hundred
and fifty miles ; but the length of the journey to the Vaal could not
be measured by any bare comparison of air-lined distances. The roads,
at best, were rough trampled tracks, changing, after a rainfall, to
beds of mire. Their tortuous courses rambled from settlement to
settlement, or from one farmhouse to another over the veld, and were
often wholly lost in the shifting sands of the karroo. It was a tedious
and difficult journey by land even from one seacoast town to another,
and fifty miles from the coast the traveller was fortunate if his way
was marked by even a cattle path.1
When
the rain fell in torrents with the lurid flashes and nerve-shaking
crash of South African thunder-storms, the diamond seekers huddled
together under the stifling cover of their wagons, while fierce gusts
shook and strained every strip of canvas and water drops spurted
through every crevice. In fair weather some were glad to spread their
blankets on the ground near the wagon, and stretch their limbs, cramped
by their packing like sardines in a box. On the plains they had no
fuel for cooking except what they could gather of dry bullock's dung.
Sometimes no headway could be made against the blinding dust-storms,
that made even the tough African cattle turn tail to the blasts, and
clogged the eyes and ears and every pore of exposed skin with
irritating grit and powder. Sometimes the rain fell so fast that the
river beds were filled in a few hours with muddy torrents, which
blocked any passage by fording for days and even weeks at a time, and
kept the impatient diamond seekers fuming in vain on their banks.
Payton's party was forty-six days in its passage from Port Elizabeth to
the Diamond Fields without meeting with any serious delays, and
journeys lasting two months were not uncommon.2
Still,
in spite of all obstacles, privations, and discomforts, the long
journey to the fields was not wholly monotonous and unpleasant. As
there was no beaten way, the prospectors chose
1 "South Africa," George McCall Theal, 1888-1893.
2
" The Diamond Diggings of South Africa," Payton. "South Africa Diamond
Fields and Journey to Mines;" William Jacob Morton, New York, 1877.
