Those must indeed have been palmy days, when the money so
lightly made was correspondingly lightly spent; when champagne replaced
the usual whisky-split at the Rand Club, and on all sides was to be
heard the old and well-known formula, "Here's luck," as the successful
speculator toasted an old friend or a newcomer.
However, to return to Johannesburg as we found it, after the 1895 boom.
Even then it seemed to me that for the first time in South Africa I saw
life. Cape Town, with its pathetic dullness and palpable efforts to keep
up a show of business; Kimberley, with its deadly respectability--both
paled in interest beside their younger sister, so light-hearted,
reckless, and enterprising. Before long, in spite of gloomy reflections
on the evils of gold-seeking, I fell under the fascination of what was
then a wonderful town, especially wonderful from its youth. The
ever-moving crowds which thronged the streets, every man of which
appeared to be full of important business and in a desperate hurry,
reminded one of the City in London. Smart carriages with well-dressed
ladies drove rapidly past, the shops were cunningly arranged with
tempting wares, and all this bustle and traffic was restored in little
over a week. A fortnight previously a revolution was impending and a
siege was looming ahead.
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