faithful
and honest, as was shown by test after test. One boy brought straight
to his master a diamond of eighty carats, which his quick eye detected
in the roots of an old stump that he had been told to dump into the
river. Another returned the counterfeit stones that his employer had
purposely dropped in the concentrate.1 But all were not
equally trustworthy, and many fine stones were filched from the tables
by nimble-fingered sorters, even under the eye of a wary overseer. When
the Boer farmers came to the fields, they often brought their families
with them, and it was a common sight to see father and sons digging and
washing, while the mother and daughters sat on the ground industriously
picking over a layer of pebbles. Sometimes, too
