I shall never forget my first night on the diamond fields. When I returned to the hotel I inquired for a bed, but was assured that not one could be had for love or money. Martin, the landlord, however, made me up a shake-down as a favor, on the end of the long dining table, where amidst shouts of “play or take miss” from a party of excited loo players alongside I soon fell asleep. At an early hour on the following morning I took one of the many passenger carts plying to the New Rush, otherwise called Colesberg Kopje (Kimberley), and after a drive of about two miles wended my way to the mine on foot, along roads ankle deep in sand, bordered with stores and canteens built of iron, and with canvas tents of all sizes and shapes fixed promiscuously around. Arriving at the edge of the mine I paused to observe the novel sight which met my eyes. In those days roadways extending from one side of the mine to the other were the scenes of constant traffic, the diggers carting along them the diamondiferous soil from the claims to sort it on their various depositing grounds. Carts, horses, mules, oxen and men crowded these narrow roads, on each side of which the claims were scarcely less thronged. The _tout ensemble_ was most interesting. Every patch of ground was occupied, the whole resembling a hive of busy human bees, bustling and elbowing, creeping and climbing, shoveling and sieving, to gather, if possible, honey from each opening flower, or, to abandon metaphor, to turn out a diamond from each bucketful of soil hauled to the surface. Not less than 10,000 natives, and from 4,000 to 5,000 white men, I should think, were busily at work the morning on which I first saw the diggings. I knew that the Natal Verulam Co. had claims in No. 3 Road, and on inquiry I was directed to their manager, Mr. G. J. Lee, afterward for a long period chairman of the Kimberley mining board. Just at the moment I found him one of his native servants had turned out a thirty carat diamond from a sieve which he was shaking, and having a slight tinge of superstition in my nature, I at once accepted this as an omen of good luck. While I was looking at the claims belonging to this company my ears were all at once assailed by a deafening roar, for without any warning all the natives in and around the mine ceased work and yelled out at the top of their voices: “Hullah!” “Hullah!” Such a babel I had never heard before, and on turning round I discovered that a lady standing behind me, who had come to see the mine, was the innocent cause of all the disturbance. On inquiry I learnt this was nothing new, but that the natives from the interior, who perchance had never seen a white woman before they came to the diggings, were in the habit of taking this method of expressing their surprise and pleasure. Patti, Nillson, or Marie Rozé never, I am sure, had a more enthusiastic greeting.