a
local siege, should communication with the Kimberley and Beaconsfield
defences be cut off. One of the three searchlights which De Beers
Company uses on their "floor" for preventing theft of diamonds by night
was placed at this fort. The Boers called these searchlights " Rhodes'
eyes." About 150 of De Beers employes and one hundred regulars, with
two seven-pound guns and a Maxim, were constantly on duty at this fort.
The
pumping plant which supplied Kimberley was down in the open mine. This
plant, as well as all the machinery of the mine, was protected with
sand bags. In heaps about the mine, and in all the buildings on the
side of the mine adjoining the Free State, mines were laid, with wires
leading from them to the
