128 THE DIAMOND MINES OF SOUTH AFRICA
canvas
suits, and long-legged, stiff, leather boots of the miner; the ragged,
greasy hats, tattered trousers or loin cloths of the native tribesmen ;
jaunty cloth caps, broad-brimmed felt, battered straw, garish
handkerchiefs twisted close to the roots of stiff black crowns, or
tufts of bright feathers stuck in a wiry mat of curls ; such a
higgledy-piggledy as could only be massed in a rush from African coast
towns and native kraals to a field of unknown requirements, in a land
whose climate swung daily between a scorch and a chill, where men in
the same hour were smothered in dust and drenched in a torrent.
It
is doubtful if a single one of this fever-stricken company had ever
seen a diamond field or had the slightest experience in rough diamond
winning, but no chilling doubt of themselves or their luck restrained
them from rushing to their fancied Golconda. Their ideal field was much
nearer a mirror of the valley of Sindbad than the actual African river
bank, and it was certain that many would be as bitterly disappointed by
the rugged stretch of gravel at Klip-drift as the gay Portuguese
cavaliers were at the sight of the Manica gold placers.
Everything
in the form of a carriage from a chaise to a buck-wagon was pressed
into service, but the best available transport was the big trekking
ox-wagon of the Boer pioneer. This was a heavily framed, low-hung
wagon, about twenty feet long and five and a half feet broad. In this
conveyance more than a dozen men often packed themselves and their
camping outfit and food. An exceptionally well-equipped party carried
bacon, potatoes, onions, tea, coffee, sugar, condensed milk, flour,
biscuits, dried peas, rice, raisins, pickles, and Cape brandy. The
total weight of load allowed, including the living freight, was limited
to seven thousand pounds.1
East
London, the nearest port, was something more than four hundred miles
from the diamond field, and Cape Town nearly seven hundred. Durban,
Port Alfred, and Port Elizabeth were almost equally distant, as the
crow flies, approximately four
1 "The Diamond Diggings of South Africa," Charles Alfred Pavton, London, 1872.
