The palmy days of the diamond-diggings were in 1870 and 1871, when, if report be true, a swaggering digger would occasionally light his short pipe with a 5l. note, and when a doctor’s assistant was able to clear 1100l. in seven months. But since 1871 the value of the diamonds has been constantly on the decline; and although the yield has been so largely increased that the aggregate profits have not diminished, yet the actual expenses of working have become tenfold greater. Notwithstanding the fall in the value of the stones, the price of the land has risen immensely. At the first opening of the Kimberley kopje, the ordinary claim of 900 square feet could be had for 10l. It is true that the purchase only extended to the surface of the soil; but now that the excavations are made to the depth of about 200 feet, some of the richer pits fetch from 12,000l. to 15,000l., a proof that the real prosperity of the diamond-fields has not deteriorated, because (just as in the gold diggings) the rush of adventurers eager for sudden wealth has been replaced by the application of diligent and systematic industry.
As time has progressed, the mode of obtaining the diamonds has gradually become more skilled and scientific. As the diggers at first worked in their allotments with the assistance of what hired labourers they could get, Hottentots, Kaffirs, and Bechuanas, their apparatus was of the rudest character. It consisted only of a stake, driven into the ground at the upper edge of the pit, with an iron or wooden pulley attached, enabling them to draw up the buckets of diamond-earth by hand. This acted very well as long as the walls of the mine were perpendicular; but when they were at all on the incline, or when, as would sometimes happen, the earth had to be carried a hundred yards or more over the heads of other workers, one stake was driven in at the bottom of the pit and three at the top, and between two of these a cylinder, two or three feet in diameter, or a great wheel, was kept in motion, by natives turning handles at both ends; by this means the full buckets were lifted, and the empty lowered simultaneously; a rope of stout iron-wire connected the third upright stake with the one at the bottom of the pit, and along this there ran two grooved iron rods, that supported a framework, provided with a hook to which the bucket could be attached. As the excavations grew deeper, and the diggers became the owners of more than one claim apiece, the expense of raising the larger quantities of earth, and the waste of time, began to be seriously felt, and led to the introduction of wooden whims—great capstans worked by horse-power. Many of these cumbrous machines are still in use; but the more wealthy diggers, as well as the companies that have recently been formed, now generally employ steam engines.
KIMBERLEY KOPJE IN 1871.
This is specially the case at the Kimberley kopje. Although these are the smallest of the diamond-mines, they are the richest, and consequently attract the largest proportion of diggers. It soon became impossible to find space for the separate hand-pulleys to stand side by side, and huge deal scaffolds were erected, three stories high, so that three distinct lifting-apparatus could be worked one above another, without requiring a basement area of much more than six square feet. At present, however, the edge of the embankment is almost entirely covered with horse-whims and steam-engines that have been brought from England.
HORSE-WHIMS IN THE DIAMOND QUARRIES.
It is no longer allowable for the diamond-earth to be sorted near the place where it is brought up, a practice that was found to lead to much annoyance and disagreement; but the owners are obliged to subject their earth to scrutiny, either within the limits of their own allotments, or to have it conveyed to a piece of ground hired outside the town for the purpose.
KIMBERLEY.