It struck me that by far the most interesting sights, both at the Kimberley and the Premier mines, were the so-called compounds, in which the native labourers are confined, for the native who hires out to work in a diamond mine must submit, during the term of his contract, to as close confinement as a convict in a penitentiary; he knows that he is in danger of being shot by the guards if he attempts to escape; he is prepared to be searched daily with the same minuteness which customs inspectors display in the case of a known smuggler; and when his contract expires he has still to put up with a fortnight's solitary confinement, in which emetics and cathartics play an unpleasant part. The mine compounds are huge enclosures, unroofed but covered with a wire netting to prevent anything being thrown out over the walls. Around the interior of the wall are rows of corrugated-iron huts, in which the natives live and sleep when they are not at work, while the open space in the middle is used for cooking, for washing, and for native games. The compounds are surrounded by three lines of barbed-wire fence which are constantly patrolled by armed sentries and illuminated at night by powerful search-lights; every entrance is as jealously guarded as that of a German fortress; and visitors are never admitted unless they bear a pass signed by the administration and are accompanied by a responsible official of the mine. Although the government—which, as I have already remarked, takes sixty per cent of the mine's earnings—has made I. D. B. (illicit diamond-buying) a penal offence with a uniform punishment of twenty years at hard labour, and though the mining companies maintain espionage systems which rival those of many Continental governments, no employee, from director down to day labourer, ever being free from scrutiny, millions of dollars' worth of diamonds are smuggled out of the mines each year. To encourage honesty, ten per cent of the value of any stone which a workman may find is given to him if he brings it himself to the overseer, well over a quarter of a million dollars being paid out annually on stones thus found.