In the winter there is a great difference between the temperature upon the grass and that upon the bare soil. Wagoners are fully aware of this, for when on a cold, frosty night their oxen go astray, they look for them upon roads, or bare patches of ground, as they know where the instinct of the animals will lead them, the oxen appearing intuitively to know that the grass favors radiation and causes intense cold. I have often indeed known the temperature on the grass to be as low as 16°, or even 13°, when the temperature on the bare ground around was above freezing point. Any one living near the diamond mines can relate the scores of cases in which natives during the last ten years have lain down upon the veldt (grass) to sleep away their drunken carousals, and have been found stiff and dead in the morning. Although “Afric’s sunny fountains” (comparatively few in number, however, on our high plateau) have, in good old Bishop Heber’s beautiful hymn, “rolled down their golden sand,” yet visitors who come out under the belief that pajamas, mosquito nets, and the lightest silken gossamers, etc., are sufficient to keep out the cold, would be astonished to find, as they might do, from time to time, pea-jacketed and ulstered individuals of varying ages heartily enjoying games of snowball under the supposed burning sun. The dust storms, to which we are liable all the year round, are our greatest trial, sweeping over the country like a very sirocco, burning, blinding and choking up everything in their fury. Occasionally, to change the scene, we have storms of hail, with stones sometimes of extraordinary size, two and two and a half inches in diameter, whilst whirlpools ofttimes sweep and circle round, to relieve the monotony of the landscape. Yet, notwithstanding these drawbacks, and the great variations in the climate, and putting aside preventible diseases, arising from defective sanitation, and reckless exposure, the climate is on the whole very fairly healthy for Europeans. In the early days of the Fields the gambling spirit so infatuated many of the diggers, that, not satisfied with the excitement of the day’s luck, or ill-luck in the mine, they would prolong the accidents of fortune far into the night. In my next chapter I will give an account of that period. [Illustration] CHAPTER VIII. GAMBLING AT THE DIAMOND FIELDS.—MR. DODD’S ADVICE ON GAMBLING.—SPECULATIVE VALUE OF DIGGING.—THE FIELDS IN THE EARLY DAYS.—GAMBLING HELLS IN 1872.—MR. JONES “AT HOME.”—GOVERNOR SOUTHEY’S PROCLAMATION.—EXODUS TO THE FREE STATE.—RONDO EN COLO.—COLLAPSE.