IN THE COMPOUND OF A DIAMOND MINE.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XVI, Issue XV, 11 April 1896, Page 405

IN THE COMPOUND OF A DIAMOND MINE.

There can be no doubt that the most interesting sight in the great De Beers mine at Kimberley is the compound. The compound of a South African mine, be it a gold or a diamond mine, is the place where the miners live, the miners being the Kaffirs of the native tribes. A correspondent writes of one of these compounds, that the most surprising things about these Kaffirs, was their cleanliness. Fancy 850 Chinamen huddled together, or even the same number of the lower class of almost any nationality. It would go hard if the place did not reek of vermin and disease, if one was not overcome with all manner of abominable smells. But among these 800 Kaffirs there was nothing of the sort. They were ragged; they were (some of them) nearly naked, They lay prone upon the ground in the sun and they cooked and ate some very queer-looking dishes, but they were wonderfully cleanly. A throng of them (especially such as had just come up from the mine) continually gathered about the great bathing tank in the centre of the compound, and upon going into the sheds, in each of which some half a dozen slept, there was no perceptible odour, not even that of stale bedding. But the compound Kaffirs of the De Beers are human,

sometimes, like Arthur Jones’ Cabinet Ministers, very human, and they will steal diamonds if thev can get the chance. The mine regulations, however, governing the labourers would seem to have reduced the opportunities for theft to a minimum. The Kaffir who is taken on as a miner at the De Beers signs a contract whereby he allows himself to be kept practically a prisoner for the period covered by his contract—a month. During this time he is not allowed to pass beyond the limits of the mine, or to hold communication with any outsider. He is restricted rigidly to the precincts of the mine itself and to the compound, an underground passage connecting the two places having been constructed for this especial purpose. He is allowed to use only ‘ compound money,’ brass tickets, each good for a shilling’s worth of provisions, clothes, tobacco, ‘ ginger pop,’ etc., at the compound store. The overhead wire netting prevents him tossing diamonds over the walls of the compound to be picked up by’ a confederate or by the nefarious * 1.D.8.’ (illicit diamond buyer.) During the time he is in the service of the company he is fed and clothed at the company’s expense. If he falls sick he is cared for at the hospital (and an admirable hospital it is), and if he is hurt in the mine his wounds are dressed and his welfare looked after by the company’s surgeon. At the end of his month he has the option of renewing

See 1 Our Illustrations. ’

his contract or throwing it up. If he throws it up he goes into what is called the ‘ detention house.’ Here he is stripped to the skin and remains in that condition under constant surveillance for a week. Every act of his daily life is performed under the eye of the guards. Stealing diamonds by swallowing them is the most difficult and hazardous method a Kaffir miner can employ. The pulsator where the ‘ pay dirt ’ is treated, and where the diamonds are found is about a quarter of a mile away from the mine itself, and the work here is done by convict Kaffirs and a few white men. The pulsator is a contrivance that by a constant oscillating motion sifts out the heavy diamonds from the gravel and sand and rotten quartz. The diamonds of the De Beers may not look like cut diamonds, but they certainly do not resemble the brown pebbles that you had been told you must expect to see. They are brilliant enough. I don’t think any debutante would take them for glass, and the only difference I could note between them and the finished stone was in the bluntness of the edges and in an occasional irregularity of shape.