Dalrymple J. Belgrave
"Luck at the Diamond Fields"
Story 1.
A Tale of the Kimberley Coach.
Chapter One.
The coach to the Diamond Fields was just starting from the Beaufort West railway-station, and the passengers who were destined to travel over hundreds of miles of burnt-up veldt together, to be jolted over water-courses, choked in dust-storms, and suffer the many discomforts and annoyances of South African travel in each other’s society, were eyeing one another distrustfully.
The feeling uppermost in the minds of several of them was that they were very likely to become not a little tired of one another before they reached the iron town of Kimberley.
With one or two exceptions they were old residents on the Diamond Fields, returning after a trip home to Europe or to the Colony, and therefore they knew each other very well, at least by sight. Their acquaintanceship as a rule made them look forward with all the more distaste to the idea of spending some days in the same coach.