The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1870-11-01


ments."
These diamond fields are on the vaal river,
the head stream of the great Orange river,
which forms the chain of dividing mountains
flanking the Indian Ocean, flows eastwardly
for more than a thousand miles into the
Atlantic, in south latitude twenty-nine. The
products of this vast region between the
Orange region and the southern sea coast in
cude cotton, sugar, coffee, indigo, wheat,
Indian corn, sweet potatoes, grapes, oranges
and pineapples. But cattle and sheep furn-
ish the chief articles of export. The Cape
colony alone has produced in a single year
eight million pounds of wool. The Vaal is a
beautiful river among the hills, the water
clear and delicious, the climate healthy as
California the country charming in its natu-
raj attractions, and living cheap, from the
astonishing abundance of cattle and of wild
game of all kinds. Gordon Cumming has
pronounced South Africa the hunters para
disc. His catalogue of wild animals slain in
that quarter, from the lion, the elephant and
rhnoceros, to the buffaloes, zebras, giraffes,
wild boars and gazelles of many varieties, is
enough to excite the envy of every young
Nimrod in the world who has not shared in
his good fortunes.
What then, to the adventurous spirits of
the Anglo Saxon race will be the limit to the
rush to South Africa, when, in addition to all
the other attractions indicated, we have this
irresistible magnet of the Vaal diamond
fields, where the precious stones, along the
river hills and water courses for five hundred
miles, are picked up, varying from five hun
dred to five hundred thousand dollars in
value--where thousands of diamond hunters
are moving about like ants over an ant hil
and where, from the lucky findings, the
host of fortune seekers increases every
day? Our reports from that now famous
region recall to us the stories of the first rush
of ''the diggers" to the California gold placers
in 1S49. Nay, the mind is carried back to the
vast migrations of bold adventurers from
Spain which followed her first explorers in
search of the ingots of gold and silver with
which the new continent then abounded from
Mexico to Peru, and to the whole chain of
Spanish American States thus founded, and
to the decline of Spain in her resulting ex-
haustion and decentralization from her proud
place as the dominant kingdom of Europe to
the weakness of a third-rate power. We are
carried back to Sir Walter Raleigh, and to
the dreams of gold placers which contributed
to the colonization of North Carolina and
Virginia and to the discovery by De Soto of
the Mississippi river, and which even affected,
to some extent, the Pilgrim Puritans of Mas
sachusetts and the French pioneers into
Canada, Acadia, and Louisiana.
From these hopes and dreams of speedy
wealth in discoveries of treasures of gold and
early settlements of America, North and
South, by Europeans, we are brought down
in this channel of history to California and
Australia, and thence to the later discoveries
of gold and silver in our new Western States
and Territories of Nevada, Arizona, New
Mexico, Colorado, Utah, Idaho, Oregon,
Wyoming, and Montana, and to the amazing
results of the development of their mines in
| the expansion of the conquests of modern
civilization. Thus the overland railway from
the Atlantic to the Pacific, or rather from ST.
| Louis to San Francisco, which was in 1850
| considered utterly impracticable, is in 1870
| in successful operations; and thus find
regions, pronounced not long ago as worth
less as the Desert of Zahara, now sprinkled
with prosperous towns and rising cities boast
ing their daily newspapers.
We have seen too, that with the exception
of the gold washings of California her people
are developing enduring sources of wealth in
her wheat fields and vineyards, and that as
the gold placers of Australia are exhausted
new sources of prosperity are opened in her
boundless sheep and cattle ranges. So will it
be with the diamond fields of South Africa.
The diamond districts of Brazil have failed to
attract any effective emigration because of
the drawbacks of the climate and the obstruc-
tions of the Government. In South Africa,
on the other hand, where the freedom and
| health of California prevail and the abundant
blessings of the hunters paradise, we expect
some wonderful results in the expansion of
civilization and commerce from the attrac-
tions of those diamond mines. 1t is the
realization of that diamond story of the Ara
bian Nights; and why may not the adven-
turer to the Vaal diamond fields dream of
coming away with a single pebble in his
waistcoat pocket that makes him million.
aire?
The great continent of Africa, which boasts
the Oldest and grandest monuments of ancient
civilization, has been through all time and
remains to this day, excepting small section
here and there, in a state of barbarism. IT.
capabilities however, for human subsistence
and luxuries are illimitable. On her northern
coast, embracing Algeria and all those States
Africa has still the resources for the creation
of greater commercial empire than was Car
thage; her western equatorial coast regions o.
boundless fertility need only the stimulus anC
discipline of civilization to her native black
to develop in time trade greater than tina
of India; her great equatorial basin and uppe
valley of the Nile may be made to yield hun
dreds of thousands of cattle and millions o
bales of cotton, and the broad, fertile BASH
of the Zambezi, on the Indian Ocean side
may be made to rival in its tropical product
! the valley of the Amazon. South Africa
however, from its inviting climate and it
great variety of products is surely destine
at no distant day to bring into the front ranl
of civilized States prosperous, independen
confederation.
England, as naval outpost and CONNER
9 eial depot, may still hold fast the Cape o
Good Hope but as she has gained the am
plest profits in trade from the United State
, as an independent nation so she will in goo
4 | tima find IL her trua noliav rafhar tn