Bultfontein and Du Toit’s Pan were on two separate Boer farms, of which the former was bought the first,--as early as 1869,--by a firm who had even then had dealings in diamonds and who no doubt purchased the land with reference to diamonds. Here some few stones were picked from the surface, but the affair was not thought to be hopeful. The diamond searchers still believed that the river was the place. But the Dutch farmer at Du Toit’s Pan, one Van Wyk, finding that precious stones were found on his neighbour’s land, let out mining licences on his own land, binding the miners to give him one fourth of the value of what they found. This however did not answer and the miners resolved to pay some small monthly sum for a licence, or to “jump” the two farms altogether. Now “jumping” in South African language means open stealing. A man “jumps” a thing when he takes what does not belong to him with a tacit declaration that might makes right. Appeal was then made to the authorities of the Orange Free State for protection;--and something was done. But the diggers were too strong, and the proprietors of the farms were obliged to throw open their lands to the miners on the terms which the men dictated. The English came,--at the end of 1871,--just as the system of dry digging had formed itself at these two mines, and from that time to this Du Toit’s Pan and Bultfontein have been worked as regular diamond mines. I did not find them especially interesting to a visitor. Each of them is about two miles distant from Kimberley town, and the centre of the one can hardly be more than a mile distant from the centre of the other. They are under the inspection of the same Government officer, and might be supposed to be part of one and the same enterprise were it not that there is a Mining Board at Du Toit’s Pan, whereas the shareholders at Bultfontein have abstained from troubling themselves with such an apparatus. They trust the adjustment of any disputes which may arise to the discretion of the Government Inspector.