expansive face, all the time cursing me for the second son of an idiot, as
is the way with mine managers. But he stopped grinning before the afternoon
wore out, for I set him climbing and clambering for little pieces of mundic
and tiny patches of garnets in all the toughest places I could find in that
mine, and went into ecstasies over each individual piece, until I had quite
a load of the rubbish. Then I intimated gently that I would be back that
way when the war was over, and would surely send my Cape cart for them if
he would be good enough to mind them for me. I fancy an inkling of the
truth dawned in that Dutchman's soul at last, for he made no further
reference to either garnets or mundic. I satisfied myself with a sample of
the matrix in which diamonds are found, and also with a specimen of the
country rock for geological reference, but the garnets are on the heap
still.

The mine, which is named the "Monastery," is very crudely worked;
everything connected with it is primitive. A huge quarry, about 600 feet in
circumference, and about 40 feet deep, had been opened up. There was
nothing in it in the shape of lode or reef, but a large number of
disconnected "stringers," or leaders of rocky matter, in which diamonds are
often found. At the bottom of the quarry the water lay fully eight feet
deep, owing to the fact that the mine had lain unworked during the war. A
vertical shaft had been sunk a little distance from the quarry to a depth
of 150 feet, but there was a hundred feet of water in it, so that I am
unable to say anything concerning the Monastery diamond mine at its lower
levels. One or two tunnels had been drawn from the quarry into the
adjoining country on small leaders, and from what I could gather from my
guide diamonds had been discovered. Whilst I went below, I left my Kaffir
boy on top to pick up what he could in the shape of rumour or gossip from
the natives, and he informed me that the niggers had been the cause of the
opening of the mine, they having found diamonds near the surface in some of