t the frontiers of civilization.

At Tshikapa there were other white women, including Mrs. Dunn, who had
recently converted her hospitable home into a small maternity hospital.
Only a few weeks before my arrival Mrs. Edwin Barclay, wife of the
manager of the Mabonda Mine, had given birth to a girl baby under its
roof, and I was taken over at once to see the latest addition to the
American colony.

On the day of my arrival the natives employed at this mine had sent Mrs.
Barclay a gift of fifty newly-laid eggs as a present for the baby.
Accompanying it was a rude note scrawled by one of the foremen who had
attended a Presbyterian mission school. The birth of a white baby is
always a great event in the Congo. When Mrs. Barclay returned to her
home a grand celebration was held and the natives feasted and danced in
honour of the infant.

There is a delightful social life at Tshikapa. Most of the mines, which
are mainly in charge of American engineers, are within a day's
travelling distance in a teapoy and much nearer by automobile. Some of
the managers have their families with them, and they foregather at the
main post every Sunday. On Thanksgiving, the Fourth of July, and
Christmas there is always a big rally which includes a dance and
vaudeville show in the men's mess hall. The Stars and Stripes are
unfurled to the African breeze and the old days in the States recalled.
It is real community life on the fringe of the jungle.

I was struck with the big difference between the Congo diamond fields
and those at Kimberley. In South Africa the mines are gaping gashes in
the earth thousands of feet wide and thousands deep. They are all
"pipes" which are formed by volcanic eruption. These pipes are the real
source of the diamonds. The precious blue ground which contains the
stones is spread out on immense "floors" to decompose under sun and
rain. Afterwards it is broken in crushers and goes through a series of
mechanical transformations. The diamonds are separated from the
concentrates on a pulsating table covered with vaseline. The gems cling
to the oleaginous substance. It is an elaborate process.

The Congo mines are alluvial and every creek and river bed is therefore
a potential diamond mine. The only labour necessary is to remove the
upper layer of earth,--the "overburden" as it is termed--dig up the
gravel, shake it out, and you have the concentrate from which a naked
savage can pick the precious stones. They are precise