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Page 7
"To SIR FREDERICK YOUNG, K.C.M.G.
"A Vice-President of the Royal Colonial Institute.
"DEAR SIR,--We, the Fellows of the Royal Colonial Institute,
resident in the towns and mining centres of Kimberley, and
Beaconsfield, South Africa, cordially welcome your arrival amongst
us.
"We are persuaded that your visit to this distant part of Her
Majesty's Dominions has been undertaken, not merely for personal
pleasure, but also on behalf of the great and growing need for the
consolidation and expansion of colonial interests throughout the
Empire.
"We feel that your own career has been an important factor in the
formation of a sound public opinion on this subject, and that it
is largely through your patient and far-seeing efforts, that the
Royal Colonial Institute has attained its present proud position
amongst the various, influences, moulding, organising, and guiding
the life and destinies of Her Majesty's Colonial Empire.
"We believe the present time to be vitally important in the history
of Her Majesty's Dominions in South Africa. The tide of
confederation, and corporate union is manifestly rising, the wave
of extended British influence is flowing northwards, the various
nationalities and states of this vast country are educating
themselves by experience to see the folly and sterile weakness of
isolation, and are learning to realise the inherent strength, and
vitality of mutual co-operation, based on a self respecting, yet
unselfish responsibility to South Africa as a whole.
"We venture to suggest that this growing feeling for co-operation
will prove a valuable element in the growth, and formation in the
near future, of one Grand Confederation of all countries and
peoples, owing allegiance to, or claiming corporate alliance with,
Her Britannic Majesty's Empire.
"We rejoice, as members of the Royal Colonial Institute, that your
personal merits and public career have been recognised by Her
Majesty in the honour conferred upon you, which we trust you will
enjoy for many years.
"Coming amongst us as a Vice-President of our own Institute, your
presence symbolises to us the aspiration, radiant in hope, and
prophetic in promise, which animates all true and loyal subjects of
Her Majesty, and which is alone worthy of our past history, and
present responsibilities--the aspirations of a strong and united
people for a vigorous, and progressive 'United Empire.'"
To anyone visiting, for the first time, this great centre of the diamond
industry of South Africa the scene is most extraordinary. The excitement
and bustle, the wild whirl of vehicular traffic, the fearful dust, the
ceaseless movement of men and women of all descriptions, and of every
shade of complexion and colour, are positively bewildering. The thoughts
of everybody appear to be centred in diamonds, and the prevailing talk
and speech are accordingly. Being the recipient, myself, of the most
kind attention and genial and generous hospitality, my stay was most
agreeable, and pleasant. Great facilities were afforded me for seeing
everything connected with this wonderful industry, and satisfying
myself, that there are no present signs of its being exhausted or
"played out." Indubitable evidences were given me, that diamonds
continue to be found in as large quantities as ever. They appeared to me
to be "as plentiful as blackberries."
At the Bultfontein Mine I descended to the bottom of the open workings
in one of the iron buckets, used for bringing up the "blue ground" to
the surface. This is rather a perilous adventure. To go down by a wire
rope, some five or six hundred feet perpendicular into the bowels of the
earth with lightning rapidity, standing up in an open receptacle, the
top of which does not approach your waist, oscillating like a pendulum,
while you are holding on "like grim death" by your hands, is something
more than a joke. It certainly ought not to be attempted by anyone who
does not possess a cool head and tolerable nerve.
Here I saw multitudes of natives employed,--as afterwards in the De
Beer's, the Kimberley, and other diamond mines,--with pickaxes, shovels,
and other tools, breaking down the ground at the sides of the mine,
perched at various spots, and many a giddy height. Diamond mining at
Kimberley is altogether a very wonderful specimen of the development of
a new industry. In this mine I had explained to me the various
processes, by which diamonds are discovered in the rocky strata which is
being constantly dug out of the enormous circular hole, constituting it.
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