Within a year after the discovery of the first “crystal stone” in the valley of the Vaal, where the indolent Korannas alone had dragged on a dreamy existence, long rows of tenements had started up, although for the most part they were merely unsubstantial huts; but very soon South Africa, from end to end, became infected with the diamond-fever. Young and old, sick and healthy, servants and masters, country-folk and townsmen, sailors and soldiers deserting their calling; and Dutch Boers, with their whole families, yielded to the impulse to migrate to the alluring scene that had suddenly become so famous. The encampments that they made were transformed with incredible speed into regular towns of 4000 or 5000 inhabitants; and when the intelligence was circulated that the “Star of Africa,” a diamond of eighty-three carats and a half, had been picked up, every European steamer brought over hundreds of adventurers, all eager to take their chance of securing similar good fortune for themselves.
Thus in addition to Klipdrift grew up the town of Hebron, River Town, Gong Gong, Blue Jacket, New Kierk’s Rush, Delportshope, Waldeck’s Plant and others, the glory of many of them, however, being destined to be very transient, some of them passing away as suddenly as they had risen. The report was no sooner spread that on the plain of the Dutoitspan Farm, below the river-diggings on the Vaal, diamonds had been found in abundance on the surface of the earth, than the old stations were forthwith abandoned, every one hurrying off in hot haste to the dry-diggings, which were supposed to be much more prolific.
Out of the large number of those who succeeded in quickly realizing large fortunes, a large proportion squandered their wealth as rapidly as they had acquired it; and as the new settlements soon developed themselves into dens of vice and demoralization, the majority of the population, being mere adventurers, came utterly to grief.
On the Vaal itself the diamonds are collected from the alluvial rubble. This rubble consists of blocks of greenstone, containing fine, almond-shaped chalcedonies and agates, some as large as a man’s fist and like milk quartz, others smaller and of a pink or carmine tint, and occasionally blue or yellow; it covers the district between Bloemhof and Hebron, and is known distinctively as Vaal-stone. But besides greenstone, the rubble includes a number of other elements; it consists partially of fragments of the trap-dyke that is characteristic of the district between Hebron and the mouth of the Harts, as well as of nearly all the hills in the east of Cape Colony, in the Orange Free State, and in Griqualand; it contains likewise a certain proportion of milk-quartz, clay-slate, sand yielding magnetic iron, and numerous pyropes; these vary in size from that of a grain of millet to that of a grain of maize, and were awhile mistaken for garnets and rubies; moreover, it contains portions of the limestone that extends both ways from the Vaal, though not forming the actual valley of the river; it is a stone in which I never discovered any fossils.
The diggers, after obtaining their portion of diamond rubble from the “claims,” as the parcels of ground allotted them by the authorities were called, had first to convey it down to the river; they had next to sift it from the heavier lumps of stone, and then to wash it in “cradles,” three or four feet long and about one and a half wide, until they had entirely got rid of the clay. In the residuum they had finally to search carefully for the treasure. The stones found in this locality were, as a general rule, very small, but their colour was good and their quality fine; they were called “glass-stones,” whilst the larger and more valuable brilliants obtained in the two other districts were distinguished as “true river-stones.”
SQUARE IN DUTOITSPAN.
The second, and hitherto the most important diamond-field, is that which I have called the central-diggings; they are what formerly were understood by the dry-diggings. They include the four mines in the Kimberley district, and form two separate groups, the north-western containing Kimberley, and Old de Beers adjoining it on the east, and the eastern group containing Dutoitspan, with Bultfontein closing it in on the south and west. This eastern group lies about two miles from Kimberley, and about one mile from Old de Beers. Kimberley itself is about twenty-two miles to the south-east of Klipdrift, and is the most important of the four mines I have mentioned, being that where the greatest numbers of diamonds of all qualities are found. The stones found at Dutoitspan are valued very much on account of their very bright yellow colour, those obtained at Bultfontein being generally smaller, but equal in purity to the “river-stones.”
Diamond-mines vary in depth from forty-five to 200 feet, and may be from 200 to 700 yards in diameter. The diggings are locally called “kopjes,” being divided into “claims,” which are either thirty feet square, or thirty feet long by ten feet wide; of these a digger may hold any number from one to twenty, but he is required to work them all. For the ordinary “claim” the monthly payment generally amounts to about twenty florins for ground-rent and for water-rate, made to the Government and to a Mining Board, which consists of a committee of diggers appointed to overlook the working of the whole. In Dutoitspan and Bultfontein there is an additional tax paid to the proprietors, i. e. the owners of the farms; but in the Kimberley and Old de Beers group the Government has purchased all rights of possession from the firm of Ebden and Co.
I have little doubt in my own mind that these pits are the openings of mud craters, but I am not of opinion that the four diggings are branches of the same crater; it is only a certain resemblance between the stones found in Old de Beers and those found in Kimberley that affords the least ground for considering that there is any subterranean communication between the two diggings. At the river-diggings I believe that one or more crater-mouths existed in the vicinity of the river bed above Bloemhof.