The town of Kimberley is chiefly notable for a large square,--as large perhaps as Russell Square. One or two of the inhabitants asked me whether I was not impressed by the grandeur of its dimensions so as to feel that there was something of sublimity attached to it! “I thought it very ugly at first,” said one lady who had been brought out from England to make her residence among the diamonds;--“but I have looked at it now till I have to own its magnificence.” I could not but say that corrugated iron would never become magnificent in my eyes. In Kimberley there are two buildings with a storey above the ground, and one of these is in the square. This is its only magnificence. There is no pavement. The roadway is all dust and holes. There is a market place in the midst which certainly is not magnificent. Around are the corrugated iron shops of the ordinary dealers in provisions. An uglier place I do not know how to imagine. When I was called upon to admire it, I was lost in wonder; but acknowledged that it was well that necessity should produce such results. I think that none of the diamond dealers live in the square. The various diamond shops to which I was taken were near the mine, or in the streets leading down from the mine to the square. These were little counting houses in which the dealers would sit, generally two together, loosely handling property worth many thousands of pounds. I was taken to them to see diamonds, and saw diamonds without stint. It seemed that one partner would buy while another would sort and pack. Parcel after parcel was opened for me with almost as little reserve as was exhibited when Lothair asked for pearls. Lothair was an expected purchaser; while the diamond dealer knew that nothing was to be made by me. I could not but think how easy it would be to put just one big one into my pocket. The dealers, probably, were careful that I did nothing of the kind. The stones were packed in paper parcels, each parcel containing perhaps from fifty to two hundred according to their size. Then four or five of these parcels would be fitted into a paper box,--which would again be enclosed in a paper envelope. Without other safeguard than this the parcels are registered and sent by post, to London, Paris, or Amsterdam as the case may be. By far the greater number go to London. The mails containing these diamonds then travel for six days and six nights on mail carts to Capetown,--for four-fifths of the way without any guard, and very frequently with no one on the mail cart except the black boy who drives it. The cart travels day and night along desolate roads and is often many miles distant from the nearest habitation. Why the mails are not robbed I cannot tell. The diamond dealers say that the robber could not get away with his plunder, and would find no market for it were he to do so. They, however, secure themselves by some system of insurance. I cannot but think that the insurers, or underwriters, will some day find