ture
is thin, droughts are frequent, and locusts sometimes destroy a large
part of the herbage. Thus the number of persons for whom the care of
cattle or sheep in any given area provides occupation is a mere trifle
compared to the number which would be needed to till the same area.
Artesian wells might, no doubt, make certain regions better for pastoral
purposes; but here, as in the case of agriculture, we find little
prospect of any dense population, and, indeed, a probability that the
white people will continue to be few relatively to the area of the
country. On a large grazing farm the proportion of white men to black
servants is usually about three to twenty-five; and though the
proportion of whites is, of course, much larger in the small towns which
supply the wants of the surrounding country, still any one can see with
how few whites a ranching country may get along.

The third source of wealth lies in the minerals. It was the latest
source to become known--indeed, till thirty-two years ago, nobody
suspected it. Iron had been found in some places, copper in others; but
neither had been largely worked, and the belief in the existence of the
precious metals rested on nothing more than a Portuguese tradition. In
1867 the first diamond was picked up by a hunter out of a heap of
shining pebbles near the banks of the Orange River, above its confluence
with the Vaal. In 1869-70 the stones began to be largely found near
where the town of Kimberley now stands. This point has been henceforth
the centre of the industry, though there are a few other mines elsewhere
of smaller productive power. The value of the present annual output
exceeds L4,000,000, but it is not likely to increase, being, in fact,
now kept down in order not to depress the market by over-supply.
Altogether more than L100,000,000 worth of diamonds have been exported.
The discovery of diamonds, as was observed in an earlier chapter, opened
a new period in South African history, drawing crowds of immigrants,
developing trade through the seaports as well as industry at the mining
centres, and producing a group of enterprising men who, when the various
diamond-mining companies had been amalgamated, sought and found new ways
of employing their capital. Fifteen years after the great diamond finds
came the still greater gold finds at the Witwatersrand. The working of
these mines has now become the greatest industry in the country, and
Johannesburg is the centre tow