was begun in June by a party from the Klip-drift camp.1
Their undertaking was an unwelcome intrusion on land claimed by the
Pniel Mission, and the diggers were warned of their trespassing by the
clergyman in charge. The Mission Station was several miles from the
diamond placer, and the diggers ignored the notice, as they were not
interfering apparently with the mission work by washing river bank
gravel. The placer ground proved so rich that the diggers flocked to it
rapidly, and the Berlin Society which maintained the missions at Pniel
and Hebron was soon glad to obtain the license fee which it was
generally able to secure from the diggers on the Pniel field. The
preferred locations on the Pniel bank were along a stretch in the
middle of the rising ground, a few yards from the water's edge. In this
tract diamonds were strewn so continuously as to suggest the existence
of a flow or stream of them, in the red drift gravel between the
boulders, to the eye of more than one observer. This strip was soon
honeycombed with shallow pits reaching bedrock about twenty-five feet
below the surface.2
The
flow of prospectors continued to spread until the Pniel camp, in a few
months, rivalled Klip-drift in size, and the two contained a population
of four or five thousand people. Small stone, brick, and iron buildings
for stores and other business uses were quickly put up in rows along a
main street in the heart of Klip-drift camp, which bore the name of
Campbell Street, and a few others of the same durable materials rose
from other spots in the fields, but most of the miners continued to
live in their canvas tents, or in reed huts plastered with clay. The
stone for building was readily obtained from neighboring hillsides, and
was neatly cut and laid, so that Campbell Street soon compared
favorably with any country town street in South Africa. Butchers,
bakers, and grocers opened shops; restaurants offered good, plainly
cooked food at charges so moderate that it was reckoned that a man
could be well fed at a cost of is. 6d. a day; a tavern and lodging-house, dignified by the name of hotel, accommodated travellers and regular boarders; diamond
1 "Among the Diamonds," 1870-1871. 2 Ibid.
