If you asked a South African mining man, no doubt he would tell you that
there are no rubies in Africa. He would be wrong.
To my knowledge two very large ones have been found. One of them I have
seen. The other I have heard about. Take my word for it, there are many
rubies in Africa. I will go so far as to tell you where. I hope you will
go and look for them, and, what is more, find them.
The rubies of which I write are to be found on the banks of the Zambesi,
somewhere below the Victoria Falls. If I could give more exact details,
I wouldn't do it: I should go and look for them myself.
As I said before, I know they are there, because I have actually held
one in my hand. The man who showed it to me told me it was a ruby. I
believed him, of course. I had reason to. But just to make sure, I
placed it between two half-crowns, put the precious sandwich on a flat
slab of granite, and gave it a severe twisting under my heel.
My silver suffered. I did manage to pass those half-crowns off on
someone, but I felt a criminal.
Now this old man who showed the ruby to me looked a very old man
indeed. He was a Scotsman. His long beard was only slightly red,
otherwise it was white. To be quite accurate, I suppose I should say he
had a long white beard tinged with pink. At least, so it seemed to me
the first time I saw it and him.
It is just twenty-five years ago that the old man came to my camp on the
Zambesi, some forty-five miles above the Victoria Falls.
Quite apart from his beard he was obviously old. His legs were thin. He
hobbled from rheumatism. His cheeks were hollow, and how very thin his
ears were! I remember his ears quite well, they were almost transparent
and his hands--well, they were just claws.
This poor old man came to me for three things.
One. Could I mend a shot-gun? I had a look at the dingy old weapon and
admitted that it was quite beyond me. It was a double-barrelled shot-gun
with four good inches gone from the right barrel, one from the left, and
the rib of metal which should join the two was curled back for a good
ten inches.
He explained that he had tried to shoot a king-fisher and his gun
exploded. He suggested that a mouse must have crept up the barrel during
the night.
Perhaps one had.
I, personally, should have said that the gun was suffering from the same
complaint as its owner--old age.
Well, I couldn't help him in the matter of the gun, so what was the next
thing?
Had I a drop of good Scotch? Yes, by Jingo, I had, and very welcome the
poor old fellow was to it.
I gave him a good dose of his native medicine, which seemed to put back
the clock of time for him at least a couple of dozen years.
And the third thing?