electors of Kimberley before they have got trowsers to cover their nakedness.

I must add also that a visitor to Kimberley should if possible take an opportunity of looking down upon the mine by moonlight. It is a weird and wonderful sight, and may almost be called sublime in its peculiar strangeness.

CHAPTER IX.

Kimberley.

HAVING described the diamond mines in the Kimberley district I must say a word about the town of Kimberley to which the mines have given birth. The total population as given by a census taken in 1877 was 13,590, shewing the town to be the second largest in South Africa. By joining to this Du Toit's Pan and Bultfontein which are in fact suburbs of Kimberley we get a total urban population of about 18,000. Of these nearly 10,000 are coloured, and something over 8,000 are Europeans. Among the Europeans two-fifths are females, and of course there is the ordinary population of children-with the coloured people the females are about 1 to 7. Of the adult male population two-thirds are of coloured races,-Kafirs for the most part, and one-third is European. At present both the one and the other are a shifting people; --but the Kafirs shift much the quickest. Each man remains generally only six or eight months on the Fields and then returns home to his tribe. This mode of life, however, is already somewhat on the decrease, and as the love of making money grows, and as tribal reverence for the Chieftains dies out, the men will learn to remain more

constantly at their work. Unless the diamonds come to an end all together,-which one cannot but always feel to be possible,—the place will become a large town with a settled Kafir population which will fall gradually into civilized ways of life. There is no other place in South Africa where this has been done, or for many years can be done to the same extent. I mention this here because it seems to be so essentially necessary to remember that South Africa is a land not of white but of black men, and that the progress to be most desired is that which will quickest induce the Kafir to put off his savagery and live after the manner of his white brethren.

Throughout the whole country which the English and the Dutch between them have occupied as their own, the Kafirs are the superiors in numbers in much greater proportion than that stated above in reference to the town of Kimberley; but these numbers are to be found, not in towns, but out in their own hitherto untouched districts, where they live altogether after their old ways, where the Kafirs of to-day are as were the Kafirs of fifty years ago. And even with those who have come under our dominion and who live to some degree intermixed with us, the greater proportion still follow their old customs of which idleness and dependence on the work of women for what is absolutely necessary to existence, may be said to be the most prominent. The work of civilizing as it has been carried out by simple philanthropy or by religion is terribly slow. One is tempted sometimes to say that nothing is done by religion and very little by philanthropy. But love of money works very fast. In Griqualand West, especially in the Diamond Fields, and above all at Kimberley, it is not only out in the wilds, by the river sides, on the veld, and in their own kraals, that the black men outnumber the white; but in the streets of the city also and in the

work shops of the mine. And here they are brought together not by the spasmodic energy of missionaries or by the unalluring attraction of schools but by the certainty. of earning wages. The seeker after diamonds is determined to have them because the making of his fortune depends upon them; and the Kafir himself is determined to come to Kimberley because he has learned the loveliness of IOS. a week paid regularly into his hand every Saturday night.

Who can doubt but that work is the great civilizer of the world,-work and the growing desire for those good things which work only will bring? If there be one who does he should come here to see how those dusky troops of labourers, who ten years since were living in the wildest state of unalloyed savagery, whose only occupation was the slaughter of each other in tribal wars, each of whom was the slave of his Chief, who were subject to the dominion of most brutalizing and cruel superstitions, have already put themselves on the path towards civilization. They are thieves no doubt;-that is they steal diamonds though not often other things. They are not Christians. They do not yet care much about breeches. They do not go to school. But they are orderly. They come to work at six in the morning and go away at six in the evening. They have an hour in the middle of the day, and know that they have to work during the other hours. They take their meals regularly and, what is the best of all, they are learning to spend their money instead of carrying it back to their Chiefs.

Civilization cannot come at once. The coming I fear under any circumstances must be slow. But this is the quickest way towards it that has yet been found. The simple teaching of religion has never brought large numbers of Natives to live in European habits; but I have no

doubt that European habits will bring about 1eligion. The black man when he lives with the white man and works under the white man's guidance will learn to believe really what the white man really believes himself. Surely we should not expect him to go faster. But the missionary has endeavoured to gratify his own soul by making here and there a model Christian before the pupil has been able to understand any of the purposes of Christianity. I have not myself seen the model Christian perfected; but when I have looked down into the Kimberley mine and seen three or four thousand of them at work,although each of them would willingly have stolen a diamond if the occasion came, -I have felt that I was looking at three or four thousand growing Christians.

Because of this I regard Kimberley as one of the most interesting places on the face of the earth. I know no other spot on which the work of civilizing a Savage is being carried on with so signal a success. The Savages whom we have encountered in our great task of populating the world have for the most part eluded our grasp by perishing while we have been considering how we might best deal with them. Here, in South Africa, a healthy nation remains and assures us by its prolific tendency that when protected from self-destruction by our fostering care it will spread and increase beneath our hands. But what was to be done with these people? Having found that they do not mean to die, by what means might we instruct them how to live? Teach them to sing hymns, and all will be well. That is one receipt. Turn them into slaves, and make them work. That is another receipt. Divide the land with them, and let them live after their own fashions;-only subject to some little control from us. That was a third. The hymns have done nothing. The slavery was of course impos

sible. And that division of land has been, perhaps not equally futile, but insufficient for the growing needs of the people;-insufficient also for our own needs. Though we abuse the Kafir we want his service, and we want more than our share of his land. But that which no effort of intelligence could produce has been brought about by circumstances. The Diamond Fields have been discovered and now there are ten thousand of these people receiving regular wages and quite capable of rushing to a magistrate for protection if they be paid a shilling short on Saturday night.

This the diamonds have done, and it is the great thing which they have done. We have fair reason to

believe that other similar industries will arise. There are already copper mines at work in Namaqualand, on the western coast of South Africa, in which the Natives are employed, and lead mines in the Transvaal. There are gold fields in the Transvaal at which little is now being done, because the difficulties of working them are at present overwhelming. But as years roll quickly on these, too, will become hives of coloured labour, and in this way Kimberleys will arise in various parts of the continent.

I cannot say that Kimberley is in other respects an alluring town;-perhaps as little so as any town that I have ever visited. There are places to which men are attracted by the desire of gain which seem to be so repulsive that no gain can compensate the miseries incidental to such an habitation. I have seen more than one such place and have wondered that under any inducement men should submit themselves, their wives and children to such an existence. I remember well my impressions on reaching Charles Dickens' Eden at the junction of the Ohio and Mississippi rivers and my surprise