hough touch-me-not aspect. The
low-storeyed houses, built bungalow-wise, have an air of
capaciousness and ease; and further out, in Kenilworth, there are
comfortable dwellings, surrounded with trees, and suggestive of a
certain suburban picturesqueness. This region owes its cheerful and
well-ordered aspect entirely to Mr. Rhodes, who is at the same time
the parent and the apostle of all progress in South Africa.

The diamonds have their home in beds of clay, which are usually
covered with calcareous rock. These beds are the remains of mud
pits, due to volcanic action. Mr. Bryce, in his "Impressions of
South Africa, says:--

"Some of the mines are worked to the depth of 1200 feet by shafts
and subterranean galleries. Some are open, and these, particularly
that called the Wesselton Mine, are an interesting sight. This deep
hollow, one-third of a mile in circumference and 100 feet deep,
enclosed by a strong fence of barbed wire, is filled by a swarm of
active Kaffir workmen, cleaving the 'hard blue' with pickaxes,
piling it up on barrows, and carrying it off to the wide fields,
where it is left exposed to the sun, and, during three months, to
the rain. Having been thus subjected to a natural decomposition, it
is the more readily brought by the pickaxe into smaller fragments
before being sent to the mills, where it is crushed, pulverised, and
finally washed to get at the stones. Nowhere in the world does the
hidden wealth of the soil and the element of chance in its discovery
strike one so forcibly as here, where you are shown a piece of
ground a few acres in extent, and are told, 'Out of this pit
diamonds of the value of L12,000,000 have been taken.' Twenty-six
years ago the ground might have been bought for L50."

To encourage honesty in the miner good wages are given, and ten per
cent. is allowed to finders of valuable stones who voluntarily
deliver these to the overseer. Apropos of this subject, Mr. Bryce
relates an amusing tale, which, if not true, is certainly _ben
trovato_: "I heard from a missionary an anecdote of a Basuto who,
after his return from Kimberley, was describing how, on one
occasion, his eye fell on a valuable diamond in the clay he was
breaking into fragments. While he was endeavouring to pick it up he
perceived the overseer approaching, and, having it by this time in
his hand, was for a moment terribly frightened, the punishment for
theft being very severe. The overseer, however, passed on. 'And