THE CAPE DIAMOND FIELDS.

Evening Star, Issue 2912, 19 June 1872, Page 3

THE CAPE DIAMOND FIELDS.

As some interest is taken by miners in this Province in the {respects of the Cape fields, the following extract from a letter re ceived by a gentleman in Chri-tchurch, and which appears in the Canterbury Press, will be acceptable : Notwithstanding all my friends at home doing their best to prevent my leaving, 1 am a veritable diamond seeker. I have been three months coming from INatal (450 miles) on a bullock dray with sixteen bullocks. Freight for self and 2cwt. baggage, L(i, We travelled always by night, and were between seven and eight weeks coming. I should say we are 700 miles from Cape Town, and 450 from Algoa Bay. There is a passenger waggon now going to Cape Town in nine days, the fare Lls, while the post-cart does the distance in five days. . . . 'lhere are two others with myself in our party. We have got since I came four diamonds, weighing each 3J, 2, 1, * carats ; the largest sold forL3s. Not many, you will say, for the time we have been here ; hut we hope, like the rest of us, to find “ The Big Diamond.” However, the fact of there being diamonds, both plentiful and valuable, is no myth. A party of three, whose claim is not far from ours, have just divided L25.00U between them, and retain a quarter share of their claim. In a claim adjoining ours, one-eight share was sold for L 250, the buyers doing well with it. So you see our hopes have good grounds of foundation. There are between thirty or forty thousand persons on these diggings. Tlic diggings here are dry —that is, the stuff is dry shifted and cradle washed, as at river diggings. After the stuff has been got out and broken up, it is passed through two sieves, the first with half to three-quarter inch mesh, to take out the lumps and stones ; the second, or fine sieve, has meshes with from six to seven holes to the inch: this sifts the sand out, and the gravel remains, the sieve being placed on a table to be scraped off a little as a time, and search made for diamonds. It is very dusty work, and down in some of the holes it is hard enough to breathe for the quantity of small fine sand. But one will put up with a great deal for the hope of a big diamond. There is but little, if any, wood for fuel, but its substitute, cowdung, is pretty plentiful. Water is also very scaice, and we pay 3d per bucket for all we use ; meat, 5d per lb : butter, 3s fid ; tea, 5s ; and a 31b loaf of bread, Is, It blows hard five days of the week, diversified with thunder-storms, accompanied with severe gales; and there being no shelter you may imagine the condition of our tents, which, if blown away, as sometimes happens, are difficult to replace, at not lest thau £lO. Amongst the diggers are many Dutch and Australians . . . At the river diggings the stuff is washed in a cradle and then sorted.”