38
DIAMOND
of
fact, was fluid; traders sometimes abandoned their stock to go digging,
and diggers who had no luck turned in disgust to trade and made bigger
fortunes than they would have if they had found another Star of South
Africa. In any case, there were hardly enough ethics to go around, and
in time illicit diamond buying became so rife that trying to stop it
was like trying to stop Victoria Falls. In spite of many
rough-and-ready preventive measures devised by the Diggers'
Committees, more and more natives took to picking up and hiding
diamonds, and more and more traders bought such stones for practically
nothing and then sold them for something less than the going price.
Economically, I.D.B. was a bad thing, and morally it was even
worse—these diamonds were, after all, stolen goods—but every trader
knew that if he turned down a chance the next man would grab it, and
many traders let principle go hang. What with one thing and another, so
much diamond smuggling was going on that some people not prone to
exaggeration estimated that in the 1870s half the caratage produced at
Kimberley and in the Vaal wound up in the hands of illicit buyers.
I.D.B.
infuriated the diggers, and one unfortunate Kimberley canteen keeper,
who was rumored to be seeing far too much of furtive natives after
dark, was set upon by a mob of diggers, who burned his tent and all his
stock. Apparently, the mob enjoyed this experience, for the men went
on to burn down a whole district, which they afterward virtuously
described as an undesirable haunt of native women. Then they set out
along the road to another canteen, whose owner, somebody said, bought
diamonds by night. The local magistrate rode out to intercept the
crowd, and made a speech urging them to desist and go home, but, as the
News reported, "he was respectfully lis-
