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The "stuff" a green, tenacious, decomposed rock of the consistency of very tough pot-clay, but granular and abounding in mica would be loosened with a pick, hauled up to the level of the road by means of bucket, rope, and pulley, and then conveyed to the depositing-floor. The bulk of the native labor at the diamond-fields was drawn from Bechuanaland and the northern Transvaal.
Already I have seen a straw-colored diamond from "Du Zoit's pan" in the diamond-fields cut in Amsterdam and set in London, which could hold its own for purity, radiance and color against any other stone of the same rare tint, without fear or favor; but of course such gems are not common, and fairly good diamonds cost as much here as in any other part of the world.
I want to know the true candid opinion of a man who has travelled about the world, and has been at the diamond-fields. It isn't everybody who has been at the diamond-fields," continued he, thinking that he might thereby flatter his friend. "No, not everybody. I suppose a young woman is the same there as here, if she have the same natural gifts. Miss Forrester would be pretty anywhere."
If railways were run up to the diamond-fields, adventurous diggers would crowd in hundreds to the great pit of Kimberley; some would succeed; those who failed would gravitate into the positions for which they were fitted by nature in a land where the want of labourers is a confessedly perplexing evil.
Upon other much less severe occasions entire gangs of 20-50 Kaffirs, travelling from the warm north to the diamond-fields or gold-mines, and not sufficiently provided with blankets, would be found at their camping places huddled together, nearly all numbed to death.
Rhodes ought to have had the manners and mental habits of a gentleman, but apparently these had suffered a good deal of dilution in the diamond-fields. His address was distinctly oily, and I remember thinking what a mistake he had made in his conception of the stage directions for the short dialogue scene which he had insisted on his entourage producing.
Circumstances had been arranged differently, and she must bear it. But she knew that it would be better for her that she should see John Gordon no more. Had he started at once to London and gone thence to the diamond-fields without seeing her again there would be a feeling that she had become the creature of stern necessity; there would have been no hope for her, as also no fear.
Next morning was cloudless; the ranges far and near were heavily, covered with glistening snow. A few days later we picked up two men, who were tramping towards the diamond-fields. One was named Beranger; I believe he was the son of a former lessee of Covent Garden Opera House. His companion was a man named Hull, an ex-publican from Lambeth.
I don't see why I shouldn't go to the diamond-fields as well as a younger man." "It is not about your age, Mr Whittlestaff; but I do not think you would be happy there." "Happy! I do not know that my state of bliss here is very great. If I had bought your shares, as you call them, and paid money for them, I don't see why my happiness need stand in the way." "You are a gentleman, Mr Whittlestaff."
He left no stone unturned in his search for information visiting Sir Hercules Robinson, the Governor of the Cape, Sir Theophilus Shepstone, Sir Evelyn Wood, Colonel Mitchell, Bishops Colenso and Macrorie, the Zulu King Cetewayo, the principal statesmen, the military, the newspaper editors, the workers at the diamond-fields, and many others.
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