A GLANCE at the map of South Africa will shew two regions on the Western side of the Continent to which the name of Namaqualand is given, north and south of the Orange River. The former is Great Namaqualand and cannot as yet be said to form a part of the British Empire. But as it at present belongs to nobody, and is tenanted,—as far as it is tenanted at all,—by a very sparse sprinkling of Hottentots, Bushmen, and Korannas, and as it is undoubtedly metalliferous, it is probable that it will be annexed sooner or later.[16] Copper has been found north of the Orange River and that copper will not long be left undisturbed. North of Great Namaqualand is Damaraland, whence too have come tokens of copper and whisperings of gold. Even to these hard hot unfertile sandy regions Dutch farmers have trekked in order that they might live solitary, unseen, and independent. We need not, however, follow them at present to a country which is almost rainless and almost uninhabited, and for which we are not as yet responsible. Little Namaqualand, south of the Orange River, is one of the electoral divisions of the Cape Colony, and to that I will confine the few remarks which I will make as to this uncomfortable district.
It is for its copper and for its copper alone that Little Namaqualand is of any real value. On looking at the printed reports of the Commissioner and Magistrate for the division, made in 1874, 1875, and 1876, I find nothing but misfortune mentioned,—except in regard to the copper mines. “1874,” says the report for that year, “has been a very bad year.” “There has, so to say, been no corn in the land.” “One person after thrashing out his corn obtained three pannicans.” Poor farmers! “Living is very expensive, and were it not for the tram line”—a railroad made by the Copper Company nearly to Springbok Fontein, which is the seat of government and the magistrate’s residence,—“we would have been on the verge of starvation.” Poor magistrate! Then the report goes on. “The Ookiep mine is steadily progressing.” “The yield of ore during the year has been 10,000 tons.” It is pretty nearly as bad in 1875. “The rain came late in the year, and the yield in corn was very small.” “It is almost impossible to describe the poverty in which the poorer classes exist in a severe drought.” And a severe drought is the normal condition of the country in which the fall of rain and dew together does not exceed five inches in the year. But the copper enterprise was flourishing. “The Ookiep mine,” says the same report, “has been steadily progressing, its yield being now 1,000 tons per month.” In 1876 rural matters were not much better. “The water supply all over the country has much decreased, and the farmers have been put to great straits in consequence.” But there is comfort in the copper. “The Ookiep mine still continues in the same flourishing condition.” What most raises our surprise in this is that there should be farmers at all in such a country as Namaqualand.
The following is Mr. Theal’s description of the district. “A long narrow belt, twenty thousand square miles in extent, it presents to the eye nothing but a dismal succession of hill and gorge and sandy plain, all bare and desolate.” “A land of drought and famine, of blinding glare and fiery blast,—such is the country of the Little Namaquas. From time immemorial it has been the home of a few wretched Hottentots who were almost safe in such a desert from even European intruders. Half a dozen missionaries and two or three score of farmers were the sole representatives of civilization among these wandering Savages. One individual to about three square miles was all that the land was capable of supporting.”
But there is copper in the regions near the coast and consequently Little Namaqualand is becoming an important and a rich district. Before the Dutch came the Hottentots had found copper here and had used it for their ornaments. In 1683, when the Dutch government was still young and the Dutch territory still small, an expedition was sent by the Dutch Governor in search of copper to the very region in which the Cape Copper Company is now carrying on its works. But the coast was severe and the land hard to travellers, and it was found difficult to get the ore down to the sea. The Dutch therefore abandoned the undertaking and the copper was left at rest for a century and a half. The first renewed attempt was made in 1835, and that was unsuccessful. It was not till 1852 that the works were commenced which led to the present flourishing condition of the South African copper mines.
For some few years after this there seems to have been a copper mania in South Africa,—as there was a railway mania in England, and a gold mania in Australia, and a diamond mania in Griqualand West. People with a little money rushed to the country and lost that little. And those who had none rushed also to the copper mines and failed to enrich themselves as they had expected. In 1863 Messrs. Phillips and King, who had commenced their work in 1852, established the company which is still known as the Cape Copper Mining Company,—and that company has been thoroughly successful altogether, through the Ookiep mine to which the magistrate in all the reports from which I have quoted has referred as the centre and source of Namaqualand prosperity.
About four hundred miles north-west of the Cape and forty-five miles south of the Orange River there is a little harbour called Port Nolloth in Robben Bay. The neighbourhood is described as being destitute of all good things. The country in this neighbourhood is sandy and barren, and without water. We are told that water may be obtained by digging in the sand, but that when obtained it is brackish. But here is the outlet for South African copper, and therefore the little port is becoming a place of importance. Sailing vessels come from Swansea for the ore, and about once a fortnight a little steamer comes here from Capetown bringing necessaries of life to its inhabitants and such comforts as money can give in a place so desolate and hideous.
From hence there is a railway running 60 miles up to the foot of the mountains constructed by the Copper Mining Company for the use of their men and for bringing down the ore to the coast. This railway goes to Great Ookiep mine, which is distant but a few miles from the miserable little town called Springbok Fontein, which is the capital of the district. The Ookiep mine is thus described in the Gazeteer attached to Messrs. Silver’s South African Guide Book. It is “one of the most important copper mines in existence, its annual production of very rich ore being nearly 7,000 tons;”—since that was written the amount has been considerably increased;—“and the deeper the shafts are sunk the more extensive appears the area of ore producing ground. The mine is now sunk to a depth of 80 fathoms, but exhibits no sign of decreasing production.” “These Ookiep ores are found in Europe to be easier smelted than the ores of any other mines whatever, and the deposit of copper ore in the locality seems quite unlimited.”
There have been various other mines tried in the vicinity, and there can be no doubt from the indications of copper which are found all around that the working of copper in the district will before long be carried very much further than at present. But up to this time the Ookiep mine is the only one that has paid its expenses and given a considerable profit. During the copper fury various attempts were made all of which failed. The existing Company, which has been as a whole exceedingly prosperous, has made many trials at other spots none of which according to their own report have been altogether successful. I quote the following extracts from the report made by its own officers and published by the Company in 1877. “The operations at Spectakel Mine have been attended with almost unvarying ill fortune.” “It is thought that the Kilduncan centre has had fair trial and as the ground looks unpromising the miners have been withdrawn.” “Although yielding quantities of low class ore the workings at Narrap have not so far proved remunerative.” “The levels at Karolusberg have also failed to reveal anything valuable.” “A good deal of preparatory work has been done at this place,”—Nabapeep. “This may be regarded as the most promising trial mine belonging to the Company.” These are all the adventures yet made except that of the Ookiep mine, but that alone has been so lucky that the yield in 1876 amounted to “10,765 tons of 21 cwt., nett dry weight, averaging 28½? per cent.” This perhaps, to the uninitiated mind may give but a hazy idea of the real result of the speculation. But when we are told that only £7 a share has been paid up, and that £4 per annum profit has been paid on each share, in spite of the failure of other adventures, then the success of the great Ookiep mine looms clear to the most uninstructed understanding.
There can be no doubt but that Namaqualand will prove to be one of the great copper producing countries of the earth; and as little, I fear, that it is in all other respects one of the most unfortunate and undesirable. I have spoken to some whose duties have required them to visit Springbok Fontein or to frequent Port Nolloth, and they have all spoken of their past experiences without expressing any wish to revisit those places. Missionaries have gone to this land as elsewhere, striving to carry Christianity among, perhaps, as low a form of humanity as there is on the earth,—with the exception of the quickly departing Australian aboriginal. They have probably done something, if only a little, both towards raising the intellect and relieving the wants of those among whom they have placed themselves. But the Bushmen and the Korannas are races very hopeless. Men who have been called upon by Nature to live in so barren a region,—a country almost destitute of water and therefore almost destitute of grass, can hardly be expected to raise themselves above the lowest habits and the lowest tastes incident to man. If anything can give them a chance of rising in the world it will be such enterprise as that of the Cape Mining Company, and such success as that of the Ookiep mine.