The Sea: Its Stirring Story of Adventure, Peril, & Heroism. Volume 1Whymper, Frederick
History
The Sea: Its Stirring Story of Adventure, Peril, & Heroism. Volume 1
Whymper, Frederick
Adventure and adventurers; Arctic regions; Ocean; Voyages around the world
_morgen_—something more than 6,000 acres. He was not obliged to take so
much, but, whatever the size of his farm might be, it must be _circular_
in shape; and as the circumference of a property could only touch the
adjoining grants it follows that there were immense corners or tracts of
land left waste between. Clever and ambitious farmers, in these later
days, have been silently absorbing said corners into their estates,
greatly increasing their size.
The Cape cannot be recommended to the notice of poor emigrants, but to
capitalists it offers splendid inducements. Mr. Irons, in his work on the
Cape and Natal settlements,(119) cites several actual cases, showing the
profits on capital invested in sheep-farming. In one case £1,250 realised,
in about three years, £2,860, which includes the sale of the wool. A
second statement gives the profits on an outlay of £2,225, after seven
years. It amounts to over £8,000. Rents in the towns are low; beef and
mutton do not exceed fourpence per pound, while bread, made largely from
imported flour, is a shilling and upwards per four-pound loaf.
So many sailors have made for the Diamond-fields, since their discovery,
from the Cape, Port Elizabeth, or Natal, and so many more will do the
same, as any new deposit is found, that it will not be out of place here
to give the facts concerning them. In 1871, when Mr. Boyle visited them,
the ride up cost from £12 to £16, with additional expenses for meals, &c.
Of course, a majority of the 50,000 men who have been congregated at times
at the various fields could not and did not afford this; but it is a tramp
of 750 miles from Cape Town, or 450 from Port Elizabeth or Natal. From the
Cape, a railway, for about sixty miles, eases some of the distance. On the
journey up, which reads very like Western experiences in America, two of
three mules were twenty-six hours and a half in harness, and covered 110
miles! South Africa requires a society for the prevention of cruelty to
animals, one would think. Mr. Boyle also saw another way by which the
colonist may become rapidly wealthy—in ostrich-farming. Broods, purchased
for £5 to £9, in three years gain their full plumages, and yield in
feathers £4 to £6 per annum. They become quite tame, are not delicate to
rear, and are easily managed. And they also met the down coaches from the
fields, on one of which a young fellow—almost a boy—had no less than 235
carats with him. At last they reached Pniel (“a camp”), a place which once
held 5,000 workers and delvers, and in November, 1872, was reduced to a
few hundred, like the deserted diggings in California and Australia. It
had, however, yielded largely for a time.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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