The Diamond-field mail was full, but they kindly made room for me, and plastered my portmanteau, like an excrescence, on the other baggage.
The drive to Bedford was too short to admit of much familiar intercourse with the diggers,—if diggers they were. Subsequently I met with a successful digger, who told me a good deal about the diamond-fields. He was a Scot, who had left a lucrative claim to be managed by a partner while he took a trip to the “old country.” His account of diamond digging inclined me to think that coal-heaving is a much easier occupation, and more remunerative on the whole, except in the case of lucky diggers. This Scot showed me what he called a “big diamond,” and allowed me to make a careful drawing of it. He could not guess at its value. If it had been a pure diamond like the “star of South Africa,” it would have been worth many thousands of pounds, but it was not pure. According to digger parlance it was “off-colour,” and, therefore, not excessively valuable. Still it was a precious gem, and would doubtless fetch several hundreds of pounds. Of course it was unpolished, but even in that state was very beautiful. It weighed seventy-eight carats. The “star of South Africa,” above referred to, was a pure and magnificent gem. It was found by a Hottentot, named Swartzboy, sold by him for 400 pounds, and disposed of the same day for 12,000 pounds—so, at least, runs one account of the matter.
Late in the evening we reached Bedford.
As we started next morning at break of day my personal knowledge of that flourishing town is too limited to warrant many remarks thereon. It may be that the vision of ghostly houses passing our cart in the morning mists suggested to my sleepy imagination the idea of a town, but I cannot remember that it did. Possibly the fact that the population numbered above 1000 may have occurred to my mind, but I think not. It is more probable that the mind, if it operated at all, pictured the population as recumbent and snoring. Indeed, the only thing that memory will recall, when severely taxed, in regard to Bedford, is—bed, its first syllable.
Note 1. The author was an artist as well as a writer of merit, and exhibited water-colour drawings at the Royal Scottish Academy.