132 Kecottectians of Adventures 



specting the work, some ground fell on me, I looked 

 up and saw two oxen coming over the edge. I had 

 just time to warn the men and get flat against an 

 overhanging wall, when the pole of the cart broke, 

 the two big oxen came crashing down, and were 

 killed a yard from me. Another time, a bucket of 

 soil got loose at the top and killed one of my boys. 

 Yet another time a cart and a pair of mules fell into 

 a claim. Accidents were of daily occurrence. 



While I was experimenting with a bucket of 

 diamond soil, running it from the gear head to the 

 sorting table, a big Boer was scrambling up the 

 debris heap, when the bucket caught him on the 

 head and knocked him flat, when he recovered he 

 came at me with a knife, in a towering rage, and 

 would have done me some damage, had not Ward, 

 the Mine Inspector, come to my aid. Ward had his 

 thigh broken shortly afterwards by some Boers, while 

 carrying out his duties on the mines. Marais and I 

 were negotiating with old De Beer for the purchase 

 of the entire farm on which De Beer's mine is situated, 

 we had as good as settled the business, when De 

 Beer's son-in-law, a Hollander, came to our camp in 

 the evening and wanted to know what he was to 

 get from us if he allowed the purchase to go through ? 

 We thought it a case of blackmailing as he had no 

 rights, and we did not think he could influence old 

 De Beer. The next morning De Beer refused to sign 

 the deed of sale, and a little later Dunell, Ebden & 

 Co., bought the property for much more than we 

 were to give for it. As it was, we owned a large area 

 of the De Beers mine, but it was not until later con- 

 sidered very valuable as many of the larger stones 

 were yellow. We found in the early days a yellow 

 stone for which the local buyers offered one thousand 

 five hundred pounds cash ; but we decided to send it 



