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But the Orange Free State derived a permanent advantage, quite unique and more than compensating the apparent set-back suffered by the loss of the diamond-field territory and by British intervention in the Basuto war matter, in that the method of those procedures saddled England with the responsibility of guaranteeing the internal safety of the State from those hitherto unprotected borders "altogether at her own cost."
I have been told that President Kruger was on this historical trek, a Voor-looper, or little boy who guides the leading oxen. Round Kimberley the country presented a very different appearance, and here we saw the real veldt covered with short grass, just beginning to get burnt up by the summer's heat. Our host, Mr. J. B. Currey, a name well known in Diamond-Field circles, met us at the station.
Formerly the natives of the upper Kotawaringin district had to pay the Sultan gold as a tax. A mining engineer told me that in Martapura, the principal diamond-field, one may find gold, platinum, and diamonds while washing one pan. The total population of the island is probably 3,000,000.
Although disagreeable in the extreme, this did not matter so very much as long as the weather was cool and dry, but later, under the summer sun and the then frequent thunder showers, fever began to take its toll. The epidemic was called "diamond-field fever," and was supposed to be a malady peculiar to the neighborhood.
The Diamond-field mail was full, but they kindly made room for me, and plastered my portmanteau, like an excrescence, on the other baggage. The drive to Bedford was too short to admit of much familiar intercourse with the diggers, if diggers they were. Subsequently I met with a successful digger, who told me a good deal about the diamond-fields.
That evening we came to "Smith's farm," one of the places where the Diamond-field coaches stop to change horses. It was beyond the mountains at the commencement of the great rolling plains. Here I had arranged to await the arrival of the mail-cart, and proceed via Bedford to Grahamstown.
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