Jewish Pioneers of South Africa

<plain_text><page sequence="1">JEWISH PIONEERS OF SOUTH AFRICA. By SIDNEY MENDELSSOHN. (Paper read before the Jewish Historical Society of England, June 3, 1912.) The history of South Africa was, up to recent times, little known to the world at large. Discovered?from the European point of view?six years before America, its distance from Europe, and the superior attractions of other newly-found lands kept it in the background for several cen? turies. Not only was America extensively colonised before South Africa, but its lands wTere occupied at an earlier date by more enterprising people than those that migrated to the sub-continent, which was kept back for a century and a half owing to the stolid and unprogressive policy pursued by the Dutch East India Company, and, for at least fifty years longer by the almost equally thick-headed ideas of successive British Governments wdth respect to colonies and colonists. It can thus be readily understood that South Africa, in its earlier modern career, did not offer such a field for the enterprise of four co? religionists as that part of North America now known as the United States, the West Indian Islands, Brazil, India, or even Mexico, where greater opportunities were offered to earlier adventurers, in countries where a higher system of civilisation, and the reputed existence of precious stones and minerals, afforded greater visions of fortune and freedom, than lands?occupied by savages of supposedly irreclaimable ferocity?of which little or nothing was generally known. When, in the year 1486 of the Christian era, Bartholomew Dias discovered the Cape of Good Hope, the hinterland of South Africa was by no means a terra incognita. Its existence had been known from a very early period, and Phoenicians, Egyptians, and Jews were all 180</page><page sequence="2">JEWISH PIONEERS OF SOUTH AFRICA. 181 aware of the territory, and had taken part in the trading ventures carried out on the East and West Coasts of Africa, and in expeditions which had been pushed far into the interior. Monomotapa, the Ethiopie Basse of the early maps, was a perfectly well recognised and located portion of the kingdom of Abyssinia, the magic land of Prester John, that mysterious potentate of mediaeval times. The ruins of Zimbabye and of other towns, rediscovered in the last quarter of the nineteenth century, and explored in more recent years, prove that extensive mining works were carried out in this territory by the ancients; but whether any perambulating Israelites had penetrated to the country now known as Rhodesia, thus anticipating Jewish adventurers of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, it would be almost impossible to conjecture and quite impossible to prove. Nevertheless, it is well worth noting that Dr. Carl Peters, in his Eldorado of the Ancients, published as recently as the year 1902, states that near the ruins of Inja-ka-Fura, a village in Portuguese South East Africa, in a part of the country which he identifies as the Ophir of the Scriptures, he had a meeting with some of the natives, and he remarks: " How absolutely Jewish is the type of this people. They have faces cut exactly like those of ancient Jews who live around Aden. Also the way they wear their hair, the curls behind the ears, and the beard drawn out in single curls, gives them the appearance of Aden ?or of Polish?Jews of the good old type. This is very different from the general Semitic type, as we often find it amongst Bantu tribes, which owes its origin to an admixture of Arabian blood. Here we had real, unalloyed Jewish physiognomies before us." It is not, however, my intention, on this occasion, to go into the speculative history of these possible descendants of primeval Jewish travellers, miners, or traders, as I purpose to confine this paper merely to an account of prominent later South African pioneers and settlers, descended from Jews who had been residents of European countries, and from thence had migrated to try their fortunes the other side of the Equator. It has been maintained that Israelites took a prominent part in the European discovery of South Africa, and Rabbi Hertz, late of Johannesburg?whom I am pleased to see with us to-night?has alluded</page><page sequence="3">182 JEWISH PIONEERS OF SOUTH AFRICA. to this in his pamphlet entitled The Jew in South Africa, which he published in 1905. Dr. Theal, the historiographer of South Africa, states in the third edition of his History of South Africa that King John II of Portugal sent two men named AfFonso de Paiva and Jo?o Pires of Covilh?o, to search for Prester John. Pires, who is better known as Covilham, visited Sofala, and, returning to Cairo, met two Portuguese Jews, Rabbi Habr?o (or Abraham) of Beja, and Rabbi Josepe (or Joseph), a shoemaker by trade, who lived at Lamego. Joseph was a great traveller, and had informed the King respecting certain details of his journeys, whereupon John had sent the Jew back with further letters of instruction to Paiva and Covilham. It seems that Paiva was already dead when Joseph arrived in Cairo, but the King's letter was delivered to Covilham, who drew up an account of what he had learned in India, and seen on the African coast, and handed it to Joseph to take back to the Portuguese monarch. After the letter was despatched, Covilham took Rabbi Habr?o with him, and the two travellers went to Ormuz, and, after obtaining further information, Habr?o went back to Portugal with a duplicate of the narrative taken to the King by Joseph. Dr. Theal says that, " None of the early Portuguese historians who had access to the records of the country ever saw this narrative, so that probably neither of the Jews lived to deliver his charge ... but as such a journey as that described must, in the fifteenth century, have occupied several years, it is just possible that Joseph or Habr?o reached Lisbon " some little time after the year 1487. On the other hand, Mr. Ian D. Colvin, in his Romance of Empire ?South Africa, published in the year 1909, evidently believes that the communication was duly delivered, and that it was "one of the most important letters ever written in the whole history of the world." He remarks that it contained " these portentous and prophetic words"? " Keep southward; if you persist, Africa must come to an end. And when ships come to the Eastern Ocean, let them ask for Sofala, and the Island of the Moon (Madagascar), and they will find pilots to take them to Malabar." It follows, then, that Jews were probably the means of communicating the theoretic existence of South Africa, and the new waterway road to India, to the Portuguese King, almost at the same period that Dias</page><page sequence="4">JEWISH PIONEERS OF SOUTH AFRICA. 183 had actually discovered the coast, and there can be little doubt that the receipt of this letter had a good deal to do with the ultimate despatch of Da Gama's expedition to Natal. With regard to the latter explorer, it is stated that he had the benefit of the advice of Abraham Zacuto or Zakut, a famous Jewish cartographer of these days. Several authors have made mention of the fact that Vasco Da Gama, the discoverer of Natal, had a Jewish pilot. According to Mr. Lionel B. Abrahams (an authority on early East India Company voyages), in an article which he wrote for the Jewish Quarterly Revieio in 1897, Da Gama certainly had the benefit of " the skill and experience of the well-known Jewish pilot who, when compelled to undergo baptism, adopted the name of Gaspar Da Gama." Mr. R. S. Whiteway, in a work entitled The Rise of Portuguese Power in India, mentions that Da Gama, whilst refitting at the Anjadiva Islands in 1498, "captured a Grenadine Jew, who, enslaved in his youth and made a Mohammedan, had drifted to India, and was then employed as a spy on Da Gama. As Gaspar Da India, or Gaspar D'Almeida, he played a distinct though subordinate part in the events of the next eleven years." Very probably the Gaspar Da Gama of Mr. Lionel Abrahams' article and the Gaspar Da India of Mr. Whiteway's work are the same, and if so, although the pilot was not, according to the latter, with Da Gama when he first landed at Natal, he almost certainly accompanied him on his second voyage in 1502 when he visited Delagoa Bay. If my contention be correct, Gaspar?whether Da Gama or Da India?was the first Jew we hear of in South Africa. The adventurous Jewish pilot appears to have lost his life in an engagement under D'Almeida against the town of Calicut in India. Whiteway remarks, "Gaspar the Jew was ordered to lead the way," and a footnote on the same page informs us that "Gaspar disappears after this day; he was probably killed in the rout." That was evidently the fate of the man who was in all probability the first Jew to land in South Africa.1 However that may be, one thing, I take it, is fairly proved, and that is, that in the discussions and the promulgation of the theories which led to the discovery of the Cape, Natal, and the new route by water to India, Jews took a great and active part; and while there is no positive evidence that any of them actually accompanied Dias,</page><page sequence="5">184 JEWISH PIONEERS OF SOUTH AFRICA. there is strong presumption for believing that amongst the men that accompanied the discoverer of Natal was this quondam or Marrano Jew, Gaspar da Gama, the pilot. On the very first expedition of the English to the East Indies, a Jewr occupied a responsible post in the famous voyage which w7as undertaken with five ships by the newly-established British East India Company in the year 1600. The fleet was under the command of Captain (afterwards Sir) James Lancaster, and it is interesting to read that the capital embarked by the London merchants for the enterprise was ?72,000?at that period a very large sum. In Astley's account of the voyage, it is stated that on the arrival of the fleet at Achen, a conference was held in Arabic, and on this occasion, " a Jew, brought from England, who spoke that language perfectly, was of great service to the General." This account of Lancaster's voyage does not mention any further details respecting the interpreter; but Mr. Hyamson, in his History of the Jews in England, states that he was a body-servant of Captain Lancaster, "a Moroccan Jew who had been brought a prisoner to England." Lancaster arrived at the Cape in September 1601, and stayed there seven weeks, and you may be sure that the Jewish interpreter went ashore with the other officials, and was therefore one of the earliest, if not the earliest, of Jewish travellers to land in South Africa. We do not hear any more of this Moroccan Jew in the accounts of Lancaster's voyage, but he is mentioned again in the voyage of Francois Pyrard to the East Indies, wehere he is given a very bad character indeed. Fifteen years later, a Captain Benjamin Joseph landed at Saldanha Bay on June 27, 1616. He was a very renowned sea commander, who had been in charge of the Muscovy Company's fleets in their voyages to Spitzbergen in 1613 and 1614, when he was accompanied by the famous navigator, William Baffin, who acted as his pilot. When Benjamin Joseph called at the Cape, he was commodore of a fleet of six vessels (belonging to the English East India Company), which he was convoying to the territories of the Great Mogul, and after sailing from Saldanha Bay, he proceeded to Madagascar, and thence to the Comoro Islands, wThere he had an affray with the Portuguese, in which he was killed. He was buried at sea near the island of Mohilla.</page><page sequence="6">JEWISH PIONEERS OF SOUTH AFRICA. 185 A full account of the expedition was written by the Rev. Edward Terry, the chaplain of Joseph's fleet, who gave the manuscript to our King Charles I, when Prince of Wales, in 1622, and it was subsequently published in the year 1655, and reprinted in 1777. Terry, however, does not even hint that Joseph was a Jew, and the records of the East India Company throw no light on the subject of the captain's religion. Nevertheless, it seems most probable that he was at least of Jewish race, and Mr. William Foster, a great authority upon East India navigators, was of opinion that " he wTas evidently of Jewish descent." It must be remarked, however, that his wife's first name, " Isobel," does not seem Jewish, and he had a son-in-law called " Maddocks," and so probably he was not observant of the tenets of the faith. For all that, Benjamin Joseph sounds very Hebraic for the sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries in England, long before the days when Oliver Cromwell's Ironsides flooded the greater part of the country with a deluge of biblical surnames. The secret of the captain's religion apparently lies buried with him deep in the Indian Ocean, and may never be discovered; but if he were a Jew, he was certainly one of the first of that race to land on the shores of South Africa. About the middle of the seventeenth century, Van Riebeeck, who was in the service of the Dutch East India Company, founded the first Dutch European settlements at the Cape, but it would be unsafe to admit anything more than that there is a distant possibility that some Jews may have accompanied him to the new colony. Familiar-sounding names may ^certainly appear in the Cape records, but they are no real guide. The first absolute mention of Jews in the Dutch settlements in South Africa which I have been able to discover, is in the year 1670, the entry being in the Precis of the Archives of the Cape of Good Hope Journal from 1662-1670. Here it is set out that at Cape Town on Sunday, January 5th: "After the ordinary service in the forenoon, two German Jews, who had embraced the Christian faith, were baptized with proper ceremony." But that is all we hear of them, and the probability is that, although from time to time men of Jewish race or descent formed part of the flotsam and jetsam of the mixed population which was so soon</page><page sequence="7">186 JEWISH PIONEERS OF SOUTH AFRICA. assimilated by the virility of the Dutch race, these waifs and strays soon lost their identity amongst the early colonists. Even a hundred years later, in 1771, when Governor Ryk Tulbagh ruled in Cape Town, there is not a single name in the official list which in the least suggests a Jewish origin. Indeed, it is somewrhat improbable that our co-religionists would have left the comparative comfort and security of the Netherlands to go to almost unknown South Africa, as mere soldiers or agriculturists?they certainly had very little chance of going as officials?and there appears to have been scant opportunity afforded to them to succeed in business at this period. The Dutch East India Company wras carried on as a vast monopolist commercial enter? prise, and little or no scope was afforded to any outside traders or speculators, whatever their race or religion might have been. In the year 1806 the British took possession of the Cape for the second time, but it is very questionable whether any Jews were in the country. According to Dr. Hertz, during the previous short regime of the Batavian Government, religious equality had been established, and the same authority asserts that the proclamation granting this boon was annulled by the new Government, and was not re-established until 1820. I have, however, carefully examined the official proclamations of the Government at the Cape at this period, and cannot find any trace of the annulment of this proclamation. As a matter of fact, Paragraph VIII of the Articles of Capitulation for Cape Town distinctly enacts that the " Eights and privileges of the burghers and inhabitants" are "to be preserved?no alteration" is "to be made in the public worship." Again, the proclamations for the year 1820 make not the slightest mention of religious equality or any matter that could bear on it. The first English and Dutch Almanac, published in Cape Town in 1807, discloses no names suggesting Jewish origin, and the Almanac issued in 1811 does not enlighten us to a much greater extent. It certainly contains a list of the names of the inhabitants, which includes such familiar appellations as Abrahams, Isaacs, Israel, Jacobs, Moses, Salomons, and Simons, but, after careful investigation, I have come to the conclusion that these people were not Jews at all, but Malays or colonial Dutch. Their pre-names include those of Arend, Carel, Jan, Martinus, Saartje, and others, if possible, less Hebraic-sounding, whilst</page><page sequence="8">JEWISH PIONEERS OF SOUTH AFRICA. 167 the trades they pursued are still less suggestive. These embrace tanners, blacksmiths, boatmen, sempstresses, and washerwomen?pursuits rarely followed by our co-religionists, but frequently by Cape Town Malays. The only distinctly probable Jew in the whole directory, according to my ideas, was a Mr. Michael Levie, who kept a shop in the Boereplein, an avocation doubtless far more congenial to the sons of Levi than the above mentioned occupations. Emerging, however, from the doubt and obscurity surrounding the Jewish pioneers of the eighteenth century and the first decade of the nineteenth century, the first undoubted Jew?at all events, by birth? who made anything like a mark at the Cape, was a certain Joseph Suasso De Lima, a most curious and eccentric, but withal learned and versa? tile, individual, who flourished?or perhaps I had better say, resided? in Cape Town from about 1818 to 1857. There are still surviving some old inhabitants of the South African metropolis who can remember De Lima, and they tell you that he was a Portuguese Jew who had settled in Holland and subsequently emigrated to the Cape; but I presume he was merely Portuguese by descent and Jewish liturgical distinction.2 He is mentioned in the Cape Almanac for 1819 as a sworn trans? lator, but he was also a poet, a directory-compiler, a lawyer, an editor, a publisher, a bookseller, a teacher, and the author of a large number of books and pamphlets. One authority says that although a very clever man, and a good linguist, he was always in trouble, "and never paid anybody, especially his house rent." His great literary rival was a Frenchman named Charles Etienne Boniface, and the two were always lampooning each other. Boniface published a play in which the hero was a burlesque of De Lima. It was entitled " Clasius Stupidus Bavianus ; Juris doctor; dichter, drukker, boek-handelaar, taalmenger, kunstplater, verkooper, brievensteller," the sarcastic title thus making mention of De Lima's various and diverse callings. In another work Boniface alludes to De Lima as " Limacon, senior, J.D. (dat is Joodsche Dwerje)," or the Jewish Dwarf. As a matter of fact, De Lima was lame, and was constantly a subject for the satire and caricature of his contemporaries. To this day the coloured children of Cape Town play a kind of hopscotch in which they use the line, " O De Lima, een voet schoen," though they probably have not the remotest notion w7ho or what De Lima really was.</page><page sequence="9">188 JEWISH PIONEERS OF SOUTH AFRICA. I can find no evidence that this eccentric man of letters ever identi? fied himself with Jewish matters, and although his portrait does not leave you with any doubt as to his race, Joel Rabinowitz does not mention him in the notes on Hebrew Cape Colonists, which he published in the Jewish Chronicle in 1895. After a good deal of searching, which would have certainly been unavailable without the assistance of Mr. A. C. G. Lloyd, the indefatigable librarian of the South African Library, Cape Town, I have ascertained that he was registered as a member of the Dutch Reformed Church in the books of "De Goede Hoop" Masonic Lodge of Cape Tow7n in the year 1818, when he was twenty-seven years old. He died in 1858 at the age of sixty-seven, and was interred in the vault of the Theron family in the old Dutch Reformed Cemetery in Cape Town, few traces of which exist to-day. Reverting back to the early twenties, the influx of Jews into the Cape seems to have been moderate in the extreme, but a few merchants and shopkeepers appear to have gradually filtered into the country. In the long roll of the settlers in the Eastern Province, who were sent to South Africa by the British Government in the year 1820, the only name with any Jewish appearance is that of Benjamin Simons, aged eighteen, who is last on the list of those who sailed in the Belle Alliance, but of whose subsequent career I have ascertained no further facts. The name of Isaac Da Costa (book-keeper in the prison of Cape Town in 1825) has a reminiscent sound about it, but Da Costa, De Jong, De Vries, and similar appellations were Dutch surnames for centuries before the Jewish annexation of these patronymics. Nevertheless, the directories of this period show a gradual increase in such names as Sloman, Solomon, Cohen, Levick, Manuel, and some others not so distinctly familiar, and there can be little doubt that our brethren were gradually hearing of the new promised land, and that a few enterprising spirits had already landed and settled there. The year 1825, however, was to mark the advent of a bolder and more able Jewish adventurer in South Africa, in the person of Nathaniel Isaacs, who, arriving at St. Helena in 1822, entered the service of his uncle, Mr. S. Solomon, some of whose relations and descendants subse? quently settled at the Cape, and founded a colonial family, the members</page><page sequence="10">JEWISH PIONEERS OF SOUTH AFRICA. 189 of which have been, and are, greatly distinguished in parliamentary, legal, clerical, and literary pursuits in South Africa. Young Isaacs had evidently, at this period at least, no predilection for a stereotyped commercial life, and forming an intimacy with Lieutenant King (R.N.), embarked with the latter on a speculative voyage to Natal with the object of opening up an intercourse with the natives, and getting a footing in the country. They first landed at Cape Town, and remained there for some period, but later on proceeded to Natal, where King died. Isaacs, however, remained in Natal and Zululand for the greater part of seven years, and has left an account of his adventures under the title of Travels in Eastern Africa, which he published in the year 1836, and which may be looked upon almost as a classic of South African exploration. He became a trusted induna, or chief, of Chaka, the fiery military despot of the Zulu nation, who made him a huge grant of land, which would eventually have been of vast value if he could have retained possession of it. His book?now extremely rare?is still, and will be for all times, the standard authority for matters respecting the Zulu nation at this important period of their history, as well as for its valuable account of the manners, customs, superstitions, and laws of the tribes of South-eastern Africa. He stands prominently forward in the small group of British ex? plorers who have been styled ''The Knights-errant of Natal," who braved the terror excited by the savage Zulu kings, and settled in the country before the Dutch trekked there or the British superseded them. Isaacs, indeed, is an almost unique example in the history of Judaism. I can call to mind no such similar career in the long annals of our existence as a nation, and he is recognised as having taken a prominent part in the negotiations which led to the foundation of the prosperous British Colony of Natal. He did his best to persuade the British Government to annex the territory, but his advice was not followed till nearly fourteen years had elapsed, when the pioneer had sunk, a disappointed man, into his lonely grave in a semi-desert island on the West Coast of the continent. Disgusted with the apathy and neglect of the "Little Englanders" of those days, he left Natal about the year 1831, and finally proceeded to West Africa, where he traded up the Gambia and along the coast.</page><page sequence="11">190 ?IEWISH PIONEERS OF SOUTH AFRICA. About five years after the publication of his work he died, and was, it is supposed, interred on an island off the coast of Guinea, but I have never been able to get definite details of his decease or burial, and I have not succeeded in discovering any portrait of the traveller, either in the possession of descendants of his family or in any public collection.3 It was not until the third and fourth decades of the nineteenth century that Jews began to settle in any numbers in South Africa, the first Hebrew congregation being established in Cape Town in the latter part of the year 1841. Amongst the founders of that community was a gentleman named Jonas Bergtheil, a Bavarian, who was a man of considerable enterprise and ability. He made many voyages to the Cape in the days when the passage was a lengthy and uncertain enterprise, and eventually, connect? ing himself with a firm named Jung &amp; Company, he became a pioneer of Natal some time before the Colony was taken over by the British Crown in 1845. I am informed that when he first visited Durban only one English? man was resident there, and he only agreed to land him on condition that he would take up his quarters with him. Bergtheil soon recognised the great prospects of prosperity offered by the country, especially if it were made an English Colony, and his firm acquired a very considerable area of land. For some time he vainly endeavoured to get the British Govern? ment to send out emigrants, and finally he proceeded to Germany to try and obtain them from that country. Dr. Theal relates in the third volume of his History of South Africa that in the year 1848, " Thirty-five (other authorities say forty) families of agricultural labourers from the neighbourhood of Bremen, in Northern Germany, were brought out by Mr. Bergtheil . . . with a view to their employment in the cultivation of cotton. This design, however, was abandoned after their landing, and they wrere located at New Germany, a few miles inland from Durban, where they established themselves as market gardeners, and through their industry and frugality soon placed themselves in comfortable circumstances. They were in all only one hundred and eighty-three souls. The success which these people attained as agriculturists, the proofs which they furnished of the capabilities of the soil, and the strength which a body of industrious peasants always</page><page sequence="12">JEWISH PIONEERS OF SOUTH AFRICA. 191 imparts to a country, clearly pointed out one of the classes of settlers most suited to Natal." This testimony to the value of Bergtheil's pioneer settlement to the new colony is of great interest to us as Jews, when we consider how often we are attacked as a parasitic race. Here, at all events, is a Jew who is recognised by South Africa's greatest historical authority as a coloniser?nay, a benefactor?of true and undoubted merit. A long account of this enterprise will be found in J. S. Christopher's Account of Natal, which, published in 1850, contains one of the earliest descriptions of the new colony, then in only the fifth, year of its ex? istence. It republishes a letter which Bergtheil wrote to the Manchester Guardian as early as March 8, 1848, giving information and statistics with regard to his emigrants, and more especially with regard to " Cotton Cultivation at Port Natal," together with the results of the first 29 acres of cotton grown. The account of this settlement, which is abridged from the Natal Witness of December 15, 1848, is exceedingly interesting to read, now that Natal is a prominent State in the Union of South Africa. It contains, inter alia, a description of the opening of the new chapel; and it is remarked that " At the close of the service, the emigrants assembled round Mr. Bergtheil to express their happiness at the arrangements that had been made, and to congratulate him on his birthday. This last expression of esteem was conveyed by several little girls surprising Mr. Bergtheil by crowning him with laurels, to which was attached some original congratulatory verses." Bergtheil was a steadfast Israelite, and when, some years later, he was proposed as a Member of the Natal Legislative Council, he answered a man who shouted, " We don't want a Jew," by observing, " I am a Jew7, and as a Jew I ask for your votes." He was duly elected, and was a member of the Council for eleven years, being a representative of a Colonial Legislature some time before Jews were admitted into the British Parliament. In the first Natal Almanac, which was published in the year 1863, he is recorded as one of the members for Pietermaritz burg, the capital, and he was a prominent and valued member of the Colonial Immigration Board. The Almanac for the year 1866 contains his scheme for further European emigration to Natal, from which colony, however, he finally retired about this period.</page><page sequence="13">192 JEWISH PIONEERS OF SOUTH AFRICA. Jonas Bergtheil had a most successful career as a pioneer, coloniser, politician, and man of affairs. He lived to a good old age, and subse? quently, residing in London, busied himself in many communal organi? sations, dying at the age of eighty-two after a life as a citizen and colonist that any man?Jew or Gentile?might be proud of.4 The latter part of the second quarter of the nineteenth century witnessed the advent of several well-known pioneer Jewish families to the Cape. Amongst these were some members of the Solomon family of St. Helena, to which some reference has already been made. Saul Solomon, who settled in Cape Town, was a distinguished Cape politician, and became noted as a Negrophile of enlightened views ; he had received his education, together with his brother Henry, at the well-known Edmonton Jewish school conducted many years ago by the late H. N. Solomon, and had been duly initiated into the rites of Judaism, but he and the whole of his family left that faith and embraced Christianity.5 The Norden family took a prominent part in current affairs at the Cape in the forties. Benjamin Norden was an auctioneer and merchant in Cape Town; in the original list on the old Founders' Board of the Cape Town Jewish Congregation his name is put at the head of the elders and the trustees, and there can be little doubt that at this period he was regarded as the Chief of the Community. In October 1848 he pre? sented an address from the Jewish Congregation to the newly-arrived Governor, Sir Harry Smith, and, according to the Cape Town Mirror, the Governor replied "with great feeling . . . moved by this unexpected expression of opinion from so respectable and influential a portion of the community." At this period Benjamin Norden was a Commissioner of the Cape Town Municipality, and a bitter opponent of the project of the British Government to send convicts to South Africa. He attended a meeting of Commissioners and Wardmasters of Cape Town on November 21, 1848, when it was decided to petition Queen Victoria against the intro? duction of convicts into the Colony of the Cape of Good Hope. The resistance of the colonists was successful, and the convicts were not landed; but the prejudice aroused was so violent that the inhabitants of Cape Town absolutely refused to supply H.M.S. Neptune, on which</page><page sequence="14">JEWISH PIONEERS OF SOUTH AFRICA. 193 the convicts were imprisoned, with provisions; and the officers and crew, as well as the convicts, were in peril of being starved. At this juncture a number of Cape Town merchants came to the assistance of the Governor and provisioned the ship, which subsequently returned to England. Dr. Theal relates that Norden and eleven others were suspected of rendering this assistance, and in consequence they were denounced in the Cape Press, and ostracised from the society of their fellow-citizens. Later on Norden's house was attacked by rioters, who at the same time wrecked the property of John Fairbairn, the founder of the first South African newspaper, whereupon the Governor, Sir Harry Smith, issued a proclamation referring to the attacks on the properties of Norden and Fairbairn, and peremptorily prohibiting further dis? turbances. I do not know whether Norden ever received any reward for his services, but one of his associates was knighted and received a grant of ?5000 to indemnify him for his losses. Another well-known member of the Norden family was Joshua Davis Norden, who followed the vocation of an auctioneer at Grahams town, and was a sworn appraiser for the High Court, a Commissioner for the Municipality, and a member of the Committee of the Immigration Association, whilst Dr. Theal remarks that he was "a leading member of the Jewish congregation." In the year 1846 the seventh Kaffir Wrar, often known as the " War of the Axe," broke out between the British and the native chief Sandilli, and on the formation of the Grahamstown Yeomanry Corps, Joshua Norden was appointed captain. He was killed whilst leading a patrol, and the following account of the tragedy is derived from Five Years in Kaffirland, by Harriet Ward, a well-known writer on South Africa in the middle of the nineteenth century : " Mr. Norden, a merchant, having been appointed to the command of the Yeomanry Corps, which, it must be remembered, there had been but little time to organise, led his men out, on the 25th of April, to a valley a little beyond Grahamstown, where it had been ascertained that a number of Kaffirs were lurking. He was a dashing, enterprising man, always ready to lead whenever a leader was wanting. On reaching a spot commanded by a krantz, or cliff, he divided his corps into two bodies, directing one to the right and the other to the left, with one of which he advanced towards a thick bush. On Mr. Norden approaching a mass of rock which served as an ambush for YOL. VII. N</page><page sequence="15">194 JEWISH PIONEERS OF SOUTH AFRICA. one of the savages, he was shot through the head and fell dead. The wretch who shot him was immediately brought down by the musket of one of the Yeomanry, but others rushed on the murdered man, and dragged away the body. The Yeomanry Corps, being thus divided, the numbers of the foe unknown, and the sun just setting, it was deemed imprudent to attempt the capture of Mr. Norden's remains from the Kaffirs at that moment. The following day the body was observed placed in a conspicuous position on the krantz, probably as a decoy, and on Monday the 27th a large body of the inhabitants, a few of the Cape Corps, and a remnant of the Ninetieth?in all amounting to about 200 men?headed by Colonel Johns tone, 27th Regiment, Commandant of the town, went out and brought back the mangled body of the brave man whose life had been so miserably sacrificed. The bereaved family of Mr. Norden must ever be looked on by the people of Grahamstown with feelings of deep and grateful interest." Between the years 1840 and 1850 some important mercantile houses were established at the Cape by Jewish firms, and certain of these have rendered valuable services to South Africa in the development of its varied resources. Amongst the foremost of these was the business established by Messrs. Aaron and Elias de Pass, who started operations in a warehouse on the "Camp Ground" in Cape Town about the year 1846. The firm subsequently became extensive shipowners, financing and conducting fishing, sealing, and whaling industries, and exploiting the valuable guano deposits of Ichaboe and other islands off the coast of Namaqualand and the territory known to-day as German South-west Africa. They also engaged in sugar-planting in Natal, having probably acquired a knowledge of this industry in Jamaica, where some of their relations had settled many years before, and according to an article, entitled " The Jews of South Africa," which lately appeared in the Jewish Chronicle, they were the first people to manufacture ice in South Africa. Later on the firm became the largest shipowners at the Cape, trading with Angra Pequena and Port Nolloth, sending dried fish to Mauritius, and bringing back the products of the island. In those days there were no dry docks in Cape Town Harbour or Simon's Bay, and the firm, which at this period was known as De Pass,</page><page sequence="16">JEWISH PIONEERS OF SOUTH AFRICA. 195 Spence, &amp; Co., imported large " Patent Slips " for Simon's Bay and Table Bay, by means of which ships were able to obtain most of the advantages of a dock. When the diamond fields were discovered, younger scions of the house joined the ranks of the diggers, acquired valuable claims in the Kimberley and other mines, and became members of the Mining Board, Justices of the Peace, and citizens of considerable wealth and influence. With regard to public and communal matters, Aaron de Pass was one of the first trustees of the Cape Town Synagogue, whilst his partner Elias, was the honorary secretary of the Cape Town committee formed to induce the Cape Government to provide suitable docks for Table Bay. He also served as a lieutenant in the Kaffir War of 1849, and other members of the family have taken part in later expeditions of a military nature. Messrs. Mosenthal Brothers also established themselves as a firm about this period, and, opening branches throughout the Eastern Province, rendered great services to the farming industries of South Africa. In a great measure the systematic development of the trade in hides, wool, mohair, merino, and other commodities, which had so much to do with the prosperity of the Cape in the latter part of the nineteenth century, was due to the energy and resource displayed by the three pioneer brothers, Julius, Adolph, and James Mosen thai, and their successors. Dr. Hertz claims that the mohair industry was started by them by the importation of a herd of Angora goats in 1850, but, according to Professor Robert Wallace, Angoras were brought to the Cape by Colonel Henderson ten years previously. However, there can be little doubt of the services of the Mosenthals to the mohair and other farming industries, and in addition to this, Julius Mosen thai was the joint-author of a volume entitled Ostriches and Ostrich Farming, which, published in 1877, is perhaps the most valuable work on this subject that has ever been written. He was also Austrian Consul for Cape Town, and in the latter part of the year 1857 was elected a member of the Legislative Council for the Eastern Province, being the first professing Israelite who filled this position in the Cape Colony. He was subsequently appointed Consul-General of the South African Republics for France, whilst Joseph Mosenthal was elected a member of the Legislative Council in the year 1861.</page><page sequence="17">196 JEWISH PIONEERS OF SOUTH AFRICA. The firm was one of the earliest to open out on the diamond fields, where, in addition to their ordinary commercial enterprises, they engaged in diamond mining; and they have been, and are, connected with most important undertakings carried out on the diamond fields. Popular, liberal, and enterprising to a degree, the firm have been for nearly three quarters of a century almost a household word in South Africa, and have added much to the prestige of the Jewish firms at the Cape. Although I have given particulars respecting these two representative examples of prominent pioneer Jewish firms, it is not my intention to make mention of other houses who have taken part in the exploitation of the resources and the development of the trade of South Africa in the latter half of the nineteenth century; suffice it to say, that the energy, enterprise, and resource displayed by the earlier comers have been w7ell maintained by later arrivals, and that the more modern colonists have entered into the public life of the country with vigour, spirit, and ability. Prominent amongst South African Jewish colonists in the early part of the second half of the nineteenth century was the Hon. Simeon Jacobs, C.M.G., who, arriving in the Cape Colony with an introduction to Sir George Grey, the Governor, was admitted as an Advocate of the Supreme Court in 1860, and later on appointed Attorney-General for British Kaffraria. Subsequently he became Solicitor-General for Grahamstown when the Eastern Province of the Cape Colony was administered by a separate lieutenant-governor. He acted in this capacity for several years, and in the year 1874, whilst representing the city of Queenstown in the Cape House of Assembly during the Molten o Ministry, he was appointed Attorney-General of the Cape Colony, and this position he retained up to the year 1877. He took an active and important part in colonial politics, and was instrumental in carrying into law the Act providing for the responsible government of the Cape Colony and several other important statutes. It is stated in the Cape of Good Hope General Directory for 1879 that Mr. Jacobs retired from the Molteno Cabinet on the ground of ill-health, but whether this was the real reason seems doubtful. In any case, however, he appears to have lost the chance of obtaining the coveted post of Chief Justice of</page><page sequence="18">July 17, '74 The Zingari% fol. iv. MR. SPRIGG HAS MILDLY REBUKED THE PREMIER? Vide Seven Circles Debate. The Premier: Jacobs, I'm hit. The Attorney-General : You're a dummy, Sprigg! You're a bully ! The caricature depicts the Hon. Simeon Jacobs, Attorney-General 0/ the Cape, shaking his fist at Mr. (afterguards Sir) Gordon Sprigg, who had ezndently just knocked down the Premier, Mr. Molteno. Mr. Saul Solomon is shoivn as a dwarf, standing on a stool, and helping 011 Sir Gordon Sprigg with his coat.</page><page sequence="19">JEWISH PIONEERS OF SOUTH AFRICA. 197 the Cape Colony owing to his retirement from office, as it appears to have been the custom to appoint the Attorney-General to the post of Chief Justice on the retirement or death of the latter official. He still, however, retained his position on the Executive Council, which he had held from the year 1872, and after refusing to accept the position of Recorder of Griqualand West, under the Sprigg Ministry, he was made a Puisne Judge of the Supreme Court of the Cape Colony in the year 1880. He retired from this appointment in the year 1882 on a pension of ?400 per annum, and, returning to England, died in the following year. I am informed that Mr. Jacobs was a conscientious and professing Israelite, and that he made several material sacrifices for his religion, whilst he attended Jewish public worship whenever at all possible. He wras recognised as one of the soundest and cleverest lawyers at the Cape at this period, and he filled some of the most responsible legal positions in South Africa with credit and ability.6 The three pioneer Jewish congregations in South Africa were Cape Town, Port Elizabeth, and Kimberley (Griqualand West), and the three pioneer ministers were the Revs. Joel Rabinowitz, Samuel Rapaport, and Meyer Mendelssohn. There were, no doubt, other small communities and assemblies for prayers during the festivals, and some temporary readers, marriage officers, and religious officials were from time to time appointed, but these communities were more or less of minor importance and of somewhat ephemeral duration, and the three congregations and their ministers?to all intents and purposes?regulated Jewish matters in South Africa until well into the eighties. At first Mr. Rabinowitz ministered to the whole of South Africa, in the exercise of his manifold offices ; later on Mr. Rapaport supervised the greater portion of the Eastern Province and Natal, and at a still later period my father had jurisdiction over the diamond fields, and was called upon to visit and officiate in the Transvaal and the Free State Republics when these wrere almost entirely agricultural and pastoral countries. When Bechuanaland w7as added to the British possessions by the exertions of Cecil Rhodes and the Rev. John Mackenzie, and the hinter? land of the Cape was thus preserved for our South African empire, my father was gazetted as the first Jewish marriage officer of the Jew colony</page><page sequence="20">198 JEWISH PIONEERS OF SOUTH AFRICA. and the deed of his appointment, signed by Sir Hercules Robinson (after? wards Lord Rosmead) is an interesting memento of the early days of a territory the acquisition of which led to such important developments in the history of South Africa. Joel Rabinowitz went to Cape Town in 1859, and for nearly half a century was a well-known and esteemed citizen of the South African metropolis. He was always a persona grata at Government House, and his activity in charitable and communal matters was recognised far and wide. The old synagogue in Cape Town was built mainly through his exertions, and his various duties kept him busily employed in what was, up to the eighties, a rather sleepy town. A zealous upholder of the Jewish faith, Rabinowitz was a keen fighter for the honour of his race and religion; he was ever ready with his brains, his pen, and his purse in support and defence of his principles, whilst as a collector for public matters and Jewish charities he has been unrivalled at the Cape. In 1876 he engaged in a polemical discussion with the Rev. Franz Lion Cachet, who, with his brother, Jan Lion Cachet, had left the Jewish faith and embraced Christianity. The dispute culminated in the publication of " An open letter to the Rev. Rabbi Joel Rabinowitz, of Cape Town, in answer to his letters in the Gape Aritus, by the Rev. F. Lion Cachet, Minister of the Dutch Reformed Church at Villiersdorp." Franz Lion Cachet became a pillar of the orthodox section of the Dutch Reformed Church, but at one period of his career was bitterly attacked in his public life. Some little time ago a Transvaal paper had a discussion on his original name, which was stated to have been " Levi Zegel," which is equivalent to the French " Lion Cachet." Referring to this report, his brother, Jan Lion Cachet, a " Dopper " minister of the Dutch Reformed Church, wrote to Professor Marais, of Stellenbosch, on the subject, and I will read an extract from a translation of his letter which is of some interest? " Our family name is Lion, as I find on a certificate of membership belonging to my grandfather, of the Synagogue ' Adat Jeschurun' (of Amsterdam). My father told me that my grandfather later took the name of ' Cachet.' This was in the reign of Napoleon I, who compelled Jewish families to take family names. My grandfather was then an engraver in the French service. In a passport dated 1814 I find his name written as Caiman Lion Cachet. That ' Lion'?a very common</page><page sequence="21">JEWISH PIONEERS OF SOUTH AFRICA. 199 name among the Jews?was a form of * Levi' is very likely. You thus see that the name Lion Cachet is a hundred years old, and not assumed by us. . . . The tradition in our family is that we come from Alsace." Franz Lion Cachet has wTritten many books and pamphlets, and in 1882 he published a history of the Transvaal and its people, which exhibited considerable bias against the British. Mr. Rapaport is the only survivor of the three Jewish pioneer ministers, and though he retired from the colonial ministry many years ago, I am pleased to state that he is still with us, and is actively engaged in communal and literary work. He is the author of several books mainly dealing with the Talmud and the Midrash. I do not think that this sketch?restricted as its scope must neces? sarily be?would be in any way complete without referring to the somewhat remarkable group of men who formed the Jewish pioneers of the diamond fields. South Africa before the discovery of these scintillating pebbles was almost a veritable sleepy hollow, and quite the Cinderella of the colonies. Its industries, with the exception of a few copper mines, were almost entirely restricted to farming and agriculture, and the wine-growers and cattle-breeders led a practically Arcadian life, and rarely visited the quiet towns, living a monotonous and eventless life on their peaceful farms. With the discovery of diamonds a new page was opened out in the history of the country ; the ports swarmed with emigrants, and successful diggers made Cape Town, Port Elizabeth, and Durban hum with accounts of their finds. Railways were promoted, new banks started, and enter? prises of every description woke up the silent streets lying under the shadow of Table Mountain. Our people have ever been foremost as merchants of precious stones, as it has frequently been a very convenient desideratum for them to be able to carry their wealth away with them at a very short notice; and they very quickly put in an appearance at the new Eldorado. When in the year 1867 diamonds were first heard of in South Africa, Martin Lilienfeld and other co-religionists were already established as merchants in Hopetown, in the vicinity of the fields. The first diamond we hear of, was picked up by the child of a certain</page><page sequence="22">200 JEWISH PIONEERS OF SOUTH AFRICA. Daniel Jacobs who, in spite of his name, was not a Jew, but a poor trek Boer or Dutch emigrant farmer. The trader to whom it was shown as a curiosity took it, according to certain authorities, " to several Jews in Hopetown and Colesberg," but none "of these would give a penny for it," and eventually the stone was bought by Sir Philip Wodehouse, the Governor of the Cape Colony.7 Thus it is not true, as it is sometimes stated, that the first diamond at the Cape was either discovered or bought by a Jew. Nevertheless, in 1869, when the famous jewel known as the "Star of South Africa" was found by a herd boy, our Hopetown friends knew better, and paid over ?11,000 for it, laying the foundation of the future prosperity of their firm. Other Jews soon flocked to the alluvial fields, and some time after, when prospecting parties came from distant parts of South Africa, amongst them?hailing from Colesberg?was Mr. T. B. Kisch, who with three companions eventually discovered the great Kimberley Mine, the richest diamond mine yet discovered. There is a portrait of Mr. Kisch in Mr. Gardner Williams's great work, The Diamond Mines of South Africa, and the prospector told the author {circa 1900) that he was the only survivor of the party. When you hear sneers at the Jewish capitalists of South Africa, and are told of these men having profited by the toil of the early pioneers of the diamond and gold fields, it may as well be known that a Jewish prospector?working with pick and shovel like the others?found the great mine, the discovery of which was the first step in the modern advancement and progress which has led to the establishment of the great empire of South Africa of to-day. Many of the Jewish pioneers of the diamond fields have attained considerable distinction in recent times, as captains of industry, financiers, military leaders, politicians, and even revolutionaries. Alfred Beit, the philanthropist and financier, was not born a Jew, though of Jewish race, but he was a liberal supporter of Jewish as well as other charities. Barnato, the great speculator, a veritable genius of mining finance, hailed from the East End of London, whilst Sir Sigismund Neumann, Sir George Albu, and Senator Samuel Marks were all pioneers of the fields wTho have left their mark in South Africa in various capacities.8 As a soldier in the field, Sir David Harris has made the name of Jew respected in South African warfare, whilst Sir Lionel Phillips and many other</page><page sequence="23">JEWISH PIONEERS OF SOUTH AFRICA. 201 co-religionists have taken a prominent part in politics, and Alfred Mosely in educational progress. I could indeed mention many other well-known names, but they do not come into the list as pioneers of the diamond fields. Old residents of Kimberley, however, will recollect the short, but at one time brilliant political career of George Garcia Wolf, Senior Member of Parliament for the Diamond City, and will call to mind the fierce fight Barnato put up against his many enemies wrhen, after the lapse of a few years, he triumphantly attained the same position. My labour of love is nearly at an end. I have endeavoured, rather inadequately, I fear, to portray how men of our race gradually settled on the sunny lands of South Africa, taking their part in exploration, coloni? sation, literature, law, Parliament, mining, and commerce. How7, from small beginnings, members of the Jewish community have taken their place in the mixed population of the sub-continent, and have maintained and advanced their position to their own credit and the welfare of the community at large. It may be thought that pioneering is dead, and that the experiences of the last few centuries can never be repeated; that the hidden places of the earth have all been visited now, and that at last there is no new place under the sun. I do not think so, and even if the days of geographical pioneering are closed, our race will as in days of yore press forward in the van of new discoveries or new settlements. Ever as of old, the injunction to our common father Abraham, " Get thee out of thy country . . . unto a land that I wall show thee," rings in our ears and urges us out of the beaten tracks. The real " Juif errant"?a somewhat different personage to Eugene Sue's immortal creation?exists in modern daily life as well as in the old legends. Surely the days have passed away for us of wThich the poet wTrote? " Ever with reverted look The mystic volume of the world they read, Spelling it backward, like a Hebrew book, Till life became a legend of the dead." The Israelites of to-day, as of old, are virile, enterprising, and pro? gressive, and while honouring the lives and deeds of their ancestors, do not by any means live altogether in the past or on the past. Whatever may be their aims in life, the memories of the old pioneers only stimulate</page><page sequence="24">202 JEWISH PIONEERS OF SOUTH AFRICA. them to push forward towards the goal of their ambition, and their future will never be endangered by a slothful dependence on departed glories. Pressing onwards, and urging their way through the hidden paths and devious roads of a world still partially barred to them, they will continue to fulfil their unalterable destiny till the greatest Pioneer of all shall call them hence.</page><page sequence="25">NOTES 1 Hieronymo Osorio (or Osorius), a celebrated Portuguese prelate, wrote an account of the reign of Emanuel, King of Portugal, which he published in 1571, and this book was translated into French and republished, with additions, under the title of Histoire de Portugal in 1581 ; this work contains some information respecting Gaspar da Gama the pilot. It is stated therein that on Vasco da Gama's arrival at Anjadiva a boat came alongside his flagship, on which there was a man who represented himself as an officer of Zambajo, ruler of the neighbouring island of Goa, who had sent him to welcome the visitors to his territories. When the man boarded Da Gama's ship and addressed him in Italian, the Portuguese navigator cross-examined him with some severity, and being dissatisfied with his story, put him to the torture. Under this strain the unhappy envoy confessed that he was a Jew of Tartar nationality and an official of Zambajo, who had sent him to obtain information respecting the Portuguese fleet and its armaments. Soon after learning these facts Da Gama set sail, but he retained possession of the Jew, who was subsequently baptized, and who afterwards rendered valuable services to King Emanuel of Portugal. Mickle, in his translation of Camoen's Lusiad (1798), states (in the accom? panying History of the Discovery of India) that Zambajo was " one of the most powerful princes of India," and that the man who boarded Da Gama's ship was his " first minister." He congratulated the navigator in his master's name, and " said he was an Italian by birth, but in sailing to Greece had been taken by pirates and . . . necessitated to enter into the service of a Mohammedan prince. . . . After a long conference, Da Gama abruptly upbraided him as a spy, and ordered him to be put to the torture. And this soon brought a con? fession that he was aPolonian Jew by birth, and was sent to examine the strength of the Portuguese by Zambajo. . . ." Sternberg, in his Geschichte der Juden in Polenf tells practically the same tale, but adds that Gaspar under torture confessed that "he was a Jew from Posen in Poland, from which town he and his family had fled from the persecution then existing there, first to Palestine, and then to Alexandria in Egypt. From Cairo he afterwards travelled to India via the Red Sea." Sternberg further states that the great navigator, Amerigo Vespucci, wrote a letter to the Medici, dated June 4, 1501, in which he greatly commended Gaspar's services and his valuable nautical knowledge. Dr. Kayserling, in his work entitled Christoph Columbus (1894), relates that some authorities speak of Gaspar as a Grenadine Moor and some as a Pole. He gives a long and interesting account of his career, and relates [inter alia) that 203</page><page sequence="26">204 JEWISH PIONEERS OF SOUTH AFRICA. Gaspar accompanied Cabral in his expedition to India, and in the course of his return voyage met Amerigo Vespucci, who was glad to avail himself of the knowledge and experience of the Jewish pilot, of whom he spoke in the highest terms. Kayserling further states that Gaspar accompanied Vasco da Gama on another expedition in 1502, and on his return went back with him to Lisbon, where King Emanuel recognised his services by conferring on him the rank of a " Cavalier de sua Casa." On the whole, after reading over the various accounts, I think it is probable that the Jewish pilot left Poland with his parents during a period of local perse? cution and went with them to Palestine. Subsequently he proceeded to Egypt and India, where he was made a slave and sent to Anjadiva, where Zambajo took him into his service. After his capture by Da Gama he remained in the employ of the Portuguese up to the time of his death in the engagement at Calicut. It is to be observed, however, that none of the authorities I have mentioned except Whiteway record Gaspar's death in India, and none of them say anything respecting the name he bore before he was baptized. 2 In the " Inscriptions on the Tombstones in the Old Portuguese Cemetery at Middleburg," which accompanied the interesting paper lately read to the Jewish Historical Society by the Rev. Isidore Harris, the grave numbered 58 has an inscription to the memory of Ribca Lobo de Lima, who died in 1689. Graves 57 and 64 have tombstones recording the deaths of members of the De Sossa family. It appears probable that the De Sossa and De Lima families intermarried, and that Joseph Suasso de Lima was a descendant of the family created by this intermarriage. 3 A well-known member of Nathaniel Isaacs' family in the latter part of the nineteenth century was Mr. Saul Isaac, M.P. for Nottingham, who was the first Jew belonging to the Conservative party who was elected to the British Parliament. 4 I have been informed by members of the Bergtheil family that Karl Mauch (the celebrated South African traveller, who explored the ruins of Zimbabwe in he seventies), first came to South Africa under the auspices of Mr. Jonas tBergtheil. It has also been suggested to me that Mr. Bergtheil was connected with Thomas Baines in his expedition to Lo Bengula's country in the year 1869. Unfortunately the documents referring to these interesting historical journeys have not up to now been placed in my hands for examination. 5 Amongst prominent modern descendants of the Solomon family are Sir Richard Solomon, High Commissioner for the Union of South Africa, the Hon. Sir Edward Philip Solomon of Pretoria, and the Hon. Sir William Henry Solomon, Judge of the High Court of the Transvaal. 6 Sir Matthew Nathan, lately Governor of Natal, and now Chairman of the Board of Inland Revenue, is a nephew of Simeon Jacobs. 7 About the year 1861 several Jews migrated to the Cape Colony from Hol? land. Amongst these a few had been employed in diamond cutting and polishing in Amsterdam, but there was so little work there that they could not obtain a living.</page><page sequence="27">JEWISH PIONEERS OF SOUTH AFRICA. 205 When the first South African diamond was brought to Sir Philip Wodehouse, he was told that a certain Louis Hond of Cape Town was an expert diamond cutter. He sent for the workman (a Dutch Jew) to ask his advice respecting the jewel, which he subsequently purchased. Hond later on went to the diamond fields, where he became a well-known diamond buyer. 8 Samuel Marks was a great friend of the late President Kruger. He was an active mine manager in Kimberley, and subsequently was connected with the De Kaap and Witwatersrand Goldfields. He is a pioneer of many industries in the Transvaal, and his advice has often been sought by the Dutch and British Governments in South Africa.</page></plain_text>