The Diamond Mines of South Africa Volume 1 (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1904 Excerpt: ...--for the dearth of these and the excess of meat caused a mild form of scurvy to appear in the camp. Fuel for cooking was readily cut from the trees along the river bank or from the thickets in the ravines.4 When the choice locations on the Klip-drift bank were taken, the influx, continuously moving to the new Diamond Fields from the coast, spread up and down the river, and little camps sprang 1 The Diamond News, Klip-drift, Nov. 4, 1871. 3 Ibid. "The Diamond Diggings of South Africa," Payton, 1872. 4 Ibid. up at Gong Gong, Union Kopje, Delport's Hope, Forlorn Hope, Niekerk's Rush, Blue Jacket, Waldek's Plant, Larkin's Flat, and other placer diggings, extending from Hebron twenty miles northeast of Klip-drift to Sefonell's, sixty miles west.1 It has been estimated that ten thousand diggers, white and black, were stretched along the river in this string of camps, and in roving parties of prospectors.2 Any possible reckoning of the extent of a rush of thousands, which nobody could measure exactly or tried to measure, was of course a rough guess, but it seems probable that this guess was not very far from the fact. Such an influx of restless adventurers, pouring along a river line in a m thinly peopled territory in the heart of South Africa, as heedless as a locust swarm of any questions of state sovereignty, or native tribal reservations, or mineral right titles, was certain to raise a rumpus, if any official authority in South Africa undertook to drive them away, or exact heavy license fees, or even to hold them down under strict laws The Largest River Diamond ever found. 1 r J T-i A in sou.h Africa. Weight, 33oj Car-rigorously enforced. The Austraats; value, 3,500; Full size. i;an go1d fie ds had furnished some highly significant object less...