THE CAPE DIAMOND FIELDS.

Grey River Argus, Volume XI, Issue 972, 7 September 1871, Page 3

THE CAPE DIAMOND FIELDS.

By accounts. received from the diamond •'■ 'fields 'of South Africa, we gather how very different these new "Tom Tiddler's * grounds"- are from the ideal generally in favor. Most people probably form their ! conception of such a scene from Sinbad's "Valley of Jewels," where the Arab mariner made a splendid ha\il bY throwing legs of mutton into the dark ravine, from which the eagles and vultures brought them up again, stuck as full of precious „, , _. brilliants as a Christmas pudding is of "plums. The Vaal diamond diggings are low, dry, barren, ugly slopes, covered >. with thorn bushes, and sloping down toa wild, naked river. Yet here, for thou,a , sands .of .years, have been lyiug gems of the finest water,destined at last to glitter on the bosom of beauty and in the diadems of sovereigns. The fascinating stones are found in a yellow tinted gravel covering the top of the slope ; and dia- .- momls seem to' keep good company, even when undiscovered, for this very gravel . consists largely of agates, cornelians, and broken jasper, which ,w.ould tempt collection were it not that one good brilliant is worth a cart-load of such stones. The digger shovels into a large-meshed sieve as much as is convenient of the gravel, rejecting all the bigger fragments, arid sifts the heap through into a pan, which is taken down to the stream. Here he washes the "lot" through two other sieves of decreasing calibre, and, after glancing at the coarser stuff, looks more carefully among the: final; dishful. Sometimes—not often—the gleam of a diamond repays his toil, but many go on week after week without the longed-for " flash," and the labor, although; not' severe, is dreadfully monotonous. Does it pay ? Perhaps there is no no form of plodding industry that more nearly approaches to gambling, 5 whether in its motive or in the aggregate and average gain on the labor bestowed.