The Diamond                      29
	quartz, semi-precious stones of some value if cut and marketed in far-off Europe. Among the pebbles which a little son of the Boer farmer brought into the house was a small white stone which sparkled so in the sun that the vrou of the Boer farmer noticed it, although she did not care sufficiently to pick it up, and only mentioned it to a neighbour, Schalk van Niekirk, who asked to see it. The little white pebble had been thrown out, but the children found it in the dust of the yard. Van Niekirk wiped the dust from the stone and found it so interesting that he offered to buy it, which occasioned some mirth, and it was given to him. With a vague instinct that the stone was unusual and had some value, Van Niekirk subsequently asked a travel­ling trader, John Reilly, to see if he could find out what it wras and if anybody would give any money for it. Several merchants in Hopetown and in Colesberg examined it, said it was pretty, and one thought it might be a topaz, but none would give a penny for it. Reilly might have thrown it away but for a casual exhibition of the pebble to Lorenzo Boyes, a Civil Commissioner at Colesberg, who, experimenting, found that the Pebble would scratch glass, and seriously said he thought it was a diamond. A local apothecary,