154 Recollections of Adventure* 



the diamond fields north of the Vaal River. Presi- 

 dent Pretorius was very weak, and had actually 

 taken out a digger's licence from one calling himself 

 President Parker. Marais and I went to President 

 Pretorius and pointed out that he was giving himself 

 and the Transvaal away, and that it was his duty to 

 assert his authority, he was slow to grasp the situa- 

 tion, weak and uncertain, and the end of it was 

 the "Keate Award," giving the case against the 

 Tranvaal ; this was the prime cause of the poor 

 President's downfall. There were some native scares 

 and some people bolted about to avoid the savages, 

 but I refused to move our camp and nothing happened 

 to us. This self styled President Parker confiscated 

 my two loads of meal, etc., because I had not paid 

 some dues he claimed on something, but old Mr. R. 

 W. Murray, who had some position at that time, got 

 me off. If Parker had kept my stuff I should hare 

 been in a fix to feed my people, as food was scarce, 

 having to be brought hundreds of miles by ox wagon. 

 Paddy Rolleston and some Natal men were on the 

 river near us, Cecil Rhodes afterwards joined them 

 I think at the New Rush or the Colesberg Kopje, 

 now the famous Kimberley mine. Rhodes was a poor 

 and delicate lad with nothing but his brains and 

 energy for capital. Once on a voyage to England, 

 when he used to discuss with me the possibilities of 

 the interior, now Rhodesia, he said to me, " If you 

 with your knowledge, and I with my ideas, had 

 known each other better in the early Kimberley 

 days, we might have done a great deal of useful 

 work for South Africa." I answered " Yes, but I 

 think you are doing quite enough, and I am a quiet- 

 going man with a family, and am content with a 

 competence and less worry." He was certainly a 

 big hearted, broad-minded man, with nothing small 

 or mean in his character, and whatever mistakes he 



