n the vicinity of Cape Cross, and
who had spent many months wandering with the Bushmen who found him,
before he eventually worked his way back safely to Walfisch Bay. Here
one of the rare whalers, that occasionally called at that little-known
spot, eventually picked him up, and he at length got back to Liverpool,
with nothing but his tiny packet of little bright stones to show for
all his months of hardship among the Bushmen.

The ignorant whalers had laughed at his assertion that the little
crystals were of any value; as at that time diamonds were undreamed of
in South Africa--for all this was long, long ago.

Chance threw me in the old man's way, and a small service I was able to
render him led to his showing me the stones. He had been in Brazil and
had seen rough diamonds there; and I too, who had also dug in the
fields of Minhas Geraes, saw at once that he was right; they were
diamonds.

I had money, but I wanted more; for there was a girl for whom I had
sworn to make a fortune, and who in turn had sworn to wait for me, poor
girl! She little knew how long that wait would be, or the kind of wreck
that would return to her at last. And even as I poured the little
glittering cascade of diamonds that old Anderson had found from one
hand to the other, my mind was made up.

"Anderson," I said, "come out with me to Africa again, man; we can make
ourselves rich men! Of course, there must be more where these came
from?"

"More!" said the hard-bitten old seaman, who was as brown and withered
as the Bushmen he had lived amongst so long; "More, is it? Why, sir,
there's bushels of them in a valley as I knows of out there; so many
that I couldn't believe myself that they was diamonds, so I only
brought a few! But there they can stay for me. No more Bushmen for me,
thank 'ee; they'd put a poisoned arrow through me if ever they saw me
again. But if you want to go, well and good; I'll tell you where to
find the diamonds!"

And the upshot was that I sailed for the Cape a week later, and a few
months afterwards I landed at Walfisch Bay, from whence I intended
trekking north in search of the Golconda old Anderson had described to
me.

At that time, with the exception of a few traders, hunters, and
missionaries near the coast, the country was uninhabited by white men;
moreover, it was in a state of turmoil. From the north-east, a powerful
Bantu race the Damaras, or Ovaherero as they term themselves had been
gradually spreading