were mission stations at Pniel and Hebron.1
For centuries unnumbered the aboriginal tribes had been ignorantly
trampling under foot gems of countless price, and for years Dutch and
English hunters, pioneers, farmers, shepherds, and missionaries trekked
as heedlessly over the African diamond beds.
After
the revelation of this fact, there arose, it is true, an imposing tale
of an old mission map of the Orange River region, drawn as far back as
the middle of the eighteenth century, across whose worn and soiled face
was scrawled: "Here be diamonds."'2 Even if this report were
true, there was no evidence determining the date of the scrawl, which
might more credibly be a crude new record than a vague old one. In any
event, it does not appear that there was even a floating rumor of the
probable existence of a South African diamond field at the time of the
actual discovery of the first identified gem.
There
is nothing surprising in this oversight. When a spectator beholds a
great semicircle of artfully cut gems sparkling on the heads, necks,
and hands of fair women massed in superb array, and resplendent in the
brilliant lights of an opera house, or when one views the moving throng
glittering with jewels in grand court assemblies, it is hard for him to
realize how inconspicuous a tiny isolated crystal may be in the richest
of earth beds. No spot in a diamond field has the faintest resemblance
to a jeweller's show tray. Here is no display of gems blazing like a
Mogul's throne, or a Queen's tiara, or the studded cloak of a Russian
noble. Only in the marvellous valley of Sindbad are diamonds strewn on
the ground in such profusion that they are likely to stick in the toes
of a barefooted traveller, and can be gathered by flinging carcasses of
sheep from surrounding precipices to tempt eagles to serve as diamond
winners.
It needs no strain of faith to credit the old Persian tale of the discontented AH Hafed, roaming far and wide from his
1 "South Africa," George McCall Theal, London, 1888, 1891, 1893.
2 " South African Diamond Fields and Journey to Mines," William Jacob Morton, New York, 1877.
