The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1872-03-23 00:00:00

LIFE AT THE DIAMOND FIELDS.

The Special Correspondent of the Daily Telegraph, writing
from Dutoitspan, Cape Colony, Jan. 9, has sent an interest-
ing sketch of his visit to the African Diamond Fields, from
which we make the following extracts
• • •

-
I have just returned from a little Christmas trip in
a south-westerly direction. In England some natural
curiosity may be felt 89 to the character and value of
our latest annexation ; and I would fain gratify the in-
quiring spirit. First, then, I will confess that no one
could be more astonished than myself to learn how
monstrous is this slice of Africa over which the Union
Jack now metaphorically flies. . . . The diamond
region now worked, though fifty miles long and near
as many broad, is only a fraction of the space on
which our lion has laid his paw. But few maps, I
should suppose, will yet be found in which the
places and lines enumerated in the proclamation
are set down. The eastern boundary on the south
line-Ramah Mission House, upon the Orange
River, some ten miles to the eastward of Hopetown- -
is.distant from Old Platteberg, the eastern limit on
the north, fully a hundred miles as the crow flies;
hot, in point of fact, the boundary runs at an obtuse
angle outwards through David's Graaf. The northern
line, which inclines considerably to the east, is eighty
miles in direct measurement fioni Old Platteberg to
Koning. The western boundary -Koning to Kheis --
through the northermost spur of the Lange-Bergen
mountains, is rather over 150 miles. While the Orange
River, forming the southern frontier, would count
nearly the same distance in a straight course, the river
frontage, with its windings, is actually calculated at
220 miles. Taking a diagonal line from Old Platte-
berg to Kheis, we have the respectable figir eof 200
miles. This is no mean territory for a kingdom.
But I am bound to admit that her Majesty the
Queen possesses not, in all her mighty Empire, another
strip of country RO unlovely. I have seen a good deal
of it, and I speak without prejudice. Such a weary.
dreary waste scarce Aden's self could show. Wide plain
succeeds to plain, broken only by naked piles of
pebbles or low red hills. A dull green carpet of wild
camomile, or a duller spread of scanty grass, stretches
to the horizon. Through the burnt herbage shows the
pale red sand. At intervals an aloe roars its low and
prickly head, or a dwarf acacia, three feet high,
from a landmark visible for miles. In the dry
and dusty water - courses - deep riven by the
furious rains--a brighter patch of green betrays
the feathery cotton-plant of the Cape. On the low
hillocks, parched as a heap of cinders, grow thorny
thickets among the stones, each shrub six feet apart
from its nearest neighbour. For fifty yards on each
side the Vaal or Orange rivers there are trees, willows,
and acacias ; but the earth is bare and sandy as else-
where. Once or twice during each day's rile the travel-
ler exclaims, in accents of delight. " Why, there's a
tree !" as some poor, feeble camel-thorn conies into view,
which would think itself ridiculed in England if we
dignified it with the name of bush. Flowers there are,
indeed, of no mean beauty, but lost in the colourless
waste.
About every twenty miles one reaches what we are
pleased to call a " farm -some nasty hut, standing
behind a pool of rainwater, and inhabited by the
filthiest race of savages on earth, the Boers. Such un-
utterably dirty dens are most of these-nine in ten
would be a generous average-that even men colonial
horn, who are not used to be particular, will sit outside
in the shadow of their carts, whilst the team is resting,
rather than enter them.
Poverty is not the excuse for the farmers' beastly
• habits. 'Wretched though the country looks, it is well-
liked by sheep. The man whose family all pig to-
gether in two cabins-with stinking skins pilot in each
, corner, raw flesh drying upon the rafters, every (life
, gusting parasite in heaps upon the floor-shears perhaps
five thousand fleeces in the year, and owns some
r , hundred head of horses itiad cattle, . . .

The only Kaffir village I have yet had the oppor-
tunity of visiting is one inhabited by families of the
Basuto tribe, situated at the junction of the V aal and
Orange rivers. I never saw 'English cottages half as
dean. The floors are of paddled clay, but there is not
a speck of dirt or discolouration upon them. I should
think the women must sweep them out punctually
each hour of thy day. Smells are sunply non-existent.
No cooking, nor washing, nor dirty work of any kind,
is allowed to be done beneath the roof. The
Kaffir architecture has a quaint said barbarous
appearance; but to enter the neat, deist, roomy
hut is tc irs instantaneously convinced that here
is the true stSric of building for this climate.
One steps from the blazing sun without into a sweet
and wholesome atmosphere, cool to English April.. . .
The Kaffir meets you at the door, his clean black face
all smiles and welcome. The fat and sturdy babies,
whose development of talk ose tissue would drive an
English matron wild with envy, suck a well-washed
thumb as they watch the stranger with bend-like eyes.
There is not a speck of dirt upon their round brown
bodies, still unconscious of sun-burning. The women
and grown girls hastily throw a spotless handkerchief
across their shoulders, and all display their snow
white teeth in unaffected joy to see an English-
- -

Through all the territory I traversed there are or
have been diamonds found. We passed the very house
where that flrst gem was discovered which has been
the mother, one may say, of al.l these busy dings.
We saw the boy who Oohed it up, now grown into a
stupid, filthy youth. He has found two or three more
since that time, among the pebbles behind the house.
Not an inch of soil has been disturbed to look for them.
If the sparkle of the stone should catch the Boer's
quick eye, he will condescend to stoop and pick it up ;
but that is all. There are plenty of young Dutchmen
on the fields, digging and sorting like men; but they
are the ne'er-do-weels of the colony, not the farmers.
At another place a 55,arat diamond had been dug
out in the garden plot. In the Basuto village we saw a
bran-new waggon, resplendent with paint, and twelve
fine oxen belonging thereto--the proceeds of one lucky
glance up n the sand. This spot, at the junction of
the Vaal and Orange Rivers, appears to be unusually
rich. The Kaffirs don't dig on their land, any more
than the Boers, but they traverse it more frequently in
hunting, and have perhaps quicker eyes—though in
this r-spect the descendants of the stolid Dutch have
almost, if not quite, attained to the savage level. Prob-
ably not fewer than a score of stones, mostly large, have
been picked up at the junction. In this neighbour-
hood, moat certainly, the " Star of South Africa," now
lying at Messrs. Hunt and Roskell's, was discovered.
As many barren places claim the honour as did
! Grecian cities Homer's birthplace; but one thing is
I quite decided—the Hottentot who found it first offered
his prize for asje at a little store standing all lonely on
"The Hook," just rffipositethe outflow of the Vaal.
The storekeeper was away, and his assistant did not
like to risk so large a sum as -c.2oo—the finder's modest
price. Niekirk, the man who fifst suspected that his
neighbour's pretty plaything might be Jt diamond, had
the next offer, and he bought the stone for Y4OO worth
I of goods and cattle. He sold it in turn, for R 12,9007 to
Messrs. Lilienfeld, of Hopetown, who disposed of it t.O
,! Messrs. Hunt and Roskell for a larger sum—but how
much I do not know. - _

I closed my last letter with direful ruinous of dis-
turbance at New Bush, otherwise called New de Beer's,
or Colesberg Kopje. I am gratified to add that the
rioters carried their proceedings no further. The
buring of five canteens and three tents satisfied their
sense of justice. Mr. Giddy, our new Magistrate and
Civil Commissioner, has shown himself to be the de-
termined man wanteu here. . . . It does not need
explanation to convince any one that special legisla-
tion is required for a business so unusual as diamond-
digging. The "Star of South Africa" itself
might be hidden in the hollow of a man's hand, in the
folds of his cummerbund, in a hundred places about his
person. 111mh more is this true of smaller gems. A
negro might hide £5,000 worth of his master's property
in his cheek, and not be suspected of anything
more improper than a "quid." In Brazil a slave
works stark naked, but his class have a real
grievance to complain of if thefts imputed to them
are bare suspicions. And there is not a trick prac-
timed at Bahia unknown here. Two days ago, a Kaffir
asked leave to return home on the plea of an incurable
sore upon his leg. His master, unwilling to lose a
"lay," examined the wound, which was sloughing
badly. He pursued his kindly interest so far as to
squeeze the place—whereupon a nineteen-carat gem
leaped out! There is no way of keeping men honest ;
but it may, at least, be made as difficult m possible to
dispose of the stolen property....
Let terrorists say as they like, the health of all the
camps is astonishingly good. London itself is not
, more free from disease, although every condition of
health is here violated.