THE STORY OF THE DIAMOND FIELDS.
The first known finding of a diamond in South Africa was as recent as
1867;--so that the entire business which has well nigh deluged the world
of luxury with precious stones and has added so many difficulties to the
task of British rule in South Africa is only now,--in 1877,--ten years
old. Mr. Morton, an American gentleman who lectured on the subject
before the American Geographical Society in the early part of 1877 tells
us that “Across a mission map of this very tract printed in 1750 is
written, ‘Here be Diamonds;’”--that the Natives had long used the
diamonds for boring other stones, and that it was their practice to make
periodical visits to what are now the Diamond Fields to procure their
supply. I have not been fortunate enough to see such a map, nor have I
heard the story adequately confirmed, so as to make me believe that any
customary search was ever made here for diamonds even by the Natives. I
am indeed inclined to doubt the existence of any record of South African
diamonds previous to 1867, thinking that Mr. Morton must have been led
astray by some unguarded assertion. Such a map would be most interesting
if it could be produced. For all British and South African
purposes,--whether in regard to politics, wealth, or geological enquiry
the finding of the diamond in 1867 was the beginning of the affair.
And this diamond was found by accident and could not for a time obtain
any credence. It is first known to have been seen at the house of a
Dutch farmer named Jacobs in the northern limits of the Cape Colony, and
South of the Orange river. It had probably been brought from the bed of
the stream or from the other side of the river. The “other side” would
be, in Griqualand West, the land of diamonds. As far as I can learn
there is no idea that diamonds have been deposited by nature in the soil
of the Cape Colony proper. At Jacobs’ house it was seen in the hands of
one of the children by another Boer named Van Niekerk, who observing
that it was brighter and also heavier than other stones, and thinking it
to be too valuable for a plaything offered to buy it. But the child’s
mother would not sell such a trifle and gave it to Van Niekerk. From Van
Niekerk it was passed on to one O’Reilly who seems to have been the
first to imagine it to be a diamond. He took it to Capetown where he
could get no faith for his stone, and thence back to Colesberg on the
northern extremity of the Colony where it was again encountered with
ridicule. But it became matter of discussion and was at last sent to Dr.
Atherstone of Grahamstown who was known to be a geologist and a man of
science. He surprised the world of South Africa by declaring the stone
to be an undoubted diamond. It weighed over 21 carats and was sold to
Sir P. Wodehouse, the then Governor of the Colony, for £500.[7]
In 1868 and 1869 various diamonds were found, and the search for them
was no doubt instigated by Van Niekerk’s and O’Reilly’s success;--but
nothing great was done nor did the belief prevail that South Africa was
a country richer in precious stones than any other region yet
discovered. Those which were brought to the light during these two years
may I believe yet be numbered, and no general belief had been created.
But some searching by individuals was continued. The same Van Niekerk
who had received the first diamond from the child not unnaturally had
his imagination fired by his success. Either in 1868 or 1869 he heard of
a large stone which was then in the hands of a Kafir witch-doctor from
whom he succeeded in buying it, giving for it as the story goes all his
sheep and all his horses. But the purchase was a good one,--for a
Dutchman’s flocks are not often very numerous or very valuable,--and he
sold the diamond to merchants in the neighbourhood for £11,200. It
weighed 83 carats, and is said to be perfect in all its appointments as
to water, shape, and whiteness. It became known among diamonds and was
christened the Star of South Africa. After a law suit, during which an
interdict was pronounced forbidding its exportation or sale, it made its
way to the establishment of Messrs. Hunt and Rosskill from whom it was
purchased for the delight of a lovely British Countess.
Even then the question whether this part of South Africa was
diamondiferous[8] had not been settled to the satisfaction of persons
who concern themselves in the produce and distribution of diamonds.
There seems to have been almost an Anti-South African party in the
diamond market, as though it was too much to expect that from a spot so
insignificant as this corner of the Orange and Vaal rivers should be
found a rival to the time-honoured glories of Brazil and India. It was
too good to believe,--or to some perhaps too bad,--that there should
suddenly come a plethora of diamonds from among the Hottentots.
It was in 1870 that the question seems to have got itself so settled
that some portion of the speculative energy of the world was enabled to
fix itself on the new Diamond Fields. In that year various white men set
themselves seriously to work in searching the banks of the Vaal up and
down between Hebron and Klipdrift,--or Barkly as it is now called, and
many small parcels of stones were bought from Natives who had been
instigated to search by what they had already heard. The operations of
those times are now called the “river diggings” in distinction to the
“dry diggings,” which are works of much greater magnitude carried on in
a much more scientific manner away from the river,--and which certainly
are in all respects “dry” enough. But at first the searchers confined
themselves chiefly to the river bed and to the small confluents of the
river, scraping up into their mining cradles the shingles and dirt they
had collected, and shaking and washing away the grit and mud, till they
could see by turning the remaining stones over with a bit of slate on a
board whether Fortune had sent on that morning a peculiar sparkle among
the lot.
I was taken up to Barkly “on a picnic” as people say; and a very nice
picnic it was,--one of the pleasantest days I had in South Africa. The
object was to shew me the Vaal river, and the little town which had been
the capital of the diamond country before the grand discovery at
Colesberg Kopje had made the town of Kimberley. There is nothing
peculiar about Barkly as a South African town, except that it is already
half deserted. There may be perhaps a score of houses there most of
which are much better built than those at Kimberley. They are made of
rough stone, or of mud and whitewash; and, if I do not mistake, one of
them had two storeys. There was an hotel,--quite full although the place
is deserted,--and clustering round it were six or seven idle gentlemen
all of whom were or had been connected with diamonds. I am often struck
by the amount of idleness which persons can allow themselves whose
occupations have diverged from the common work of the world.
When at Barkly we got ourselves and our provisions into a boat so that
we might have our picnic properly, under the trees at the other side of
the river,--for opposite to Barkly is to be found the luxury of trees.
As we were rowed down the river we saw a white man with two Kafirs
poking about his stones and gravel on a miner’s ricketty table under a
little tent on the beach. He was a digger who had still clung to the
“river” business; a Frenchman who had come to try his luck there a few
days since. On the Monday previous,--we were told,--he had found a 13
carat white stone without a flaw. This would be enough perhaps to keep
him going and almost to satisfy him for a month. Had he missed that one
stone he would probably have left the place after a week. Now he would
go on through days and days without finding another sparkle. I can
conceive no occupation on earth more dreary,--hardly any more
demoralizing than this of perpetually turning over dirt in quest of a
peculiar little stone which may turn up once a week or may not. I could
not but think, as I watched the man, of the comparative nobility of the
work of a shoemaker who by every pull at his thread is helping to keep
some person’s foot dry.
After our dinner we walked along the bank and found another “river”
digger, though this man’s claim might perhaps be removed a couple of
hundred yards from the water. He was an Englishman and we stood awhile
and talked to him. He had one Kafir with him to whom he paid 7s. a week
and his food, and he too had found one or two stones which he shewed
us,--just enough to make the place tenable. He had got upon an old
digging which he was clearing out lower. He had, however, in one place
reached the hard stone at the bottom, in, or below, which there could
be no diamonds. There was however a certain quantity of diamondiferous
matter left, and as he had already found stones he thought that it might
pay him to work through the remainder. He was a most good-humoured
well-mannered man, with a pleasant fund of humour. When I asked him of
his fortune generally at the diggings, he told us among other things
that he had broken his shoulder bone at the diggings, which he displayed
to us in order that we might see how badly the surgeon had used him. He
had no pain to complain of,--or weakness; but his shoulder had not been
made beautiful. “And who did it?” said the gentleman who was our
Amphytrion at the picnic and is himself one of the leading practitioners
of the Fields. “I think it was one Dr. ----,” said the digger, naming our
friend whom no doubt he knew. I need not say that the doctor loudly
disclaimed ever having had previous acquaintance with the shoulder.
The Kafir was washing the dirt in a rough cradle, separating the stones
from the dust, and the owner, as each sieve-full was brought to him,
threw out the stones on his table and sorted them through with the
eternal bit of slate or iron formed into the shape of a trowel. For the
chance of a sieve-full one of our party offered him half a crown,--which
he took. I was glad to see it all inspected without a diamond, as had
there been anything good the poor fellow’s disappointment must have been
great. That halfcrown was probably all that he would earn during the
week,--all that he would earn perhaps for a month. Then there might come
three or four stones in one day. I should think that the tedious
despair of the vacant days could hardly be compensated by the triumph of
the lucky minute. These “river” diggers have this in their favour,--that
the stones found near the river are more likely to be white and pure
than those which are extracted from the mines. The Vaal itself in the
neighbourhood of Barkly is pretty,--with rocks in its bed and islands
and trees on its banks. But the country around, and from thence to
Kimberley, which is twenty-four miles distant, is as ugly as flatness,
barrenness and sand together can make the face of the earth.
The commencement of diamond-digging as a settled industry was in 1872.
It was then that dry-digging was commenced, which consists of the
regulated removal of ground found to be diamondiferous and of the
washing and examination of every fraction of the soil. The district
which we as yet know to be so specially gifted extends up and down the
Vaal river from the confluence of the Modder to Hebron, about 75 miles,
and includes a small district on the east side of the river. Here,
within 12 miles of the river, and within a circle of which the diameter
is about 2½ miles, are contained all the mines,--or dry diggings,--from
which have come the real wealth of the country. I should have said that
the most precious diamond yet produced, one of 288 carats, was found
close to the river about 12 miles from Barkly. This prize was made in
1872.
It is of the dry diggings that the future student of the Diamond Fields
of South Africa will have to take chief account. The river diggings were
only the prospecting work which led up to the real mining
operations,--as the washing of the gullies in Australia led to the
crushing of quartz and to the sinking of deep mines in search of
alluvial gold. Of these dry diggings there are now four, Du Toit’s Pan,
Bultfontein, Old De Beers,--and Colesberg Kopje or the great Kimberley
mine, which though last in the Field has thrown all the other diamond
mines of the world into the shade. The first working at the three first
of these was so nearly simultaneous, that they may almost be said to
have been commenced at once. I believe however that they were in fact
opened in the order I have given.
Bultfontein and Du Toit’s Pan were on two separate Boer farms, of which
the former was bought the first,--as early as 1869,--by a firm who had
even then had dealings in diamonds and who no doubt purchased the land
with reference to diamonds. Here some few stones were picked from the
surface, but the affair was not thought to be hopeful. The diamond
searchers still believed that the river was the place. But the Dutch
farmer at Du Toit’s Pan, one Van Wyk, finding that precious stones were
found on his neighbour’s land, let out mining licences on his own land,
binding the miners to give him one fourth of the value of what they
found. This however did not answer and the miners resolved to pay some
small monthly sum for a licence, or to “jump” the two farms altogether.
Now “jumping” in South African language means open stealing. A man
“jumps” a thing when he takes what does not belong to him with a tacit
declaration that might makes right. Appeal was then made to the
authorities of the Orange Free State for protection;--and something was
done. But the diggers were too strong, and the proprietors of the farms
were obliged to throw open their lands to the miners on the terms which
the men dictated.
The English came,--at the end of 1871,--just as the system of dry
digging had formed itself at these two mines, and from that time to this
Du Toit’s Pan and Bultfontein have been worked as regular diamond mines.
I did not find them especially interesting to a visitor. Each of them is
about two miles distant from Kimberley town, and the centre of the one
can hardly be more than a mile distant from the centre of the other.
They are under the inspection of the same Government officer, and might
be supposed to be part of one and the same enterprise were it not that
there is a Mining Board at Du Toit’s Pan, whereas the shareholders at
Bultfontein have abstained from troubling themselves with such an
apparatus. They trust the adjustment of any disputes which may arise to
the discretion of the Government Inspector.
At each place there is a little village, very melancholy to look at,
consisting of hotels or drinking bars, and the small shops of the
diamond dealers. Everything is made of corrugated iron and the whole is
very mean to the eye. There had been no rain for some months when I was
there, and as I rode into Du Toit’s Pan the thermometer shewed over 90
in the shade, and over 150 in the sun. While I was at Kimberley it rose
to 96 and 161. There is not a blade of grass in the place, and I seemed
to breathe dust rather than air. At both these places there seemed to be
a “mighty maze,”--in which they differ altogether from the Kimberley
mine which I will attempt to describe presently. Out of the dry dusty
ground, which looked so parched and ugly that one was driven to think
that it had never yet rained in those parts, were dug in all directions
pits and walls and roadways, from which and by means of which the dry
dusty soil is taken out to some place where it is washed and the debris
examined. Carts are going hither and thither, each with a couple of
horses, and Kafirs above and below,--not very much above or very much
below,--are working for 10s. a week and their diet without any feature
of interest. What is done at Du Toit’s Pan is again done at Bultfontein.
At Du Toit’s Pan there are 1441 mining claims which are possessed by 214
claimholders. The area within the reef,--that is within the wall of
rocky and earthy matter containing the diamondiferous soil,--is 31
acres. This gives a revenue to the Griqualand Government of something
over £2,000 for every three months. In the current year,--1877,--it will
amount to nearly £9,000. About 1,700 Kafirs are employed in the mine and
on the stuff taken out of it at wages of 10s. a week and their
diet,--which, at the exceptionally high price of provisions prevailing
when I was in the country, costs about 10s. a week more. The wages paid
to white men can hardly be estimated as they are only employed in what I
may call superintending work. They may perhaps be given as ranging from
£3 to £6 a week. The interesting feature in the labour question is the
Kafir. This black man, whose body is only partially and most grotesquely
clad, and who is what we mean when we speak of a Savage, earns more than
the average rural labourer in England. Over and beyond his board and
lodging he carries away with him every Saturday night 10s. a week in
hard money, with which he has nothing to do but to amuse himself if it
so pleases him.
At Bultfontein there are 1,026 claims belonging to 153 claimholders. The
area producing diamonds is 22 acres. The revenue derived is £6,000 a
year, more or less. About 1,300 Kafirs are employed under circumstances
as given above. The two diggings have been and still are successful,
though they have never reached the honour and glory and wealth and
grandeur achieved by that most remarkable spot on the earth’s surface
called the Colesberg Kopje, the New Rush, or the Kimberley mine.
I did not myself make any special visit to the Old De Beer mine. De Beer
was the farmer who possessed the lands called Vooruitzuit of the
purchase of which I have already spoken, and he himself, with his sons,
for awhile occupied himself in the business;--but he soon found it
expedient to sell his land,--the Old De Beer mine being then
established. As the sale was progressing a lady on the top of a little
hill called the Colesberg Kopje poked up a diamond with her parasol. Dr.
Atherstone who had visited the locality had previously said that if new
diamond ground were found it would probably be on this spot. In
September 1872 the territory of Griqualand West became a British Colony,
and at that time miners from the whole district were congregating
themselves at the hill, and that which was at once called the “New Rush”
was established. In Australia where gold was found here or there the
miners would hurry off to the spot and the place would be called this
or that “Rush.”
The New Rush, the Colesberg Kopje,--pronounced Coppy,--and the Kimberley
mine are one and the same place. It is now within the town of
Kimberley,--which has in fact got itself built around the hill to supply
the wants of the mining population. Kimberley has in this way become the
capital and seat of Government for the Province. As the mine is one of
the most remarkable spots on the face of the earth I will endeavour to
explain it with some minuteness, and I will annex a plan of it which as
I go on I will endeavour also to explain.
The Colesberg hill is in fact hardly a hill at all,--what little summit
may once have entitled it to the name having been cut off. On reaching
the spot by one of the streets from the square you see no hill but are
called upon to rise over a mound, which is circular and looks to be no
more than the debris of the mine though it is in fact the remainder of
the slight natural ascent. It is but a few feet high and on getting to
the top you look down into a huge hole. This is the Kimberley mine. You
immediately feel that it is the largest and most complete hole ever made
by human agency.
At Du Toit’s Pan and Bultfontein the works are scattered. Here
everything is so gathered together and collected that it is not at first
easy to understand that the hole should contain the operations of a
large number of separate speculators. It is so completely one that you
are driven at first to think that it must be the property of one
firm,--or at any rate be entrusted to the management of one director.
It is very far from being so. In the pit beneath your feet, hard as it
is at first to your imagination to separate it into various enterprises,
the persons making or marring their fortunes have as little connection
with each other as have the different banking firms in Lombard Street.
There too the neighbourhood is very close, and common precautions have
to be taken as to roadway, fires, and general convenience.
You are told that the pit has a surface area of 9 acres;--but
for your purposes as you will care little for diamondiferous or
non-diamondiferous soil, the aperture really occupies 12 acres. The
slope of the reef around the diamond soil has forced itself back over an
increased surface as the mine has become deeper. The diamond claims
cover 9 acres.
You stand upon the marge and there, suddenly, beneath your feet lies the
entirety of the Kimberley mine, so open, so manifest, and so uncovered
that if your eyes were good enough you might examine the separate
operations of each of the three or four thousand human beings who are at
work there. It looks to be so steep down that there can be no way to the
bottom other than the aerial contrivances which I will presently
endeavour to explain. It is as though you were looking into a vast bowl,
the sides of which are smooth as should be the sides of a bowl, while
round the bottom are various marvellous incrustations among which ants
are working with all the usual energy of the ant-tribe. And these
incrustations are not simply at the bottom, but come up the curves and
slopes of the bowl irregularly,--half-way up perhaps in one place, while
on another side they are confined quite to the lower deep. The pit is
230 feet deep, nearly circular, though after awhile the eye becomes
aware of the fact that it is oblong. At the top the diameter is about
300 yards of which 250 cover what is technically called “blue,”--meaning
diamondiferous soil. Near the surface and for some way down, the sides
are light brown, and as blue is the recognised diamond colour you will
at first suppose that no diamonds were found near the surface;--but the
light brown has been in all respects the same as the blue, the colour of
the soil to a certain depth having been affected by a mixture of iron.
Below this everything is blue, all the constructions in the pit having
been made out of some blue matter which at first sight would seem to
have been carried down for the purpose. But there are other colours on
the wall which give a peculiar picturesqueness to the mines. The top
edge as you look at it with your back to the setting sun is red with the
gravel of the upper reef, while below, in places, the beating of rain
and running of water has produced peculiar hues, all of which are a
delight to the eye.
As you stand at the edge you will find large high-raised boxes at your
right hand and at your left, and you will see all round the margin
crowds of such erections, each box being as big as a little house and
higher than most of the houses in Kimberley. These are the first
recipients for the stuff that is brought up out of the mine. And behind
these, so that you will often find that you have walked between them,
are the whims by means of which the stuff is raised, each whim being
worked by two horses. Originally the operation was done by
hand-windlasses which were turned by Kafirs,--and the practice is
continued at some of the smaller enterprises;--but the horse whims are
now so general that there is a world of them round the claim. The stuff
is raised on aerial tramways,--and the method of an aerial tramway is as
follows. Wires are stretched taught from the wooden boxes slanting down
to the claims at the bottom,--never less than four wires for each box,
two for the ascending and two for the descending bucket. As one bucket
runs down empty on one set of wires, another comes up full on the other
set. The ascending bucket is of course full of “blue.” The buckets were
at first simply leathern bags. Now they have increased in size and
importance of construction,--to half barrels and so upwards to large
iron cylinders which sit easily upon wheels running in the wires as they
ascend and descend and bring up their loads, half a cart load at each
journey.
As this is going on round the entire circle it follows that there are
wires starting everywhere from the rim and converging to a centre at the
bottom, on which the buckets are always scudding through the air. They
drop down and creep up not altogether noiselessly but with a gentle
trembling sound which mixes itself pleasantly with the murmur from the
voices below. And the wires seem to be the strings of some wonderful
harp,--aerial or perhaps infernal,--from which the beholder expects that
a louder twang will soon be heard. The wires are there always of course,
but by some lights they are hardly visible. The mine is seen best in the
afternoon and the visitor looking at it should stand with his back to
the setting sun;--but as he so stands and so looks he will hardly be
aware that there is a wire at all if his visit be made, say on a
Saturday afternoon, when the works are stopped and the mine is mute.
When the world below is busy there are about 3,500 Kafirs at work,--some
small proportion upon the reef which has to be got into order so that it
shall neither tumble in, nor impede the work, nor overlay the
diamondiferous soil as it still does in some places; but by far the
greater number are employed in digging. Their task is to pick up the
earth and shovel it into the buckets and iron receptacles. Much of it is
loosened for them by blasting which is done after the Kafirs have left
the mine at 6 o’clock. You look down and see the swarm of black ants
busy at every hole and corner with their picks moving and shovelling the
loose blue soil.
But the most peculiar phase of the mine, as you gaze into its one large
pit, is the subdivision into claims and portions. Could a person see the
sight without having heard any word of explanation it would be
impossible, I think, to conceive the meaning of all those straight cut
narrow dikes, of those mud walls all at right angles to each other, of
those square separate pits, and again of those square upstanding blocks,
looking like houses without doors or windows. You can see that nothing
on earth was ever less level than the bottom of the bowl,--and that the
black ants in traversing it, as they are always doing, go up and down
almost at every step, jumping here on to a narrow wall and skipping
there across a deep dividing channel as though some diabolically
ingenious architect had contrived a house with 500 rooms, not one of
which should be on the same floor, and to and from none of which should
there be a pair of stairs or a door or a window. In addition to this it
must be imagined that the architect had omitted the roof in order that
the wires of the harp above described might be brought into every
chamber. The house has then been furnished with picks, shovels, planks,
and a few barrels, populated with its black legions, and there it is for
you to look at.
At first the bottom of the bowl seems small. You know the size of it as
you look,--and that it is nine acres, enough to make a moderate
field,--but it looks like no more than a bowl. Gradually it becomes
enormously large as your eye dwells for a while on the energetic
business going on in one part, and then travels away over an infinity of
subdivided claims to the work in some other portion. It seems at last to
be growing under you and that soon there will be no limit to the variety
of partitions on which you have to look. You will of course be anxious
to descend and if you be no better than a man there is nothing to
prevent you. Should you be a lady I would advise you to stay where you
are. The work of going up and down is hard, everything is dirty, and the
place below is not nearly so interesting as it is above. One firm at the
mine, Messrs. Baring Gould, Atkins, & Co. have gone to the expense of
sinking a perpendicular shaft with a tunnel below from the shaft to the
mine,--so as to avoid the use of the aerial tramway; and by Mr. Gould’s
kindness I descended through his shaft. Nevertheless there was some
trouble in getting into the mine and when I was there the labour of
clambering about from one chamber to another in that marvellously broken
house was considerable
[Illustration:
_PLAN and Valuation of
KIMBERLEY MINE.
1876._
]
and was not lessened by the fact that the heat of the sun was about 140.
The division of the claims, however, became apparent to me and I could
see how one was being worked, and another left without any present
digging till the claim-owner’s convenience should be suited. But there
is a regulation compelling a man to work if the standing of his “blue”
should become either prejudicial or dangerous to his neighbours. There
is one shaft,--that belonging to the firm I have mentioned; and one
tramway has been cut down by another firm through the reef and
circumjacent soil so as to make an inclined plane up and down to the
mine.
On looking at the accompanying plan the reader will see that the ground
was originally divided into 801 claims with some few double numbers to
claims at the east end of the mine;--but in truth nearly half of those
have never been of value, consisting entirely of reef, the
diamondiferous matter, the extent of which has now been ascertained, not
having travelled so far. There are in truth 408 existing claims. The
plan, which shews the locality of each claim as divided whether of worth
or of no worth, shews also the rate at which they are all valued for
purposes of taxation. To ascertain the rated value the reader must take
any one of the sums given in red figures and multiply it by the number
of subdivisions in the compartment to which those figures are attached.
For instance at the west end is the lowest figure,--£100, and as there
are 37 marked claims in this compartment, the rated value of the
compartment is £3,700. This is the poorest side of the mine and probably
but few of the claims thus marked are worked at all. The richest side
of the mine is towards the south, where in one compartment there are 12
claims each rated at £5,500, so that the whole compartment is supposed
to be worth £66,000. The selling value is however much higher than that
at which the claims are rated for the purpose of taxation.
But though there are but 408 claims there are subdivisions in regard to
property very much more minute. There are shares held by individuals as
small as one-sixteenth of a claim. The total property is in fact divided
into 514 portions, the amount of which of course varies extremely. Every
master miner pays 10s. a month to the Government for the privilege of
working whether he own a claim or only a portion of a claim. In working
this the number of men employed differs very much from time to time.
When I was there the mine was very full, and there were probably almost
4,000 men in it and as many more employed above on the stuff. When the
“blue” has come up and been deposited in the great wooden boxes at the
top it is then lowered by its own weight into carts, and carried off to
the “ground” of the proprietor. Every diamond digger is obliged to have
a space of ground somewhere round the town,--as near his whim as he can
get it,--to which his stuff is carted and then laid out to crumble and
decompose. This may occupy weeks, but the time depends on what may be
the fall of rain. If there be no rain, it must be watered,--at a very
considerable expense. It is then brought to the washing, and is first
put into a round puddling trough where it is broken up and converted
into mud by stationary rakes which work upon the stuff as the trough
goes round. The stones of course fall to the bottom, and as diamonds
are the heaviest of stones they fall with the others. The mud is
examined and thrown away,--and then the stones are washed, and rewashed,
and sifted, and examined. The greater number of diamonds are found
during this operation;--but the large gems and those therefore of by far
the greatest value are generally discovered while the stuff is being
knocked about and put into the buckets in the mine.
It need hardly be said that in such an operation as I have described the
greatest care is necessary to prevent stealing and that no care will
prevent it. The Kafirs are the great thieves,--to such an extent of
superexcellence that white superintendence is spoken of as being the
only safeguard. The honesty of the white man may perhaps be indifferent,
but such as it is it has to be used at every point to prevent, as far as
it may be prevented, the systematized stealing in which the Kafirs take
an individual and national pride. The Kafirs are not only most willing
but most astute thieves, feeling a glory in their theft and thinking
that every stone stolen from a white man is a duty done to their Chief
and their tribe. I think it may be taken as certain that no Kafir would
feel the slightest pang of conscience at stealing a diamond, or that any
disgrace would be held to attach to him among other Kafirs for such a
performance. They come to the Fields instructed by their Chiefs to steal
diamonds and they obey the orders like loyal subjects. Many of the Kafir
Chiefs are said to have large quantities of diamonds which have been
brought to them by their men returning from the diggings;--but most of
those which are stolen no doubt find their way into the hands of
illicit dealers. I have been told that the thefts perpetrated by the
Kafirs amount to 25 per cent. on the total amount found;--but this I do
not believe.
The opportunities for stealing are of hourly occurrence and are of such
a nature as to make prevention impossible. These men are sharpsighted as
birds and know and see a diamond much quicker than a white man. They
will pick up stones with their toes and secrete them even under the eyes
of those who are watching them. I was told that a man will so hide a
diamond in his mouth that no examination will force him to disclose it.
They are punished when discovered with lashes and imprisonment,--in
accordance with the law on the matter. No employer is now allowed to
flog his man at his own pleasure. And the white men who buy diamonds
from Kafirs are also punished when convicted, by fine and imprisonment
for the simple offence of buying from a Kafir; but with flogging also if
convicted of having instigated a Kafir to steal. Nevertheless a
lucrative business of this nature is carried on, and the Kafirs know
well where to dispose of their plunder though of course but for a small
proportion of its value.
Ten shillings a week and their food were the regular wages here as
elsewhere. This I found to be very fluctuating, but the money paid had
rarely gone lower for any considerable number of men than the
above-named rate. The lowest amount paid has been 7s. 6d. a week.
Sometimes it had been as high as 20s. and even 30s. a week. A good deal
of the work is supplied by contract, certain middlemen undertaking to
provide men with all expenses paid at £1 a week. When mealies have
become dear from drought,--there being no grass for oxen on the
route,--no money can be made in this way. Such was the case when I was
in Griqualand West. It is stated by Mr. Oats, an engineer, in his
evidence given to the Committee on the Griqualand West Annexation Bill,
in June 1877--that the annual amount of wages paid at Kimberley had
varied from £600,000 to £1,600,000 a year. Nearly the whole of this had
gone into the hands of the Kafirs.
Perhaps the most interesting sight at the mine is the escaping of the
men from their labour at six o’clock. Then, at the sound of some
welcomed gong, they begin to swarm up the sides close at each other’s
heels apparently altogether indifferent as to whether there be a path or
no. They come as flies come up a wall, only capering as flies never
caper,--and shouting as they come. In endless strings, as ants follow
each other, they move, passing along ways which seem to offer no hold to
a human foot. Then it is that one can best observe their costume in
which a jacket is never absent but of which a pair of trowsers rarely
forms a portion. A soldier’s red jacket or a soldier’s blue jacket has
more charms than any other vestment. They seem always to be good
humoured, always well-behaved,--but then they are always thieves. And
yet how grand a thing it is that so large a number of these men should
have been brought in so short a space of time to the habit of receiving
wages and to the capacity of bargaining as to the wages for which they
will work. I shall not, however, think it so grand a thing if any one
addresses them as the free and independent electors of Kimberley before
they have got trowsers to cover their nakedness.
I must add also that a visitor to Kimberley should if possible take an
opportunity of looking down upon the mine by moonlight. It is a weird
and wonderful sight, and may almost be called sublime in its peculiar
strangeness.