172 THE DIAMOND MINES OF SOUTH AFRICA
the
river diggings. Hot winds blew the red dust from the surrounding veld
in clouds over the workers, and these dust blasts were mixed with the
powdered white limestone and pulverized cement of the ridge, shaken
through the sieves and blown in the faces of the miners, inflaming
their eyes, clogging their noses, and even coating their skin through
their clothes. So fine was this powder and so sharply blown that it
penetrated even hunting-case watches, and few watches could be kept
running after a month at the diggings of Dutoitspan.1
But
this was comparatively a trivial concern to ardent diamond seekers,
winning the precious stones so frequently. Every day swelled the rush
of adventurers to the pan, bargaining for halves, quarters, and even
eighths of a claim on the ridge, and roaming over every foot of ground
of Dorstfontein and the neighboring farms of Bultfontein, Vooruitzigt,
and Alex-andersfontein in search of new diamond beds. Oddly enough, as
the prospectors thought, no spot on the whole farm of Dorstfontein
rewarded their search outside of the ridge near the pan, and for months
no better luck attended the hunting for diamonds over the neighboring
farms. But where one party of the ardent seekers failed to find
diamonds, another followed on its track and scoured the face of the
farms with shovels and sieves, with a persistence that was certain to
be rewarded, in time, if any diamond surface beds existed outside of
the ridge at Dutoitspan. In the frequent sinking of pits, also, in the
basins, for water, there was the further chance of piercing some hidden
bed of diamonds, for the search for springs was hardly less keen than
the quest for precious stones.
So, early in 1871,2
diamonds were unearthed in the surface soil close to the farmhouse of
Bultfontein. This discovery was followed in the first days of May by
the discovery of diamonds on de Beer's farm, Vooruitzigt, about two
miles from Dutoitspan.8 Two months later a second diamond bed was uncov-
1 "The Diamond Diggings of South Africa," Payton, 1872. 2 Ibid.
3 Ibid. [These
dates differ somewhat from those given by Theal and others. Payton was
on the ground in July, 1871, and his account should be most accurate.]
