The Saint Paul globe. (St. Paul, Minn.) 1896-1905, 1900-11-25
TWO BUSHELS o GEMS
But THE MAN WHO FOUND THE
DIAMONDS ONLY GOT A
HANDFUL
POCKETS BOTTOM FELL OUT
The Fabulous Fortune Disappeared
In the Earth-StOry Like an
Arabian Nights
Tale.

ST Joseph, CMo) Cor. Chicago Inter
Ocean.
Nathan B. Jewett, formerly a horse
sheer in this city, has returned from
South Africa with a dozen large dia-
monds and a tale that is like one from
the -4rabian Nights brought up to date.
Jewett says he found more than bushel
of diamonds IN pocket in the Draken-
berg mountains of Cape Colony. But he
obtained only handful of them.
Jewett left ST. Joseph four or five
years ago, and went to Chicago, where
he met Frank Evans, whom he had
known when they were boys in Atchi-
son county, Missouri. Evans ran away
from home when very young, and had
Travelled all over the world. He was
sick when JeWett met him in Chicago,
and Jewett sent him to a hispital Two
weeks later Evans said that he was go
ing to die, and he told Jewett that he
knew where there was a diamond pocket
in South Africa. He gave Jewett a
map that purported to show the loca-
ton of the diamonds, and exacted
promise from him that if they were
found, the aged mother of Evans, If still
living, should have part OF the wealth.
thought at the time, said Jewett
that Evans was insane, but I still kept
the papers he had given me- In short
time I went TO Indiana polls to work and
while there decided to go to South Africa
The location of the diamond pocket was
not very clear to him, and after landing
at Lurban 1 worked my way over into,
the Drakenberg hills, about 100 miles
northwest of Harrismith. That is
diamond country, but I found nothing
there. I found one place in the Orange
Free State that answered the description
of the spot indicated in the papers, but
the diamonds were not there. After
staying two or three months I went 10
Cape Town, and from there to Beaufort,
striking into the Drakenberg range sew
enty-ive miles from there.
FIRST SEARCH WAS UNsUCCESS-
Full.
The hardships of such a search are al
ways indescribable, and many times
almost made up my mind that Evans
must have been insane when he told me
about his great discovery I did not know
whether he had seen them himself or
had heard of them from somebody else.
He was feVerish toward the last, and did
not make himself clearly understood.
After a long search found the pocket
of diamonds down in a little gorge that
would be easily overlooked. Tehre must
have been nearly two bushels of them,
and the sight made me wild with JOY.
All at once 1 realized that I was the
richest man in the world, with that
treasure there before me. and all of it
mine. The diamonds had been washed
into the pocket year after year, perhaps
for a thousand years. The pocket was in
a solid rock, except that there was a
crack at the bottom, where the water
seeped out. Some worthless stones were
there, but the pile was nearly all dia-
monds. I took a handful of them. and
they were all I got Of that wonderful
pile of wealth, richer by far than the
accommodations of any one man on earth
'I have no idea how [ acted during
the next two or three days, or why
did not carry the diamonds away. I
know I was not in my right mind, and
that I could not eat or sleep A terrible
fear overcame me that somebody else
would find the pocket of diamonds, and
I hung about the place night and day,
undecided as to what move I should
make. When I regained my senses
was close to the diamonds, and felt the
earth trembling. 1t was something like
an earthquake. 1 ran to the rock where
the diamonds lay, and at that instant
saw the rocks split apart a distance of
several hundred feet, making a crevice
a foot wide. It ran through the pocket