veritable diamond, weighs twenty-one and a quarter carats, and is worth £500.
It has spoiled all the jewellers' files in Grahams-town, and where that
came from there must be lots more. Can I send it to Mr. Southey,
Colonial Secretary ? "
This
report was a revelation which transformed the despised Karrooland as
the grimy Cinderella was transfigured by the wand of her fairy
godmother. The determination was so positive and the expertness of the
examiner so well conceded that Sir Philip Wodehouse, the Governor at
the Cape, bought the
rough
diamond at once, at the value fixed by Dr. Atherstone and confirmed by
the judgment of M. Henriette, the French consul in Cape Town.1
The stone was sent immediately to the Paris Exhibition, where it was
viewed with much interest, but its discovery, at first, did not cause
any great sensation. The occasional finding of a diamond in a bed of
pebbles had been reported before from various parts of the globe, and
there was
