CHAPTER XVII. 



The Diamond Fields — Lecturing at Kimberley — Badly reported — The De 

 Beers Company — 'Squaring' Governments — 'Trapping' — 'I. D. B.' — 

 Taking the ' Sulk ' out of a Horse — The Horse and the Goat — Equine 

 Friendships — 'Wasters' and 'Remittance Men' — Captain Goodwood — 

 Broken-down Officers — Manners and Customs in South Africa — The 

 Kimberley Exhibition. 



AS I had a letter of introduction from my fellow clubs- 

 man, Captain Gordon Hughes, the well-known pigeon 

 shot, to Captain R. E. Wallace, who is one of the chief dia- 

 mond valuers to the De Beers Company, and as our names 

 by that time were well known through the country, we got 

 to know all the good people at Kimberley very quickly. At 

 that time the inhabitants were enjoying the calm before the 

 storm which Mr Rhodes was preparing for them. Knowing 

 that Kimberley was the hot-bed of I. D. B., he had issued 

 orders that it was to be destroyed by removing all the em- 

 ployes of the De Beers Company from it and locating them 



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