Page:South Africa (1878 Volume 2).djvu/182

 were too strong, and the proprietors of the farms were obliged to throw open their lands to the miners on the terms which the men dictated.

The English came,—at the end of 1871,—just as the system of dry digging had formed itself at these two mines, and from that time to this Du Toit's Pan and Bultfontein have been worked as regular diamond mines. I did not find them especially interesting to a visitor. Each of them is about two miles distant from Kimberley town, and the centre of the one can hardly be more than a mile distant from the centre of the other. They are under the inspection of the same Government officer, and might be supposed to be part of one and the same enterprise were it not that there is a Mining Board at Du Toit's Pan, whereas the shareholders at Bultfontein have abstained from troubling themselves with such an apparatus. They trust the adjustment of any disputes which may arise to the discretion of the Government Inspector.

At each place there is a little village, very melancholy to look at, consisting of hotels or drinking bars, and the small shops of the diamond dealers. Everything is made of corrugated iron and the whole is very mean to the eye. There had been no rain for some months when I was there, and as I rode into Du Toit's Pan the thermometer shewed over 90 in the shade, and over 150 in the sun. While I was at Kimberley it rose to 96 and 161. There is not a blade of grass in the place, and I seemed to breathe dust rather than air. At both these places there seemed to be a "mighty maze,"—in which they differ altogether from the Kimberley