[6] The purchasers were in treaty for De Beer’s farm at the time when the first diamond was found by a lady’s parasol on the little hill where is now the Kimberley mine, and £600 was added to the purchase money in consequence. It is calculated that diamonds to the value of £12,000,000 have since been extracted from the mine.
[7] I find the story told with slight variation by different persons. I have taken the version published in the second edition of Messrs. Silver’s Handbook, having found ample reason to trust the accuracy of that compilation. See p. 378 of that volume.
[8] This is an abominable word, coined as I believe for the use of the British Diamond Fields;—but it has become so common that it would be affectation to avoid the use of it.
[9] Since this was written a mail steamer with a large amount of these diamonds among the mails has gone to the bottom of the sea. The mails, and with the mails, the diamonds have been recovered; but in such a condition that they cannot be recognised and given up to the proper owners. They are lying at the General Post Office, and how to dispose of them nobody knows.
[10] In 1869 the amount was £295,661. In 1875 it was £735,380. In 1869 the total revenue was £580,026. In 1875 it was £1,602,918; the increase being nearly to three-fold. The increase in the expenditure was still greater;—but that only shews that the Colony found itself sufficiently prosperous to be justified in borrowing money for the making of railroads. The reader must bear in mind that these Custom Duties were all received and pocketed by the Cape Colony, though a large proportion of them was levied on goods to be consumed in the Diamond Fields. As I have stated elsewhere, the Cape Colony has in this respect been a cormorant, swallowing what did not rightfully belong to her.
[11] Mr. Theal’s “History of South Africa,” vol. ii. p. 147.
[12] Lord Carnarvon was Colonial Secretary when this was written.
[13] Nevertheless there is a beautifully self-asserting clause in a treaty made in 1876 between the Orange Free State and Portugal, which provides—“That ships sailing under the flag of the Orange Free State shall in every respect enjoy the same treatment and shall not be liable to higher duties than Portuguese vessels.”
[14] What I have said here as to duties levied say at Fort Elizabeth on goods for the Orange Free State applies equally to goods for the Transvaal landed in Natal at Durban.
[15] Moselekatze himself was no doubt a Zulu; but the Matabeles whom he ruled were probably a people over whom he had become master when he ran away from Zululand.