Part 4 (2/2)

So to drink However, all were helpful towards one another I have often known soer or another co for permission to fill it at one of our casks Such a request would never be refused After the first well in the vicinity of the mine had been sunk, water was sold fro and evening the crush was so great that people had to wait perhaps half an hour before they could be served I recall one occasion when, the need for a sudden superficial ablution having arisen, I ran over to the liquor-shop tent and bought a bottle of soda-water for the purpose

I have a very clear recollection of the first case of dia on the part of a servant that came under my notice A certain Major Bede, an Aht a Hottentot in his e a stone The major recovered his property, but the thief wrenched hirasp of his captor, bolted like a rabbit between the sorting-heaps, and gained the open veld A general view hallo was raised; I should say at least a hundred and fifty men streamed out and joined in the pursuit

The Hottentot easily distanced them all, but unfortunately for hiht front This itive off The latter was brought back, tried on the spot, and sentenced to receive fifty lashes He was triced up to the wheel of a wagon; an elderly man he had been in the Royal Navy appeared with a cat o' nine tails At every stroke the culprit called out, in derision, ”Hoo-lay” Although terribly punished he never uttered a cry I re struck by the curious circumstance that the ex-sea his ”cat” with hi ca

I will now relate how I very nearly beca sohtly built, I was not of ed that our Hottentot boy, David, should takethe twelve oxen This arrangeae area was the big shallow basin to the ard, within the perirass, and at the eastern end of which stood a grove of exceptionally large camel thorn trees This rise afterwards ca Kopje”; eventually it was named ”Kimberley,” after Lord Kimberley, as Secretary of State for the Colonies at the time of the annexation of the diamond-fields On it were usually to be found hares, Naes, korhaan, and an occasional steenbok Ant-bears and jackals had been at work at various places One burroas exceptionally deep, and the gravel thrown up from it looked exactly like that of the clai I deter on my own account at this spot

Unfortunately, however, I mentioned ster was alike chaff This was so h to send me away in a state of ly often made me the butt of their cheap witticisms

When I spoke of the burrow and the reseravel at its , this was made a pretext for derision

Day by day I was bantered about ly I would be asked how hed, and so on

Consequently, I was afraid again to mention the subject Had it been possible secretly to obtain the necessary appliances for prospecting, and to get thee ofsome of my friends in the other ca known and beingthe thing off

However, I never abandoned the intention of one day carrying out the ”prospect” But I delayed too long; the clue dangled by Fortune within rasped by other hands

One day when I drove e I noticed that the carove had been invaded A tent had been pitched there, and the sly; not because it in any way interfered withI could still have done that freely, and the tent was nowhere near my burrow but for the, to ht in theThe ca, and his party Mr Ortlepp I afterwards got to know, but at that time we had not met So for the future I avoided the area in which I had been accustoht new and aun at ho e which runs south-east from Kimberley in the direction of Du Toit's Pan, I noticed a strea from De Beers towards the north-west, and at once correctly inferred what had happened Diamonds had been discovered by the Ortlepp party, and a ”rush” was in progress Leaving the cattle to fend for themselves, I started at a run across the veld towards the objective of the rushers My burrow! on that ed to reach the spot before any one else had pegged it out Three or four tunes I paused to take breath, and each tune I ed to pause in the vicinity of sos ith to mark out my ”claim” When I reached the kopje which, by the way, never was a kopje at all ar But I noticed with delight thatit were still unappropriated Accordingly I got inapproximately thirty one feet six inches (or thirty Dutch feet), the burrow being exactly in thefrom exhaustion

I remained on my claim until darkness fell One by one I watched the prospectors depart; I was not going to risk being dispossessed ofwas in sight I had h to Brown, so him to send David out to look for the oxen When I reached the ca the cattle and running after ”wild cat” However, my blood was now up, so I told Brown that for the present I would do notothis, and ordered e of the cattle, but I defied hi; there was, in fact, no hint of dawn in the sky when I reachedreached my destination some tiht with hteen inches square for use as a sorting-table, and a s of sifted gravel Day soon began to break, so I filledthe latter in a heap on the plank

There was not enough light for sorting; I sat on a tussock and watched the east grohite

But theup and went to ith the pick, uprooting the grass and bushes Day waxed and a few h, I crouched down and began sorting the gravel on the board With the scraper I separated a small handful from the heap, and spread it out so that every individual pebble became visible These would be swept off the board and the forh the heap my heart leaped to my throat, and I almost swooned with ecstasy there in the littered a diamond It was very sht, still, it was most indubitably a diaed coat for a scrap of paper wherein to wrap my treasure Then I put the diht I finished sorting the heap of gravel and again filled the sieve I sorted this and loosened round with the pick, filling the sieve withwhat reht in h, flattened out and roasted on a gridiron) This I munched as I worked

More andof picks and the ”whish, whish” of sieves sounded from every direction

So towards a certain spot I leapt up and ran too A diamond had been found, and around the lucky finder an excited and curious crowd soon collected

The stone, a clear yellow octahedron of about ten carats' weight, was passed from hand to hand to be admired and appraised After an enthusiastic ”hip hip hurrah” the crowd dispersed, each one eager to test his claiood fortune until after my partners had arrived and I had confounded their skepticisination; what a lofty lecture I meant to read them on the unreasonableness of their incredulity Within a fewout; another crowd collected Oncewent on, at

It er strolled up I watched their approach

”Well, have you made our fortune?” asked Brown

”I have found a diamond,” I replied loftily

”What!” he said, with a start ”Where is it?”

I searched through all the pockets and interstices of ers I turned every pocket inside out, but no dia surface of the sand

But all in vain; er smiled superciliously, and strolled back to De Beers That was to me an hour of bitter humiliation

However, as the day went on, more and more diamonds, some of considerable size, were found Indubitable evidence of this having reachedable toone out This was on the western edge of the kopje, clean outside the dia area But this circumstance was not yet known, for here the red soil lay nearly ten feet deep over the bed-rock However, we exchanged this worthless site for a piece of ground in No 9 Road a half clairound turned out to be very valuable