In spite of the fact that, generally speaking, the company system had proved a failure, but little attempt was made to mend matters. Things drifted from bad to worse, until at last Kimberley entered on the worst financial crisis that it had ever experienced. The companies with few exceptions were more or less in difficulties. Pressed for their liabilities by the banks, they had in turn to put the greatest pressure on such shareholders as had not paid all the instalments on their shares, and in very many cases their action was useless, as the shareholders were unable to meet the demands made on them. The consequence was that the companies had to go into liquidation and work in the mines came to a partial stand-still. Kimberley was no longer the Kimberley of the past. It may be safely said that in its rash and reckless speculation Kimberley was almost guilty of financial suicide, for not only was an all but fatal blow given to the industry which supported the place, but all confidence in its resources was for a time destroyed in the minds of its colonial neighbors and the home investing public. The good, sound investments, yielding large returns, to be made here, would startle the quiet folk who are satisfied with the “three per cents.” As an instance of the dividend paying capacity of some companies some months ago, I cannot help mentioning the Elma at Old De Beers; in November, 1883, the market value of its £10 paid-up shares was from 16 shillings to 20 shillings, when with good management in less than eight months it paid a monthly dividend averaging from two to three per cent., or for the investor who was lucky enough to buy in at the low prices, at the rate of 360 per cent. per annum. The fact of Griqualand with its incalculable mineral wealth being now united to the colony by the line of railway opened at the end of 1885,[55] the knowledge that owing to this the cost of the production of diamonds must be vastly diminished, together with the lessening of theft, which the extension of the Diamond Trade Act to the colony and the re-enactment of a similar ordinance by the government of the Free State must produce, will tend to give a spurt to digging operations. I shall next treat of the political stages through which the Diamond Fields have passed from their discovery to the present time. [Illustration] CHAPTER XVIII. THE EARLY HISTORY OF THE DIAMOND FIELDS UNDER ADAM KOK, CORNELIUS KOK, “DAM KOK,” ANDREAS AND NICHOLAS WATERBOER.—THE DIAMOND FIELDS AND THEIR GOVERNMENTS.—THE HOISTING OF THE BRITISH FLAG.—THE KEATE AWARD.—RUSH FROM THE RIVER TO THE DRY DIGGINGS.—PNIEL DESERTED.—THE COMMENCEMENT OF DIAMOND STEALING.—JUDGE LYNCH PUTS IN AN APPEARANCE.—DISCOVERY OF THE KIMBERLEY MINE.—BRITISH RULE PROCLAIMED.—FREE STATE COURTS CLOSED.