The Kafir was washing the dirt in a rough cradle, separating the stones from the dust, and the owner, as each sieve-full was brought to him, threw out the stones on his table and sorted them through with the eternal bit of slate or iron formed into the shape of a trowel. For the chance of a sieve-full one of our party offered him half a crown,--which he took. I was glad to see it all inspected without a diamond, as had there been anything good the poor fellow’s disappointment must have been great. That halfcrown was probably all that he would earn during the week,--all that he would earn perhaps for a month. Then there might come three or four stones in one day. I should think that the tedious despair of the vacant days could hardly be compensated by the triumph of the lucky minute. These “river” diggers have this in their favour,--that the stones found near the river are more likely to be white and pure than those which are extracted from the mines. The Vaal itself in the neighbourhood of Barkly is pretty,--with rocks in its bed and islands and trees on its banks. But the country around, and from thence to Kimberley, which is twenty-four miles distant, is as ugly as flatness, barrenness and sand together can make the face of the earth. The commencement of diamond-digging as a settled industry was in 1872. It was then that dry-digging was commenced, which consists of the regulated removal of ground found to be diamondiferous and of the washing and examination of every fraction of the soil. The district which we as yet know to be so specially gifted extends up and down the Vaal river from the confluence of the Modder to Hebron, about 75 miles, and includes a small district on the east side of the river. Here, within 12 miles of the river, and within a circle of which the diameter is about 2½ miles, are contained all the mines,--or dry diggings,--from which have come the real wealth of the country. I should have said that the most precious diamond yet produced, one of 288 carats, was found close to the river about 12 miles from Barkly. This prize was made in 1872. It is of the dry diggings that the future student of the Diamond Fields of South Africa will have to take chief account. The river diggings were only the prospecting work which led up to the real mining operations,--as the washing of the gullies in Australia led to the crushing of quartz and to the sinking of deep mines in search of alluvial gold. Of these dry diggings there are now four, Du Toit’s Pan, Bultfontein, Old De Beers,--and Colesberg Kopje or the great Kimberley mine, which though last in the Field has thrown all the other diamond mines of the world into the shade. The first working at the three first of these was so nearly simultaneous, that they may almost be said to have been commenced at once. I believe however that they were in fact opened in the order I have given.