When yet more of the soil was excavated, another system had to be adopted, and then a post with a pulley attached was driven firmly into the road and the ground drawn up in buckets constructed of either hide or iron, whence it was tossed into carts drawn by horses or oxen, some of which, poor creatures, tumbled over into the claim, where they had to be slaughtered in order that their misery might be ended as soon as possible, while others were killed instantaneously. The loss of human life in these cases was, however, comparatively small. This system, with the exception that many diggers used windlasses instead of posts and pulleys, prevailed until 1874, by which time the roads had fallen. This had long been foreseen, as isolated portions had long before crumbled away, the chasms being spanned by bridges erected at enormous expense. An entirely new system, therefore, had now to be introduced, and this took the form of “stayings.” They were, as a rule, three in number if the base or ground be counted, and may best be described as floors stoutly constructed, the first stage proper being placed at a height of about eight feet from the ground, the second about sixteen feet. Numerous standing wires were stretched from the claims and along these were drawn buckets containing the diamondiferous soil, one perchance bearing a fortune in its narrow space, literally a _multum in parvo_. The ground was hauled by windlasses worked by natives. So numerous were the wires that the mine seemed a yawning pit over which some Titanic spider had woven its web, while the noise of the wires was as loud as the din of the traffic in Cheapside or the Strand, the rattle of the machinery in a Lancashire factory, or, to be more imaginative, the roar of angry waves buffeting a rock-bound coast. In their turn the stages were abandoned, for, as may be imagined, the process of hauling out ground by windlasses worked by hand was a slow process when the claims were worked to a depth of eighty feet or more. “Whims,”[33] worked by horses or mules, were substituted, and they were in general use until the reign of steam, which still continues.