Page:South Africa (1878 Volume 2).djvu/213

 cut to any advantage. There were very many evil stones to one that was good, so that nature after all did not appear to have been as generous as she might have been. And these dealers when the stones are brought to them for purchase, have no certain standard of value by which to regulate their transactions with their customers. The man behind the counter will take the stones, one by one, examine them, weigh them, and then make his offer for the parcel. Dealing in horses is precarious work,—when there is often little to shew whether an animal be worth £50, or £100, or £150. But with diamonds it must be much more so. A dealer offers £500 when the buyer has perhaps expected £2,000! And yet the dealer is probably nearest to the mark. The diamonds at any rate are bought and sold, and are sent away by post at the rate of about £2,000,000 in the year. In 1876 the registered export of diamonds from Kimberley amounted in value to £1,414,590, and reached 773 pounds avoirdupois in weight. But it is computed that not above three quarters of what are sent from the place are recorded in the accounts that are kept. There is no law to make such record necessary. Any one who has become legally possessed of a diamond may legally take it or send it away as he pleases.

The diamond dealers whom I saw were the honest men, who keep their heads well above water, and live in the odour of diamond sanctity, dealing only with licensed diggers and loving the law. But there are diamond dealers who buy from the Kafirs,—or from intermediate rogues who instigate the Kafirs to steal. These are regarded as the curse of the place, and, as may be understood, their existence