The news of the discovery set Boer farmers in the Vaal valley to some desultory turning
over
of river gravel in a search for another precious "blinke klippe"
(bright stone); but it was ten months before a second diamond was
found, and this was on a spot thirty miles away, on the bank of the
river below the junction of the Vaal and Orange rivers. In 1868 a few
more small diamonds were picked up, and then, in March, 1869, a
magnificent white diamond weighing 83.5 carats was picked up by a
Griqua shepherd boy on the farm Zendfontein, near the Orange River.
Schalk van Niekirk made this poor South African native a local Croesus
by trading for the stone five hundred sheep, ten oxen, and a horse; the
thrifty Boer sold the diamond for nearly $55,000 to Lilienfeld Brothers
of Hopetown, and Earl Dudley later bought this gem, now the famous "
Star of South Africa," for nearly $125,000.
After
this, diamond-hunting became more than a pastime in South Africa. The
first systematic digging and sifting of the alluvial ground of the
Vaal valley was in November, 1869, by an organised party of prospectors
from Maritzburg in Natal, initiated by Major Francis °f the British
Army, then stationed at Maritz-
