Through the Kalahari Desert. G.A. Farini
with teeth, driven by steam-power. All the gravel and stones sink to the bottom, and the mud flows off, carry- ing with it the lighter debris, into a small canal, which conducts it to a reservoir where a bucket-pump lifts the muddy water to the upper level, where it is again utilized, while the precipitated mud is carried away by trams, and goes to swell the size of the great embank- ment of debris outside.
As the rotary workers get filled with stones a little iron tram-car is drawn underneath them, and the con- tents emptied into it. The car is then locked up, run up another incline to another hopper, where it deposits its precious burden, which undergoes a second washing in another water. This consists of a long cylinder formed in sections, each about six feet long, and com- posed of wirework, the meshes of each section gradu- ally increasing in size. Above the cylinder runs a pipe, perforated with quarter-inch holes two inches apart, through which water constantly flows. As the cylinder rotates the smallest stones fall through the first section, the next size through the second, and so on till the largest stones only are left to reach the
D
Sorting the Stones.
further end, where two men are on the watch for the big diamonds.
The stones, thus roughly sorted according to size, fall from the cylinder into a row of boxes called the “pulsator,” into which water is forced through a valve in the bottom, thus carrying off all light refuse matter, leaving the diamonds and gravel at the bottom, whence they are periodically dropped into an iron box with a sieve bottom, in which they are carried by two blacks to a hydrant and subjected to a final cleansing by a strong stream of water, before being taken to the sorting-shed adjoining.
Here, at a row of tables, sit the sorters, scraping the heaps of gravel towards them with a piece of tin, pick- ing out the diamonds and putting them into the bottom of a broken beer-bottle at their side.
The very small stuff—that which passes through the finest part of the cylinder—is sorted three or four times, and even then all the stones are not secured, so small are they. I took up a handful from a refuse heap, and picked out two tiny crystals—both perfect octahedrons, though hardly visible.
It would be a great advantage if some method could be devised for treating the blue earth as soon as it is blasted, and the inventor will make a fortune who con- structs a machine that will obviate the necessity for hauling the stuff backwards and forwards to and from the vast irrigation floors. These are too extensive to be fenced in, and have to be watched night and day; and the cost of this, added to the cost of haulage, is one of the principal items of expense.
Some steps towards concentrating the various pro- cesses have already been taken, the Central Company
Diamonds Classified.
having a machine in which the rotary washer and the “pulsator” are combined; but the great desideratum is a means of doing away with what I call the “irri- gation floors.”
When the wash-up is finished, the manager comes along, picks up the broken bottles, turns the contents out into his hand, and puts them into his pocket, to take them to the office, where they are sorted and classed according to the following order:—
1. Crystals (perfect octahedrons).
2. Cape whites.
3. First by- waters (light yellow).
4. Second by- waters (dark yellow).
5. Melees (mixed, from two carats down).
6. Mackerel (flat stones).
7. Cleavage (stones with flaws, spots, &c.).
8. Chips (broken pieces).
9. Fancies (stones that are neither white nor yel- low, but brown, pink, grey, or black. Some of them are valuable, when perfect, because of their rarity.
10. Refections (rubbish).
11. Boart (a kind of compound diamond, nearly black, used for cutting and polishing other stones).
There is a stone called smoky diamond,” which nearly always breaks to pieces when exposed to the light. I saw one break in the sorter’s hands. All sorts of means have been tried to preserve them—such as putting them into potatoes, &c. —but without effect.
The average value of the stones as they come from the mine is about 1l. per carat. The crystals, some of which are equal to the best Brazilian stones, are worth from 3l. to 8l. in the rough; others from 5s. to 3l. per carat. Picking up one or two stones I asked their
D 2
Who Steals the Diamonds?
weight and value, and then guessed the weight of others, hitting it off to the sixteenth of a carat—to the astonishment of the manager, who said there were not two dealers on the fields that could guess the weight so closely.
You’d better not be too clever,” said Lulu, or you’ll be had up for an I.D.B. next.”
The minutiæ of the system of diamond-digging at Kimberley may perhaps not be so interesting to my readers as to me: one of my objects in coming to South Africa was to discover a diamond-mine—what success attended my search will be related further on— and it was necessary for me to know how to work my mine when I discovered it. Whatever else I might do, I felt competent to run “ a mine when I came across it, and I fancied I could deal even with the I.D.B. difiiculty quite easily. Having carefully watched the blacks at work in the mine and on the washing- floors, I could not bring myself to believe that they had much to do with stealing the million sterling worth of diamonds that are said to be stolen yearly. I tried to steal a diamond myself, that is to say, I looked most carefully, time after time, over the “blue” as it lay on the irrigation floors, in the hope of seeing a stone, but failed, and it did not seem to me possible, except on the rarest chance, for a nigger to find a diamond between the time of blasting and the sorting-table. Still, I came to the conclusion that anybody who owns a diamond-mine had better work it himself, if he is to be free from the nightmare of “I.D.B.” Of course, the organization of the companies has tended to economy of labour and increase of efficiency, but it has removed all the direct personal supervision of the
Tons of Diamonds.
actual owners. When one sees the nonchalant way in which the managers toss the result of the day’s wash-up into their waistcoat-pocket, one remembers the princely pay they receive, and reflects that such salaries would keep a professional thief honest. Of course, therefore, it can’t be the overseers and managers; I don’t believe it’s the niggers; so it seems difficult to understand how anything like a million’s worth of diamonds can be stolen yearly. Neither can I under- stand that in the fifteen years of Kimberley some 45,000,000l. have been dug out of the ground, and yet there are not three wealthy people in the town.
The evil of the I.D.B. will no doubt be to some extent checked by the tendency of the companies to amalgamate under pressure of the reef difficulty and of the peculiarities in the natural formation of the mine. The result of amalgamation would be that the diamonds would pass through fewer hands, and that there would consequently be fewer facilities for the operations of the I.D.B.’s. Concentration, however, means mono- poly, and monopoly means a diminution of that com- petition which has made Kimberley what it is. It has been said that “God made the country and man the town,” to which may be added that diamonds made Kimberley, for I cannot conceive of anybody making Kimberley his home who was not attracted thither by the lustre of its reputation as a sort of Tom Tiddler’s ground. Not that 1 mean to say that I.D.B.’s are a desirable, or even a necessary, institution; but that, when the whole business of diamond-mining and dia- mond-selling is under the absolute control of a small body of monopolists, the money that is eventually realized will change hands elsewhere than at Kimberley,
Price of Provisions.
and what that town gains in respectability she will lose in importance and population.
The climate, as a climate, may not be unhealthy, but the country, waterless