ROMANTIC DIAMOND FIND.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XLIII, Issue 2338, 6 October 1921, Page 1

ROMANTIC DIAMOND FIND.

FORTUNE THROUGH ILLNESS.

STARVING MEN BECOME RICH,

Details of the finding of the “Arc” diamond in South Africa read like a chapter of romance. Three men, Sclieepers, Kalteubrun, and Smith, set out from the Transvaal diggings for Mosenberg, where a new field was shortly to be opened. Smith had his wife and little boy with the party. A few miles from Barkley West the boy became ill, and forced the party to cease their trek and camp at GongGong. While the mother was nursing her child, the men, to fill in their idle time, went to work digging in the vague hope of picking up some trifle. Matters went from bad to worse; the diggers had no luck, and finally the party were reduced to living on maize meal and little else. In such circumstances it is little wonder that the sick child grew steadily worse, and died. After the funeral there was no reason for staying in the unluncky and-appar-ently unprofitable camp. But a chance visitor, a man named Els, had pointed out a bit of ground, and had strongliy advised the diggers to give it a trial. They decided to follow his advice, and at the end of two days they were “into” pot clay, the soil in which diamonds are usually found. Then fortune came to them, literally at a stroke —at one stroke of Kaltenbrun’s pick. He turned up something which he took to be a piece of crystal, something so big that it seemed ridiculous to suppose it could be a diamond. Sclieepers was called to examine it, and although he, too, pronounced against it being a real “stone,” he washed it in a bucket of water, and examined it carefully again. The partners hung over their find, scarcely daring to hope, dazzled by the possibility of a fortune in their hands; afraid of the blow that would follow Hie decision that the stone was no diamond.

But their hopes were well founded. Diggers crowded round; the stone was examined and re-examin-ed, was pronounced amid wild excitement to bo the genuine thing, and worth a fortune, When the news reached Barkley West, the centre of the Griqualahd West alluvial diggings, diggers and diamond buyers hurried on horseback and in motor cars to Gong-Gong. The diamond was weighed, and bids began to be made to the lucky diggers, bids of amounts that to them appeared fabulous. They kept their heads, and refused to sell until they could get their find properly valued.

It was bought at last by three men for a sum which is a secret, but which certainly ran into many thousands. It was christened the Are, and has already taken its place among the world’s great gems, The diggers are made men, but the child who was their making lies buried in the quiet little cemetery on the veldt near the spot where his father found fortune.