Ch. 5: Camps on the Vaal

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	CHAPTER V

	THE CAMPS ON THE VAAL EFORE calling to view the spreading of the diamond seekers along the line of the Vaal River, the rearing of successive camps, and the growing pursuit of gems in the gravel, it is essential to trace the progress of diamond mining from its original development on the water-shed of the Indus, and to account in great measure for the blundering, confusion, and failures in the new Diamond Fields by showing how crude and imperfect were any known methods of winning the precious stones at the time of the South African discoveries. From earliest history there had been no change and no prospect of change in the diamond mining of India (described in Chapter I). In the Deccan diamond fields, as in the other congested districts, there was such an influx of poor natives that no labor-saving contrivances were sought for, and the diamond-bearing gravels were lifted and washed by hand as they had been by the first generation of workers. There had been no competition with the Deccan field, and no considerable production outside of it, until the diamonds of the Brazilian fields were made known to the Portuguese in the year 1728. As soon as the Home Government learned of this discovery, the diamonds in Brazil were declared to be State property, and for a hundred years diamond mining was a Crown monopoly. This condition was a clog to any possible advance in the methods of mining. There was a constant drain on the industry without any effort to develop it systematically, thoroughly, or economically. 140

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