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CHAPTER XIX
AN UPLIFTING POWER
HAT
a change came over the dismal face of South Africa with the discovery
and development of the diamond mines! In a former chapter it has been
shown how dragging had been the advance from the few scattered
settlements on the coast up to the year when the revelation of
diamonds drew the first rush of prospectors to the banks of the Vaal.
The yield of this marvellous field was, from the first, of material
consequence in the sum of South African products, but it was of far
greater importance in the stimulus which it gave to the flagging and
stinted enterprises and the sinking hearts of the colonists.
The bits of iron hoop that scraped the diamond-bearing ground were as transforming as magicians' wands. The river
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