Evening star., 1924-10-12

dug all the diamonds out Of our
claim. I had always thought that
Dudley, seeing my condition, had
turned his back on a possible fortune
in order to get me to the coast before
/ died. But the blacks who had
worked with US went up the Maza-
runi after we left the colony and
discovered that the pocket of clay
ended abruptly just foot deeper
into the hill than we had gone. They
turned their attention to another
creek and discovered another pocket
Of clay, from which they took sew
eral hundred karats.
AS the magic lure of diamond hunt
ing grew upon me again more and
more and it's pull at me became more
irresistible l began to piece together
what news 1 could CLEAN from Brit
ish Guiana and to study the huge
difticulties-equaled only by it's in
comparable fascination-of diamond
hunting in general
1t was quite apparent now.
learned. that many scattered bands
Of negroes were finding diamonds all
about the the headwaters OF the
Mazaruni, that the gems had been
washed down from some nearby
origin and had been deposited in the
alluvial clays of an ancient period.
These clay deposits were not uni
formly distributed over the river and
creek banks. but were irregularly
scattered without apparent co-ordina-
ton.
1t was evident that it would be
impossible to take machinery into
the jungle at this stage and make
money by largeScale mining op-
Grafton. Transportation up the river
was highly expensive and was of
such a nature as would prohibit en-
tirely the Importation OF dredges or
heavy machines. And the deposits
being so scattered, did not offer suf-
ncient returns in any one area to
warrant the financial expenditure
that was necessary to work them
properly with machinery. There was
a great difference between the dia-
mond deposits Of Guiana and those
OF the original discoveries in Africa
IN the case of Africa-to digress for
a moment-the earliest Dutch set
tiers. trekking the prairies Of the
Transvaal, discovered that there were
diamonds in the dried-up beds of the
sun-scorched creeks. The more ad-
venturous Of them Immediately stop
ped in their search for new farm
lands and became prospectors. They
knew very little about mining, but
luck smiled on them. as it has smiled
on SO many others who have struck
fortunes in that continent. There was
no towering jungle to hem them in,
no impossible rapids. They could
travel where they liked. carrying all
their equipment in heavy oxcarts.
Wide horizons stretched all around
them. They were in many ways free
men, lords OF all they surveyed, not
midgets, like ourselves in the Guiana
forests, continually battling against
inordinate odds.
The story is told that these Dutch
settlers were able to crawl over GER
tain areas on their knees, picking up
diamonds with their fingers from
among the surface gravel. They be-
gan searching for the source from
which the diamonds had come. 1t was
a question of digging where the dia-
monds were thickest. AS they worked
up the stream beds, they found that
the diamonds became thicker. In one
locality especially they were found to
be generously mixed with the surface
gravel.
But, in addition to the thought of
mining for diamonds. there was be-
ginning to take shape in my mind an
elaborate plan to build chain of
trading stations. I was primarily in
terested in mining the diamonds, but
/ realized that for the present the
work could best be carried out by in
dependent blacks.
These blacks had been working for