38 Men, Mines, and Animals in South Africa. 



its transitory and rough-and-ready appearance. 

 There are, however, a number of excellent shops, 

 and there are few articles of necessity, of con- 

 venience, or of luxury which cannot here be pur- 

 chased. A most comfortable and hospitable club, 

 an admirably laid-out and well-arranged racecourse 

 testify to the thoroughly English character of the 

 settlement. At Kimberley the diamond is every- 

 thing, and the source and method of its production 

 claim more than a passing mention. My first visri 

 was to the offices of the De Beers Compaii}', which 

 company represents the amalgamated interests of 

 the De Beers, Kimberley, Bultfontein, Du Toits 

 Pan, and other smaller miuQS. The amalgamation 

 was the work of Mr. Cecil Rhodes, and it was 

 this great work, accomplished in the teeth of 

 unheard-of difficulties and almost insurmountable 

 opposition, representing the conciliation and 

 unification of almost innumerable rival jarring 

 and conflictino- interests, which revealed to South 

 Africa that it possessed a public man of the first 

 order. The scale of the company's ojDerations is 

 stupendous. On a capital of nearly 8,000,000/. of 

 debenture and share stock it has 2)aid, since its 

 formation in 1888 up to March, 1890, interest at 

 the rate of 5^ per cent., and an annual dividend of 

 20 per cent. In the same period it has given out 

 some t^vo million five hundred thousand carats of 

 diamonds, realizing by sale over three and a half 

 milhoii pounds, produced by washing some two 

 million seven hundred thousand loads of blue 

 ground. Each load represents three-quarters of a 



