United States or Eswatini ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
When I point out, what you know, that our mine is as yet without the delicate plant of Kimberley, the stones being simply picked from the blue-earth by three inexpert friends of the firm on the spot, you will recognize that the wealth of a mine can no further go...."
It would have been better to repeat the Kimberley tactics and to sweep the regiments in extended order past the obstacle if we could not pass over it. At the other side of that little ill-defended kopje lay a possible termination of the war, and our crack cavalry regiments manoeuvred for hours and let it pass out of their reach.
Such was the local estimate of Boer shortcomings based on flimsy data, or no data at all. In Kimberley, we only laughed at looting, and if the Boers effected an entrance we had no objection to the exercise of their talent for vandalism. We said so; because we were profoundly confident of our collective capacity to keep them out. Cynicism was the fashion.
The example of Kimberley ought to have opened the eyes of the Mother Country, and measures should have been taken to prevent the purely commercial domain of the gold fields from assuming such strident political activities, and little by little dominating not only the Transvaal Republic, but also the rest of South Africa. Mrs. van Koopman had cherished a great affection for Rhodes.
Going first to South Africa as a young man in quest of health, Cecil Rhodes soon made a huge fortune out of Kimberley diamonds and Transvaal gold, and by 1890 had become the Prime Minister of Cape Colony. In the pursuit of his aims he was absolutely unscrupulous.
The cupidity of our age, the eagerness with which wealthy aliens are welcomed into our best houses and families, is to me, I may say, distasteful. Better that our coronets were dimmed than that they should be gilded with the gold eagles of Chicago or blazing with the diamonds of Kimberley. My feelings on this point are unusually I do not think that they are unduly acute. Logan murmured assent.
The President has just ordered that one of the big siege-guns shall be sent to Cronje." The burghers and the Boers had only to wait open-mouthed for plums to drop at Mafeking, at Kimberley, at Ladysmith.
"From the island?" Kate gasped. "Middling down in the mouth, too, and plagued out of his life between the ruck of you," continued Pete; "but God forgive you all, you can't help it." "Did you say you were going out of the island, Pete?" "Coorse I did; but what's the odds? Africa, Kimberley, the Lord knows where " "Kimberley! Not Kimberley, Pete!"
It would be most inexpedient to send troops to Mafeking at this moment, and there is not the slightest necessity for such a step, as there is no danger from Kimberley volunteer corps or from Mafeking. I have sent De Wet with ultimatum this morning to Johannesburg, and believe arms will be laid down unconditionally. I understand in such case Jameson and all prisoners will be handed over to me.
When people who amount to anything meet they don't have to waste months in finding each other out. It is only the doubtful ones who have to be tested again and again. When I was a kid in the diamond mines in Kimberley, I have seen the experts pick out a perfect diamond from the heap at the first glance, and without a moment's hesitation.
Word Of The Day