A Winter Tour in South Africa | Page 7

two. These are vast enclosures, with high walls, where the natives compulsorily reside, after their daily work is done during the whole time they remain at work in the mine. This system has been attended with the most satisfactory results. I went over the De Beer's "compound," where I saw an immense number of natives, all appearing lively, cheerful, and happy. A large number were playing at cards (they are great gamblers), and others amusing themselves in various ways. No intoxicating liquor is permitted to be sold within the "compounds." The weekly receipts for ginger beer amount to a sum, which seems fabulous, averaging from ��60 to ��100 a week. The natives can purchase from the "compound" store every possible thing they want, from a tinpot to a blanket, from a suit of old clothes to a pannikin of mealies. Before the establishment of the "compounds," when the natives had the free run of the town, and could obtain alcoholic liquor--on Saturday nights especially, after they had done their work and received their weekly wages--Kimberley was a perfect pandemonium.
An interesting visit was one to the central offices of the United Companies, where I saw the diamonds, as they are prepared ready for sale, lying on a counter in small assorted lots, on white paper. This is a most remarkable sight. The lots, varying from half-a-dozen to twenty, or thirty, or more diamonds, are spread out arranged according to their estimated value. I took up one, which I was told would probably fetch ��1,000, and of which there were several similar ones in the different parcels on the counter. The manager showed me a paper of a sale to the buyers, a day or two before, of a parcel, which was calculated to realise ��14,189, and which actually was sold afterwards for ��14,150; showing the surprising accuracy of the previous estimate on the part of the experts.
Another day I went to the Central Kimberley Diamond Mine. After going over the mine, my party and myself all "assisted" at the counter in one of the large sheds in picking out diamonds from the heap of small stones just brought up and laid out from the day's washings. It is rather a fascinating occupation, turning over the heap with a little triangular piece of tin held in one hand, and continually "scraped" along the board. I found several diamonds. We were told, after we had been working diligently for an hour or two--there were six of us--that the value of the diamonds we had found, and placed in the manager's box, was probably ��1,200. This seemed to us a good afternoon's work. The entire district of Kimberley seems to teem with diamonds, and yet there is no cessation in the demand for them, and they are still rising in price. Accidents are frequent at these mines, but excellent provision for meeting these misfortunes is made in the admirably conducted Kimberley Hospital (where there are no less than 360 beds for patients), which I visited during my stay. It is under the management of a very remarkable woman, Sister Henrietta, and reflects the greatest credit on everyone connected with its conduct, and support. The number of native cases treated at the Hospital during the year 1887 was 2,975.
Kimberley has risen with immense speed, commencing from what is generally known as a "rush," to a large and prosperous centre of wealth, trade, and commerce. There, where only a few years since, was to be found a collection of tents and small huts, I found a city with handsome buildings, churches, stores, institutions, and law courts, and, above all, a well ordered society. Some of the buildings which I might specially mention, are the Town Hall, the Post Office, the High Court, and the Public Library, which has been in existence about seven years, and is superintended with such excellent results and most gratifying success by the Judge President. One noticeable fact connected with this Library is that the number of works of fiction annually taken out by the subscribers, exceeds, per head of the population, that of any Public Library in the United Kingdom.
The Kimberley Waterworks, which I also visited, have proved a great boon to this part, of the Colony. They were erected at a cost of ��400,000, the water supply being obtained from the Vaal River, seventeen miles away.
After spending a most pleasant and agreeable week there, I left Kimberley at six o'clock on the morning of June 7, in a wagon drawn by eight horses, and accompanied by five friends, for Warrenton, en route for Bechuanaland and the Transvaal. This mode of travelling was quite a novelty to me. Although in this journey of altogether three weeks' duration, we occasionally put up at one or two hotels, at some of the towns,