MAN WHO FORGOT £1500 GEMS.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 17837, 4 May 1926, Page 12

MAN WHO FORGOT £ISOO GEMS.

ROMANCE OF PIONEER DIAMOND MINER. LONDON, March 15. A romantic story of a fortune made in the Kimberley diamond fields in the ’SO's. when that El Doradcv.was no more than a canvas camp of lawlessness, lies behind the following cable from Cape Town in yesterday’s "Daily Chronicle”;— The rotting of the covering of a sealed package iri the strong-room of : the Standard Bank, Kimberley, revealed that the contents were diamonds valued at £ISOO. The package, has not been claimed since it was deposited for safe custody by C. R.. Cowie *lO years ago. A South African now in London, and formerly a close business acquaintance, of Mr Cowie, told a “Daily Chronicle” reporter something of Mr Cowie’s life and diamond-mining enterprises. “Mr Cowie,” he said, “was a verywealthy man who would never have missed the £ISOO worth of diamonds he left in the bank and apparently forgot all about. “He was one of the early pioneers of the Kimberley diamond mines, and worked his own claim. It-was a veryrich one. and he amassed a fortune. “Among his associates were Barney Barnato, who, with Cecil Rhodes, was the outstanding figure of the minefields and the founder of a great, diamond enterprise. FOOTPADS. “In those days the gems were found fairly close to the surface. The method was to spread the soil out in the sun to dry and crumble. With luck you found the diamonds sticking out like bits of dirty glass without a trace of ?*parklc. “Mr Cowie struck lucky, and what was more important, got his gems to safety. Kimberley then was a city of tents in the desert, full of footpads ami other undesirables, who made a point-of getting diamonds without' digging. As banks were almost the only safe places many deposits were made in their strong-rooms. “Packets of diamonds were stent to the more civilised parts by stage coach, and these were a common prey of highwaymen.” HIDDEN GEMS. ‘ Another enemy of the miners were, and still are. the 1.D.8.’s (illicit diamond buyers), who encouraged the natives working in the mines to smuggle out gems and sell them cheaply. The natives used to conceal them between their toes, or in their hair. They even | swallowed them “Some even went, to the length of I cutting a wound in their leg for a hiding place. "Stringent laws and thorough search -of the natives is combating the 1.D.8. trade, but it still goes on. Mr Cowie retired from active mining some years after ISS6—-the year he deposited the package of diamonds at I Kimberley—-and resided at Grahamstov.*n, tlie ‘City of the Saints,’ where 1 met him a good deal. When last I saw him in 1892 he was an active little man of over 40.”