BRAZILIAN DIAMONDS AND THEIR ORIGIN. 617 



ing diamonds, except that with which they make them disappear if the 

 vigikmce of the superintendent is relaxed for an instant. I can not 

 describe all the artifices employed, but I should remark that, since the 

 works have become free, fraud has greatly diminished. Under the old 

 rule it overtook half the diamonds in the gravels. 



Difficulties of another kind are presented when the precious grav- 

 els are situated in the beds of the rivers. Since the channels have 

 been deeply cut in the rock, and are bordered by steep cliffs, it is im- 

 possible to construct lateral sluices for turning the water away from 

 them, except at an expense which even the magnificent return that is 

 anticipated will not justify. A quicker and more simple process has 

 been devised. The river is dammed, and a flume is made of planks to 

 carry the water from the dam to some three or four hundred yards 

 below. The intervening space between the dam and the end of the 

 flume, in which the precious gravels of the caldeiroes are supposed 

 to be situated, is thus left free from running water, while the water 

 which stands upon it and that which reaches it by infiltration are 

 removed by pumps worked by water-wheels. The work must be done 

 quickly when this system is employed, for there is no time to lose. 

 The river is generally docile enough during the dry season, from May 

 to October ; but, if only a slight storm comes on, it is transformed at 

 once into a torrent that nothing can resist, and which carries off dams, 

 wheels, and viaduct. This is what happens, as a rule, fifty times out 

 of a hundred. I know of diamond- seekers who have recommenced for 

 three or four years in succession the same works, to have them every 

 time destroyed under their eyes by sudden freshets. Then a fortunate 

 season has amply recompensed them for all that they had lost. Others 

 have just had time to work for a few days in the rich beds, a few cubic 

 yards of which have yielded them hundreds of carats of diamonds ; 

 but how many have exhausted all their resources without reaching 

 this promised land ! Nevertheless, no machines, or barrows, or inclined 

 planes are employed, notwithstanding the enormous force furnished 

 by the fall of water in the race is at the disposal of the operator ; 

 only picks, shovels, levers to raise the rocks, and, for means of trans- 

 portation, laborers, who carry on their heads large wooden troughs, 

 which others fill with sand and stones. Nothing can be more pictur- 

 esque than these great trenches, where crowds of negroes are moving 

 about like ants in an ant-hill, running in gangs to receive their loads, 

 and carrying them away in groups, while they intone songs, which are 

 almost always in the language of the African coast. The excavation 

 becomes deeper and more sinuous ; groups of men, like clusters of 

 bees, hang, by the aid of the most primitive of ladders, to the rock- 

 walls, and the work goes on with a feverish ardor. From time to time, 

 the overseers probe the sand with long iron rods. Great is the rejoic- 

 ing when the existence of the diamond-bearing cascalho beneath the 

 sterile sands is revealed by a peculiar sound which all the miners know. 



