In the latter part of 1907 I was shown an extremely beautiful stone of about twenty carats, that had been picked up by a transport rider some fifty miles below Prieska; and the accompanying gravel that this man brought in was so exactly a replica of the Vaal River “wash” that I came to terms with the finder and set about arranging a small expedition to accompany him and test the spot. Before completing my arrangements, I went into Kimberley to try and find an old digger partner of mine, who had always been particularly anxious to explore the lower Orange River, and who, I thought, would be just the man to accompany me. After some trouble I found him, and before I could even broach the subject of my visit he opened fire on me. “The very man I wanted to see,” he burst out; “in fact, I was just writing to you. Man, I’ve just seen a whole lot of diamonds from a new place entirely; they’re small, but the chap who found them swears you can pick them up by the handful where he got them.” It appeared that the finder of these small stones was again a transport rider, who had been working in German South-West Africa, and had brought back a small phial full of these tiny stones, which he said could be had for the picking up anywhere in the sand near a certain bay he knew of. An hour later my friend had found him again, and I saw them for myself--nearly fifty small, clean, and brilliantly polished little diamonds, of good quality, astonishingly alike in size, and quite different from either “mine” or “river” stones in appearance. The man’s story was circumstantial enough, and March, my former partner, was most anxious to accompany him back to German South-West, and tried hard to induce me to join him.