PURE IN COLOUR

Evening Post, Volume CXVI, Issue 103, 28 October 1933, Page 9

PURE IN COLOUR

IF NOT IN USE

RAND GOLD AND SILVER

CRUMBS FROM GODS' MILL

Those who go down thousands o£ feet into the earth in Band goldmines Hce- various visitors pass, ami .did notknow that a moralist had inspected their ore and processes and bullion until they opened "The Listener" of August 30. Then they read E. L. Woodward's colour, sketch of the modern King Solomon's mines. Soon after S o'clock ivu drove to the goldmines. The view-of Johannesburg from our hilltop was something entirely new to English eyes. Grcengrcy and green-white mine dumps, pyramidical in shape, with borders of thin lines as though they were the paintings of the modern school. Chimneys and factories in the golden haze of early morning; the green-grey veldt in the distance. Immediately, below us the red roofs and white walls of a thousand new houses. Trees in. dark green and olive-green clumps; overhead a thin, steel-like sky; the air keen and transluseent. ' A picture of the early days of mankind, with a border of pastoral quietness. BLACK SLAVES IN TEMPLES OF GODS. We drove through the ramshackletown, past the 'drab streets of native shops and eating houses, the tin shanties and lonely shafts of wOrked-out mines. The mine dumps became higher. Sand and rocks were more differentiated. The road was bordered with plantations of dusty, rickety-looking trees. Here and there a pipo line was carried above us by a bridge, or trucks on endless belts added their tiny loads to the giant heaps. The mines seemed to be the temples of gods and the city at the service of these gods.' I watched the winding gear at one of the main shafts. The acceleration was tremendous; the huge wheel spun like a little world. The descent in the cage was quick and smooth; no sign, except in one's ears, that one "was falling three thousand feet in each shaft. The lift at the Hampstead Tube station gives a much greater impression of depth. Wo stepped out of the cage at the lowest level of the shaft. I heard an enormous roar of air-fans, like the undying ■wind on which Paolo and Francesea were' driven (for a second I saw myself and my guide as Dante and Virgil!) Then, as I stepped out of tho cage into a whitewashed, brilliantly-lit vault of rock, all the fringes of recollection ivere lost in the vividness of the immediate scene. Threo Basutos, bare to the waist, and wearing brown metal hats, like soldiers' helmets, or the ■winged cap of Mercury; three figures, still as statues, dark as their own shadows against the whitened rock. We were driven in an- electric train for a long distance down a level gallery to the oblique line of the reef. Here wo -walked a few yards to the bared, surface, and caw the actual work of drilling; a sloping ledge with its timber props; the sharp rattling drills; a spearhead of water driven at high pressure ■ against the reef,, and trickling away as a spent and dirty stream; marks of tho blasting charges; debris of stone blown away by the dynamite. Again the half-naked black men were like statues. _ Hero and there, one saw them pushing open the heavy ventilation and traffic doors aa though they were giants fighting the gods of Olympus. GLAD TO GET THE CKUMBS. I was shown over tho surface works by an engineer. One of the crushing mills'was most remarkable. Huge fivefingered stamps; a horrible grinding and banging. I could not think how men were able to work in the building' without shattering their nerves. I could not avoid the impression that, although my guide believed that lie was controlling the machinery, tho machinery was controlling him and all his workmen. Tho gods of the temple were ■hungry for these crude, tasteless masses of roijk. Men took the crumbs of gold, like dogs taking the scraps from.their master's table. Perhaps men were .forced to carry away the gold, drugged byan Old Man of the Mountains into believing that gold, and more gold, pyramids - and treasure-houses of gold were their greatest need and consolation. Outside the mill a dust storm was blowing from one of the mine dumps, teasing to tho eyes and cheeks. We drove on to the gold refinery. A strong metal fence divided the refinery from the waste land round about it. The buildings had been given a faoado in the baroque Dutch style; here behind the voluptuous curves, in this elemental place, one might find the temple dancers. The main gate was unlocked by a uniformed sentry; a loaded revolver lay on his table. We waited for a few moments on a lawn of wellwatered turf. Then we were taken to see the whole process of gold refining. Our' guide Was quick, competent, and »full of kindness in explaining every detail. I envied him his sense of machinery; an artist's understanding of these adamantine metals; a love of accuracy and fineness of workmanship. He took us to soe the -weighing, the pouring, the cooling, of, fine gold and silver. He told me that I should see tha richest and purest colours in the world. He "was right. Morfeoyer, the setting was accidentally perfect, or rather it was, perfect because it belonged rigidly to the necessities of the process. There was nothing of the baroque facade about it. Four or live men were standing round each furnace in a large room with double lines of furnaces. The men wore dark, soot-begrimed overalls; the cauldrons wore heavy and dark as the cauldrons of. a witches' Sabbath. The air was streaked with acrid fumes. The cauldrons were opened, and each man in his turn did his work, liko ■a well-trained crew serving n, gun. The Tod-hofc cylinders holding tho molten gold were taken from the cauldrons. The gold was poured into the moulds. The moulds wore plunged into cold water. Through a cloud of steam one saw this liquid, bubbling mass settle info heavy ingots. ABTISTIC SIDE OP SUN-GOLD AND MOON-SILVEB. It is indeed impossiblo to describe and it would bo impossiblo to paint this colour of molten gold. .It is a sight to 'be seen, unique and unapproachable in ,'tself, as in a world of moral values "iino might speak of the attributes of God. I had never thought that gold as a standard of value could mean a standard of artistic value, against which lesser colours and lesser fires might be measured. We saw the pouring and cooling of silver; the moon after the sun. That night I was taken to a elubroom in one of the compounds. . The room was managed by a student of the University. I asked him questions. I took care to ask nothing about politics, .or the native problem. Even if I had asked about, these things I do not think I should have been answered: there is indeed no simple answer. But lie told me the history of the room. The managers of the mine gave him an empty dormitory .or storehouse; benches and tables; light and coal. At fir si: none flf the natives would uornu into . the

room. They suspected a trick of the bosses. They were frightened of the double doors; they believed that such double doors must lead into a theatre whero you bad to pay money. The room was nearly two-thirds full. The walls were whitewashed; about a dozen English and Continental railway posters made little islands, of colour. A few lights hung from the ceiling; but tho general impression was one of shadow except in dhe far corner of the room. At the darker end a nativo was working a gramophone. A crowd had gathered round to listen to a record of women laughing and tnlking in some nativo kraal. Tho jokes wcro understood, and at moments the laughter of the audience drowned the sound of the machine. Ten or fifteen Basutos in their blankets were sitting round ono of tho braziers. Men at a table wcro" playing draughts; they banged the pieces down aI; every move, like French peasants playing cards. Another group was playing a native game with cards or counters; the onlookers were as excited as the players. MTTSCULAB PENMANSHIP. There was a long trestle table at the far end of the room. Here there was quiet; the men were reading, or learning to read, from simple primers. They were working intensely, slowly, after a hard day's labour nnderground. Those who could read longer words were helping the beginners. One man sat at a table by himself writing a letter. I could see his fingers moving slowly over tho paper, as though he -wore cutting an iron stencil. He wrote not only with his fingers, but with his whole ami,, even with his shoulder; all his muscles were tense. An old man at the lighted table was reading to himself (in English) a chapter from the Gospel according to St. John. I thought of the Sermon on the Mount, and the Magnificat. "He hath cast down tho mighty from their seat, and he hath exalted the humble and meek." Some hours later, I lay awake in the mountain air long after tho last trams had passed under my -windows. I remember a poster I had seen a few days earlier, in Basutoland, at one of the depots where the natives are recruited to the mines. The poster was well drawn and well-coloured. It showed a native with a pick and shovel at his side; in his open palm were a few gold and silver coins. He was gazing with smug ecstasy at these coins. ffheodorie, King of the Ostrogoths, once said to " is people: "A good Goth copies the* 'Romans.'* Is it the first duty of a good South African native to culti-vate-the habit of money-making? Theo,doric, a rough barbarian of genius, had in his mind .the impersonal lapidary sentences of Eoman law, the settled order and rule upon which Roman society had been built. What qualities do we wish to develop in tho Basutos under our'protection? Should we hang posters of this kind in an English village school, inculcating the whole duty of man? The peasants of Europe in the Middle Ages were as unlettered as the herdsmen of Basutoland today. Tho medieval Christians painted tho walls and windows of their churches with images of the way of salvation, examples of holy living and tho virtues of mercy and charity. In these coloured histories which every peasant could road, only ono man, Jndas Iscariot, held pieces of silver in his hand.