CAPE DIAMOND FIELDS.
(From the Dunedin “ Herald.”) A resident in this city has received a letter from a friend—an ex-police constable in Otago who went to the Cape diamond fields a few months ago —who, after describing the voyage from New Zealand, states that he is earning per day for eight hours’ work in a tunnel at a place known as Fryer’s Fountain, in the Orange Free State. He goes on to say that the average rate of “ wages was £5 a week and found to superintend the natives at work,” and, as he puts it, ** to keep them from stealing the diamonds.” At the Kimberley diamond fields each claim is estimated to be worth £40,000, and the deeper they sink the more precious and better are the diamonds. The writer, with all Ips highly colored accounts, fails to recommend any one to go tbere { and remarks that, " should any New Zealanders come, they must expect to meet with many hardships.” The travelling into the interior has to be done in waggons. Bread is Is per loaf. The Dutch settiers are reported to be a very sulky lot. A large proportion of the men oh the digging are from New Zealand, and they are reported to be making money fast.
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South Canterbury Times, Issue 2591, 11 July 1881, Page 2
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210CAPE DIAMOND FIELDS. South Canterbury Times, Issue 2591, 11 July 1881, Page 2
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