[90]. The average Sunday attendance at St. Cyprian’s is now 500 at morning and 700 at evening service; the congregation having more than doubled within the last five years, though the population of Kimberley has certainly diminished. This fact must be subject of great gratification to the clergy of this church. The new church at Beaconsfield (Du Toit’s Pan), named All Saints, is a very handsome stone and brick structure, and the lately consecrated bishop laid the foundation stone of a new church (St. Alban’s) at De Beer’s, about the end of September 1883. There is also a small church (St. Augustine’s) situated at the west end of Kimberley, the present incumbent of which is the Hon. and Rev. Mr. Lyttleton.
[91]. A magnificent monument to the late Mr. Ornstein, subscribed to by members of all denominations on the Diamond Fields, was consecrated in October, 1886.
[92]. The South African native has no religion, worships no God, and his only idea of spiritual life is that his soul, when he dies, takes up its abode in a snake, and that the spirits of his ancestors have the power of working good or evil, or of causing sickness and death.
[93]. A fractured diamond.
[94]. This gentleman’s forte was Roman Dutch law. During his residence on the Diamond Fields he acquired the soubriquet of “Emphytensis” in consequence of his efforts to establish the practical identity of a certain Roman leasehold tenure of that name, and the quit-tenure of the Cape Colony, thus attempting to establish the rights of the Crown to all diamond and precious stones. His endeavors were, however, without avail, and he was laughed at for his pains.
[95]. A noted hostelry near the court-house.
[96]. This is exemplified in the names by which white people of any importance are known among them. For instance, a pompous friend of mine, now an important government official in Natal, was known by the natives as “Totovian” (Intotoviane) after a most offensively odoriferous grasshopper with which he waged incessant war. But the most biting example of native sarcasm, I think, consisted in the name applied by them to a florin (2s. piece) that of “Scotchman.” This conveyed, in one word, their appreciation of the Scotch cheese-paring tendency; as they were shrewd enough to observe, that in cases where an Englishman would give half a crown, his Highland neighbor would give only two shillings.
[97]. Shakespere.—Henry VI., Part ii., Act iv., Scene 2.
[98]. This class of scoundrel gave Christiana the fictitious appearance of a population, but this is more fully explained in the chapter on Diamond Legislation.
[99]. I.e., thirty-six miles, for so are distances reckoned in South Africa.