|
CHAPTER III
THE DE BEERS SAGA
The discovery of the Star of South Africa in 1869 stirred the imaginations and hopes of wealthy merchants from London to Amsterdam, impoverished laborers from Capetown to Natal, burghers from the Transvaal. They came in style and equipped with money, or they descended upon the Klip Drift along the River Vaal in hand-carts, in big Boer wagons, by horseback, and even on foot. In all history, perhaps, the period had its feverish counterpart only in the California Gold Rush of twenty years before.
Within
a year ten thousand diggers were strung out for scores of miles, from
Hebron, 20 miles northeast of Klip Drift, to Sefonells, 60 miles to the
west—all tearing at the river soil, shaking it through cradle sieves,
eyes strained from looking for the dull, greasy salty-appearing little
objects that promised fortunes. They continued to spread out 100 miles
to the southeast when a diamond of fifty carats was found on the
Jagersfontein Farm. To the south of Klip Drift, they pounced upon the
soil at Dutoitspan. Across a ravine from that they moved to inspect the
Bul-fontein Farm where more "Blink Klippe," as the Boers called them,
were discovered. These men were looking, moving—wildly—in all
directions, seeking the elusive; they were sheep, they were cattle,
goaded by hunger, afraid, hopeful, skeptical.
(40)
|
||
|
|
||