Page 31 - Fourways Gardens August Issue 2023

Lifestyle

Old Pretoria

All photos are from Wikipedia Commons

Paul Kruger and his wife, Gezina British general Frederick Sleigh Roberts

the seat of power out of Pretoria and create country for the next few months. months later, he travelled by train to the port
a temporary field capital in Machadodorp of Lourenço Marques and sailed to Marseilles,
(now eNtokozweni), a town a few hundred During this time, the railway carriages they France. He eventually settled in Clarens,
kilometres away in the old Eastern Transvaal. were travelling in doubled as government Switzerland.
offices. Kruger’s carriage was also his home
Before he left Pretoria, Kruger instructed at the time. The carriage is still in perfect When the war officially ended in May 1902,
Boer Kommando that all the gold and gold bars in the Mint – condition and is on view at the Kruger the mystery of the missing Kruger Millions
allegedly two million pounds at the time, be Museum in Pretoria. escalated.
removed. That money was being used to fund
the Boer armies in the continuing war. But a few days after Kruger left, there was Treasure hunters continue to believe that
panic in Pretoria. The accountant of the Mint the most likely location of these millions is
The Boers didn’t want that fortune to fall into arrived for work at 7am on the Monday somewhere between Machadodorp and the
enemy hands. morning of 4 June 1900. He discovered that Mozambican border. One of their favourite
there was still some gold bullion and gold places to search is Waterval Boven (now
Kruger, fearing for his own safety, said coins left in the Mint. Emgwenya). That’s because the train that
goodbye to his wife, Gezina, and slipped away carried the treasure passed through the
secretly on the night of 31 May 1900. He left He and his staff knew that Roberts was railway tunnel there. Some people believe
her in Pretoria as she was too ill to travel. He approaching from the south, so they had to it would have been easy to stop the train in
never saw her again – she died in July 1901. work fast. They weighed the gold, made an the middle of the tunnel, throw some bags of
inventory and packed them in wooden crates. gold into a hole in the ground and proceed
He left state attorney Jan Smuts in charge in These were loaded onto mule carts and taken on the journey.
Pretoria. to the station, which was about 2km away.
Others say Kruger took the millions with him
Kruger and members of the Transvaal The gold and 134 gold bars were taken from when he fled to Switzerland and stashed it in
government were forced to retreat in the face the mule carts and put on a train headed for a bank there.
of the British invading armies. They caught a the new, temporary seat of government in
train along the eastern railway line heading Machadodorp, where Kruger was now living. Still others claim the funds were exhausted by
for Lourenço Marques (now Maputo). The But what happened when it arrived there is a the demands of the Boer war.
train stopped 215km away from Pretoria in mystery.
Machadodorp and they decided to make The mystery of the missing Kruger Millions
this town the temporary field capital of the When Kruger left Machadodorp a few continues to this day.

Fourways Gardens • 29 • August 2023