This
demand was quite enough to stir the pulse of producÂtion in every part
of South Africa, and the heartening impulse thus given was sustained
and advanced far beyond the stretch of this novel requirement by the
rising faith in the possibilities and future of South Africa as a field
for investment, which now began to lift the drooping spirits of the
colonists and to attract the cooperation of the home country and the
leading nations of the world. Hopeful prospectors rambled off farther
and farther over the deserts and ranges, or followed the waterÂcourses,
testing the sands for diamonds or gold, and picking at every promising
ledge in their search for ore. Pioneer
