One evening, complaining of his change of luck, Bulteel quietly proposed to him migration. “I am going,” said he resignedly: “and you can come with me.” “You leave your farm, sir? Why, they pay you ten shillings a claim, and that must make a large return; the pan is fifteen acres.” “Yes, mine vriend,” said the poor Hollander, “they pay; but deir money it cost too dear. Vere is mine peace? Dis farm is six tousand acres. If de cursed diamonds was farther off, den it vas vell. But dey are too near. Once I could smoke in peace, and zleep. Now diamonds is come, and zleep and peace is fled. Dere is four tousand tents, and to each tent a dawg; dat dawg bark at four tousand other dawgs all night, and dey bark at him and at each oder. Den de masters of de dawgs dey get angry, and fire four tousand pistole at de four tousand dawgs, and make my bed shake wid the trembling of mine vrow. My vamily is with diamonds infected. Dey vill not vork. Dey takes long valks, and always looks on de ground. Mine childre shall be hump-backed, round-shouldered, looking down for diamonds. Dey shall forget Gott. He is on high: dere eyes are always on de earth. De diggers found a diamond in mine plaster of mine wall of mine house. Dat plaster vas limestone; it come from dose kopjes de good Gott made in His anger against man for his vickedness. I zay so. Dey not believe me. Dey tink dem abominable stones grow in mine house, and break out in mine plaster like de measle: dey vaunt to dig in mine wall, in mine garden, in mine floor. One day dey shall dig in mine body. I vill go. Better I love peace dan money. Here is English company make me offer for mine varm. Dey forgive de diamonds.” “You have not accepted it?” cried Staines in alarm. “No, but I vill. I have said I shall tink of it. Dat is my vay. So I say yah.” “An English company? They will cheat you without mercy. No, they shall not, though, for I will have a hand in the bargain.” He set to work directly, added up the value of the claims, at ten shillings per month, and amazed the poor Hollander by his statement of the value of those fifteen acres, capitalized. And to close this part of the subject, the obnoxious diamonds obtained him three times as much as his father had given for the whole six thousand acres. The company got a great bargain, but Bulteel received what for him was a large capital, and settling far to the south, this lineal descendant of le philosophe sans savoir carried his godliness, his cleanliness, and his love of peace, out of the turmoil, and was happier than ever, since now he could compare his placid existence with one year of noise and clamor. But long before this, events more pertinent to my story had occurred. One day, a Hottentot came into Bulteel's farm and went out among the diggers, till he found Staines. The Hottentot was one employed at Dale's Kloof, and knew him. He brought Staines a letter.