Thirty miles northward across the veldt from Pretoria is the great hole in the ground known as the Premier Diamond Mine, the newest and potentially the richest of the South African diamond fields. Here, in January, 1905, the surface manager, a Scotchman named McHardy, while strolling through the pit during the noon hour, saw the sparkle of what he at first took to be a broken bottle. Prying it loose with his stick from the surrounding rubble, he found it to be a diamond as large as a good-sized orange. This remarkable stone, which is the largest diamond heretofore found, has since become known to the world as the Great Cullinan, being named after Sir Thomas Cullinan, one of the owners of the mine. It is a pure white stone, 4 by 2-1/4 by 2 inches, weighing 3,025 carats, or 1.37 pounds, and worth in the neighbourhood of a million dollars. As the surface cleavage shows that it is undoubtedly a fragment of a much larger crystal, one cannot but wonder what the original stone was like. The Great Cullinan was immediately purchased by the Transvaal Government—or, rather, the mine's share was purchased, for the government receives sixty per cent of the value of all diamonds found—and presented to King Edward. The question then arose of how so valuable a gem could be transported to England in safety, for no sooner had its discovery been announced than the criminals of the world began to lay their plans to get possession of it. After many discussions and innumerable suggestions and much newspaper comment, four men, armed to the teeth, left the Premier Mine, carrying with them a red-leather despatch box. Crossing the thirty miles of veldt to Pretoria under heavy escort, they were conveyed in a private car to Cape Town; in the liner by which they took passage to England a safe had been specially installed and the red-leather despatch box was placed in it, two of the men remaining on duty in front of it night and day. From Southampton a special train took them up to London and a strong guard of detectives and police surrounded them on their way to the bank at which the diamond was to be delivered. When the despatch box was opened in the presence of a group of curious officials it was found to contain nothing more valuable than a lump of coal! The stone itself—and as Sir Thomas Cullinan told me the story it is undoubtedly true—was wrapped in cotton wool and tissue paper, put in a pasteboard box, wrapped up in brown paper, and sent to England by parcels post, not even the post-office authorities being given an inkling that it was in the mails. I almost forgot to mention, by the way, that McHardy, the discoverer of the great stone, was given a bonus of ten thousand dollars, though it is a sad and peculiar commentary that within a year his wife died, the bank in which he put the money failed, and his house burned down.