These efforts, which lasted from Sept. 1882 to March 1883, were entirely successful, and not one single case of small-pox broke out in Kimberley. This threatened invasion put the ratepayers to an expense of nearly £13,000, which, however, was a mere bagatelle compared with the outlay which the epidemic disease that broke out on the fields in 1883, 1884 and 1885 entailed. This came from another and quite unexpected quarter, and was not imported seaward. A certain body of Kafirs, who were coming to Kimberley to seek for work, were attacked at Klerksdorp, in the Transvaal, a small town near Potchefstroom, with symptoms resembling small-pox. The doctors there declared the disease to be aggravated chicken-pox, when the Transvaal government, not being satisfied, Dr. Dyer, who had been promoted to the chief medical office under the Transvaal government, was sent from Pretoria to report direct. In this report, dated Oct. 25th, 1883, he gave it as his opinion (concurred in by Dr. Francis, the special commissioner of the Orange Free State), that the natives were suffering merely from a severe form of chicken-pox, termed by them “Isi-mun-qu-mun-gwane.” These natives were then allowed to proceed on their road to the diamond mines, but of the sixteen who left Klerksdorp four only reached Felstead’s, a store about nine miles from Kimberley, when, the survivors being too weak to proceed, information of the fact was brought by passers-by. An outcry was soon raised, they were visited by medical men, materials to erect shelter for them were immediately sent out, a doctor appointed, and all the precautions commenced to be taken, which afterward led to so much expense. The civil commissioner at once (Nov. 3d, 1883,) appointed a board of six medical men to report on the disease, who after a prolonged inquiry left matters in _statu quo_, three averring that the outbreak was small-pox, and the others (myself among the number) arriving at a contrary opinion. Government then sent a physician from Capetown to investigate matters, who on Dec. 6th, 1883, declared the disease to be small-pox; so those declaring the outbreak to be a “bullous disease, allied to pemphigus,” and not contagious, as well as those declaring the disease to be a Kafir pox,[21] or an aggravated form of chicken-pox, were outvoted. It was during one of my visits, accompanied by Dr. L. S. Jameson, to further examine into this outbreak that I met with the nearly fatal accident which I mention elsewhere.