work
and sympathy, though the Pniel camp did not pretend to the dignity of
an independent Republic, but submitted meekly to the payment of license
fees to the Berlin Mission Society and to the assertion of the
sovereignty of the Orange Free State, represented by a local
magistrate, with the adjuncts of a canvas jail, whipping-posts, and
stocks.1
Oddly
enough, in view of the shallow gravel bed which was the sole support of
these camps, the approach of collapse was not clearly foreseen. An
observer of more than ordinary intelligence visited the camp at the
close of the year 1870, and noted the exhaustion of the rich ridge
gravel back of Campbell Street, where more than two thousand diggers
were at work a few months before. Yet, while remarking the drift of
prospectors to outlying placers, he wrote, " Notwithstanding this,
Klip-drift flourishes, and together with Pniel will no doubt always
continue to be a head centre of the diamond-digging community." For
this sanguine view there was some justification in the general
ignorance of the actual extent of the diamond beds in the alluvial
deposit, and in the common declaration of a purpose to persist in
searching for diamonds, even by those whose hard luck forced them to
abandon the fields for a time. " Hope's blest dominion never ends " to
the most unfortunate laborer. This visitor did not meet one of the many
leaving the ground with empty pockets who did not protest his
resolution to return to the diggings in the following March or April
after the heat and storms of the summer season on the Vaal were past.2
Fortunately for these luckless adventurers, there was a new and
phenomenal development of other Diamond Fields, whose output soon
dwarfed all the returns from the shallow River Diggings.
1 "Among the Diamonds," 1870-1 871. "South Africa," George McCall Theal, 1888-1893.
2 " Among the Diamonds," 1870-1871.
