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DIAMOND MINES OF SOUTH AFRICA 231
Vaal, unrecognized. Neither were there many diggers from outside.
But
in 1869 came a confirmation of the existence of diamonds in that
locality, which created excitement. A diamond weighing over eighty
carats was picked up by a native. It has since been named the " Star of
South Africa." As soon as this find was noised abroad, adventurers
flocked to the Vaal. The New York Herald in September, 1870, published an extract from the Gra-hamstown {Cape of Good Hope) Journal, of
August 12th which said, " Every town and district in the Colony has
sent its contingent to the army of workers at the Vaal fields. In May
there were about one hundred men at the diggings. Before the end of
June there were seven hundred, at the close of July there were over one
thousand, and at present it is estimated that there are at the
Klipdrift, Pniel, Hebron and Kuskamana Fields no less than two thousand
men." As soon as the news was published in London and New York, men
began to flock from England and this continent to the magic of "
diamonds." Naturally much the larger number were from the colony's
mother country. By April of 1871 there were about five thousand diggers
scattered along the Vaal, Modder, and Orange rivers.
In
these early days of the diggings, the men who gathered there were an
orderly class of people. The difficulties and hardships to be
encountered in reaching the fields, deterred the idle and worthless;
the cost of the journey was a barrier to the impoverished, and there
was not yet sufficient success to tempt the criminal and vicious. The
country was outside the bounds of established law and government.
Beyond the Cape Colony's
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