KIMBERLEY
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could
make out from the reports that reached their far-flung lodginghouses,
prospecting for diamonds wasn't much different from prospecting for
gold. Like alluvial gold, diamonds were said to lurk in the sand and
gravel under and beside running water—that was where they had always
been found in India and Brazil—and the same method of extraction was
used for both: the gravel was panned until the precious stuff sank, of
its own weight, to the bottom. From both hemispheres, diggers sailed to
South Africa and, following a host of local adventurers, made their way
to the fields. It was a long, hard trip from the coastal cities—seven
hundred miles from Cape Town, four hundred and fifty miles from Durban
or Port Elizabeth, four hundred miles from East London, straight
across country on vile roads, or no roads at all, over mountains and
rocky plains, then over the high desert plateau called the Great
Karroo, and, finally, onto the veld—and the diggers traveled any way
they could, some on foot or muleback or horseback, some by cart or
chaise. Most of them, though, went by ox wagon—the famous South
African covered wagon, so like our own, drawn by as many as sixteen
oxen. A wagon could carry twelve men and their gear, and it not only
took the diggers where they were going but served as a dwelling place,
and a comparatively comfortable one, when they got there.
Fewer
of the Boers joined the rush than might have been expected. On the
whole, they didn't approve of treasure hunting; all they wanted was to
sit on their stoeps, smoke their pipes, and let their cattle
graze. For a time, some Boers refused to throw their land open to
diggers, though they could have made a small fortune, and perhaps a big
one, by leasing out digging rights, as their neighbors condescended to
do, and here
