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 with a few sheepskins and goatskins laid upon the ground for sleeping accommodation, may be said to be a fair representation of the average arrangements, external and internal, of such establishments. A violent draught penetrating every cranny kept some tattered curtains—so old, that it was impossible to say what their original texture had been—in continual motion; and so intense was the cold, that I was sorely tempted to drag down the ragged drapery, stop its fluttering, and wrap it round me for a covering.

In such quarters, anything like refreshing sleep was not to be expected, and we were glad enough next morning, after an untempting breakfast, to turn our backs upon the place. In the afternoon we arrived at Jacobsdal, another comfortless looking place, consisting of about five-and-twenty houses, scattered over a scorched-up plain. A long drive on the following morning was to bring us to the central diamond-fields. The nearer we approached, the more dreary did the landscape become; the bushes dwindled gradually, and finally disappeared, so that a few patches of dry grass were alone left as the representatives of vegetation.

The first day on which I set my eyes upon the diamond-fields, I must confess, will ever be engraven on my memory. As our vehicle, drawn by four horses, made its rapid descent from the heights near Scholze’s Farm, and when my companion, pointing me to the bare plains just ahead, told me that there lay my future home, my heart sank within