CHAPTER LXVIII. Judicious Mr. Rhodes—What South Africa Consists of—Johannesburg—The Gold Mines—The Heaven of American Engineers—What the Author Knows about Mining—Description of the Boer—What Should be Expected of Him—What Was A Dizzy Jump for Rhodes—Taxes—Rhodesian Method of Reducing Native Population—Journeying in Cape Colony—The Cars—The Country—The Weather—Tamed Blacks—Familiar Figures in King William's Town—Boer Dress—Boer Country Life—Sleeping Accommodations—The Reformers in Boer Prison—Torturing a Black Prisoner CHAPTER LXIX. An Absorbing Novelty—The Kimberley Diamond Mines—Discovery of Diamonds —The Wronged Stranger—Where the Gems Are—A Judicious Change of Boundary—Modern Machinery and Appliances—Thrilling Excitement in Finding a Diamond—Testing a Diamond—Fences—Deep Mining by Natives in the Compound—Stealing—Reward for the Biggest Diamond—A Fortune in Wine—The Great Diamond—Office of the De Beer Co.—Sorting the Gems —Cape Town—The Most Imposing Man in British Provinces—Various Reasons for his Supremacy—How He Makes Friends CONCLUSION. Table Rock—Table Bay—The Castle—Government and Parliament—The Club —Dutch Mansions and their Hospitality—Dr. John Barry and his Doings—On the Ship Norman—Madeira—Arrived in Southampton FOLLOWING THE EQUATOR CHAPTER I. A man may have no bad habits and have worse. —Pudd'nhead Wilson's New Calendar. The starting point of this lecturing-trip around the world was Paris, where we had been living a year or two. We sailed for America, and there made certain preparations. This took but little time. Two members of my family elected to go with me. Also a carbuncle. The dictionary says a carbuncle is a kind of jewel. Humor is out of place in a dictionary. We started westward from New York in midsummer, with Major Pond to manage the platform-business as far as the Pacific. It was warm work, all the way, and the last fortnight of it was suffocatingly smoky, for in Oregon and British Columbia the forest fires were raging. We had an added week of smoke at the seaboard, where we were obliged to wait awhile for our ship. She had been getting herself ashore in the smoke, and she had to be docked And repaired. We sailed at last; and so ended a snail-paced march across the continent, which had lasted forty days.