“The handsomest and most trustworthy race are the Zulu Caffres of Natal and Caffraria. The next are the Basutos. Third are the thievish and drunken Hottentots, and fourth, the Koraunas, small, ugly, and contemptible beings, despised by all the rest, and of no use to the diggers, owing to their unconquerable laziness. I always admired a Zulu. There was one living near our tent, a model for a sculptor. He would sometimes cross my path, with his long steady strides, his blanket hanging around him in graceful folds like the toga of a Roman senator. One hand grasped the robe, and allowed freedom of motion, while the other would be crossed on his breast. In his woolly locks, braided and arranged neatly on his head, would appear feathers of different wild birds, while underneath his massive brow shone a pair of eyes—coal-black eyes—with such long lashes that they reminded me of eyes in eastern pictures. A man with such orbs as his could speak were he deaf and dumb. An aquiline nose, with inflated nostrils, overshadowed a delicately curved mouth, full of firmness and pride. Below was the massive chin of statesmen and conquerors. In fact, he was a model man in ebony.”
The natives will only work a short time. When they have accumulated a certain amount of money, they purchase arms and ammunition and go home. They are good-tempered, obedient, and faithful, and do not spend much money upon dress. Sometimes they get themselves up gorgeously, and a wardrobe sufficient for an ordinary white man will dress at least a dozen negroes. One will deck himself with a coat, another with a hat, another will consider himself finely arrayed in a paper collar, while a pair Of trousers will be sufficient for two, if properly divided. An odd boot, shoe, or stocking, or an old shirt that reaches perhaps as far as the waist, is considered the proper thing for polite society in negro land.
The discovery of diamonds in South Africa was made in the year 1870. A traveler through those regions stopped one night at a farm-house, and found the children playing with some pebbles. One of the pebbles attracted his attention, and he bought it for a trifle. He subsequently sold it, at Cape Town, for three thousand dollars. He bought another from a negro, which he sold for fifty-six thousand dollars, making a very fair margin of profit on his transaction. When the natives found these stones were of value, they began to search for them, and a great many were brought in. Then began the rush for the diamond fields. Great numbers of people went there from Cape Town, and as the news spread to England and to other countries, there was considerable excitement concerning the South African fields. The place where the diamonds were found is in an extensive district of country belonging to Dutch farmers.
GARNET AS AN INDICATOR.
The surface indication of a diamond mine are numerous garnets, which are not of any particular value. The general rule is that wherever the garnet is found, one is pretty certain to find diamonds. At first, the principal diggings were at a place on the Vaal river, where there was an abundance of water. The gravel was taken to the river and washed, and the diamonds were separated from the worthless stones. Only the earth was allowed to float away, as it was possible that some large and valuable gems might be carried off with the smaller stones. When the stones had been separated from the earth, they were carefully sorted, and in a short time the miners became very expert at recognizing the gems.
The diamond fields of South Africa, covering an area of perhaps one thousand square miles, are between longitude 24° and 28° east, and latitude 27° and 30° south. It is estimated that, down to the end of 1876, eighty-five million dollars worth of diamonds had been taken out, and this estimate does not include thousands of stones that were carried directly to England by their owners, and did not pass through the market at Cape Town. Diamond owners would have been ruined completely by the African discoveries, had it not been for the fact that the great majority of the diamonds found there are of poor quality. Professor Lenant, who has given considerable attention to the matter, says that of the Cape diamonds, about ten per cent. may be classified as first quality, fifteen per cent. of the second, and twenty-five per cent. of the third. The remainder, under the name of “bort,” is employed in cutting diamonds and for various other purposes, by the lapidary, by the engineer in rock drills, for cutting glass, and similar purposes.
DIFFICULTIES OF MINING.
Unfortunately for the miners at the Cape, there is a very short supply of water. If they could have adopted the system of hydraulic mining to their work, they would have saved enormous labor and expense. At many of the fields which are distant from the rivers, the gravel is removed by means of buckets, drawn up by long ropes, and it very often happens that a single heavy rain of a few hours, will destroy the entire labor of months, the pit becomes filled with water, and there will be no way of extracting it except by evaporation, or by the laborious process of hoisting or pumping. One of the fields, known as Colesberg Kopje, fell off, in one year, more than fifty per cent. from the yield of previous years, in consequence of the heavy caving and floodings caused by the rains. The value of claims in that region has gradually fallen, and so desperate is the condition that, at last accounts, money was loaned upon mining licenses at the rate of ten per cent. a month, with a foreclosure at the end of the first month if the interest was not paid.
At the diamond camp, the small stones form the basis of value. They might be used for currency except for one fact. Gold dust, in California, was used for currency, for a long time. Its value, of course, is directly proportioned to its weight, a pound nugget being worth exactly twelve times as much as an ounce nugget of the same fineness, but the value of diamonds increases with enormous rapidity as they grow heavier, so they cannot be put in bunch or weighed out the same as gold. Transactions frequently take place in diamonds, and the amount of exchange is often very difficult to compute.