A word, before passing on, of Kimberley. This town, hitherto known as the City of Diamonds, has now the distinction of being the casket where Mr. Rhodes, with the price of L5000 on his head, was incarcerated. Its real birth dates from 1869-70, when all the world rushed out to win fortune from its soil. Happily at that time Mr. Cecil Rhodes happened to be in the neighbourhood. With his usual gift of foresight, he recognised that some process of amalgamating the various conflicting claims and interests, and merging them in one huge whole, would be necessary if the value of diamonds was to be kept up. He invented a scheme, and succeeded--the great corporation, the De Beers Consolidated Mining Company, limited the output of diamonds to an annual amount such as Europe and the United States were able to take at a price high enough to leave an adequate profit. This arrangement has, in a measure, had the effect of depopulating the place. At least it has thinned it of the crowd of adventurers who previously infested the region and struggled to maintain an independent existence there. In the absence of these loafers the town is civilised, and comparatively refined. There are groves of gum-trees to promote shade, and thickets of prickly pear, which have ever a rural, though touch-me-not aspect. The low-storeyed houses, built bungalow-wise, have an air of capaciousness and ease; and further out, in Kenilworth, there are comfortable dwellings, surrounded with trees, and suggestive of a certain suburban picturesqueness. This region owes its cheerful and well-ordered aspect entirely to Mr. Rhodes, who is at the same time the parent and the apostle of all progress in South Africa. The diamonds have their home in beds of clay, which are usually covered with calcareous rock. These beds are the remains of mud pits, due to volcanic action. Mr. Bryce, in his "Impressions of South Africa, says:--