CHAPTER XXXIX. 



THE DIAMOND-FIELDS HOMEWARD BOUND. 



A fierce Sun The Diggers Their Homes The Pans The Machinery The 

 Labourers How they will work for the Musket, Great-Coat, and Blanket 

 Distance from their Home Effects of the Diamond-Fields Kimberly 

 The Buying and Selling of Diamonds I leave Dutoitspan The Coach 

 Drivers German and English Jews Their Resolution touching Liquor 

 How they keep it Other Passengers Unamiable Englishman Affable 

 Wife One-legged Boer Blessed Baby Hints to Travellers about Babies 

 Handsomest Girl in the District Orange River In Old Colony again 

 Boers and Kaffirs Splendid Qualities of the Latter On board Ship Holly 

 again The last of " the Red, White and Blue " The Ship's Company The 

 Honourable Member for Matabele Finis. 



BEFORE leaving the Fields, a short description of the two 

 celebrated diamond-diggings of Dutoitspan and Kim- 

 berly may be interesting to the reader. Imagine an im- 

 mense undulating sandy plain, very sparsely covered with 

 grass, with the horizon here and there interrupted with 

 sterile hills, while nearer at hand occasional coppies are 

 to be found. A quivering glow makes distant objects 

 appear to tremble, and exaggerates them to many times 

 their proper size ; while the sun from a cloudless sky 

 pours down its powerful rays upon the landscape, for 

 not a tree to afford shelter is to be found. By Jove, 

 and what a sun it is ! so cruel, so uncompromising, so 

 powerful in its strength ! such a sun as the mariner in 

 tropical seas would dread to encounter even more than 

 death, if adrift in an open boat or upon a raft. No 

 language can describe the luminary as seen here, no 



