact caused that particular regiment to be known as “DeWett’s Own.”... Pretoria has 65,000 people, and is a beautiful city. A new capitol building is approaching completion, at a cost, everything counted, of nearly ten million dollars. It is an enormous and beautiful structure of marble and granite, situated on a hill overlooking the city. The erection of this building is bitterly resented by the English as a useless waste of money, but the Boers are in control of the government, and for sentimental reasons insist upon this enormous structure at Pretoria, Oom Paul’s late capital. An Englishman told me lately that the Pretoria capitol will cost two-thirds as much as Westminster, the seat of the English parliament.... I speak of Pretoria as the capital of the United States of South Africa. As a matter of fact, it is only the administrative capital, as the South-African congress meets at Capetown, while the South-African supreme court sits at Bloemfontein. The capital is thus divided between three cities. Our Washington is the capital of one hundred million people, whereas there are only eight million in all South Africa: one million whites, and seven million colored. The United States has nearly twice as many negroes as South Africa.... I am told that the average negro here does not pay much attention to liberty and the pursuit of happiness; he takes whatever is offered him and says nothing, but the negroes of the Basuto tribe are disposed to criticise English methods. The Basutos are well armed, and it is said could put an army of twenty thousand horsemen in the field on a few days’ notice. It is the Basutos who are expected to finally make the English trouble, and, when they begin, they may have the assistance of many other negroes, and the sympathy of the Boers.... When the Boers of the Transvaal and the Orange Free State fought the English, it is well known that they expected the assistance of the Cape Colony Dutch; but the Cape Colony Dutch, who are very numerous and very rich, got cold feet, and failed to show up at the first battle. But for the promise of the Cape Colony Dutch to join, there would have been no Boer war; and had they joined, the war would still be going on.... On our way to Pretoria, we passed a big camp of English soldiers. All English soldiers will shortly be removed from South Africa, the country being so peaceful that they are no longer needed. We also passed over one of the battlefields of the Boer war, which is now a peaceful pasture devoted to cattle.... A son of Wm. E. Gladstone is governor-general of South Africa, and lives in Pretoria.... Pretoria has the finest zoölogical garden in South Africa. It was established by the Boers, and has since been fostered and improved by the English. It contains a rhinoceros, and the animal is so tame that the children feed it. But how viciously these animals charged Colonel Roosevelt in his articles in Scribner’s Magazine!... The zoo is not only interesting because of its rare animals, but is located in one of the handsomest flower gardens I have ever seen. Next door is a museum containing many South-African curios.... At 2:30 in the afternoon we left Pretoria in a drizzling rain, which continued all the way to Johannesburg. Owing to slippery roads and no chains, Flying Bristow did not reach Johannesburg until about 4 o’clock.

SATURDAY, MARCH 15.—This evening we were guests at the home of Mr. and Mrs. Mark Cary, both formerly of California. They employ four native servants, all Zulus. Seven years ago, they were in Durban for some time, and a Zulu boy named Abel became attached to Mr. Cary. Soon after their return to Johannesburg, there was a knock at their kitchen door. Mr. Cary opened the door, and there stood Abel.

“Your Durban boy has come to work for you,” Abel said.