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Pearls and diamonds are words that have a charm in themselves. Not only do they represent exceedingly beautiful things, but the words themselves are pretty. The diamond fields of South Africa, the “ninth wonder of the world,” lay within a few days’ journey of us in the interior of the country.

We left the Royal Hotel, with its attentive landlord and lady, one hot morning late in December, and boarded the train that would take us up into the country about three hundred miles, where the coach would receive us and carry us on to Kimberley, the diamond fields. The railroad was well constructed, and passed over mountains with steep grades, through wild scenery, one thousand feet above the level of the sea.

As we neared “Beaufort” the scenery began to change gradually, and before night the view from the car windows presented a scorched desert-like prairie, with not a particle of vegetation except parched little bushes resembling the sage brush of our Western plains.

The horizon was bounded on all sides by ranges of forbidding mountains, which feature is one marked characteristic of African scenery generally, there being no spot, we believe, in the country where mountains are not seen on every side. Our car was provided with a primitive contrivance for sleeping, consisting of a kind of hammock which was stowed away under the seat during the day and at night was adjusted into slots in the wall of the car; drawing the blinds and shading the lamp at the top of the car with its own little curtain, we laid ourselves down to sleep. In the morning the same prospect met our view that we had bidden good-night to the evening before, and the prospect continued the same until we reached Beaufort. About nine o’clock we stopped at a way-station for breakfast; then on again all day we journeyed through the same deserted country, which is called the “Karoo.” Nothing was growing on it but the monotonous bush, and there was not a house in sight; by midday our eyes ached from looking so long at the same objects. We might have been crossing the Great Sahara Desert. At five o’clock in the evening the train, which had kept up one tantalising “dawdle” all day, began to slacken speed and blow the whistle, and we almost hoped that we were about to have an accident or a break-down, or anything, indeed, to break the dismal monotony. But the locomotive only slackened its speed to a crawl and puffed up with great importance to a low shed with the word “Booking Office” painted over the door. We found we had arrived in Beaufort, which proved to be a pretty village with two or three hotels.

From here our heavy baggage was sent on by ox-wagon, as sixty pounds is allowed to each passenger on the coach, all over that amount costing thirty-five cents a pound.

The next morning at five o’clock the coach which was to carry us to the fields drew up to the door of the hotel. It proved to be one of the original coaches which had been used to cross our American Continent, and had been pushed by the iron horse from our Western prairies and imported by the enterprising Cobb and Co, well known both there and in Australia. It was found to be admirably adapted for the rough South African roads.

Eight handsome horses were inspanned, and two Malay drivers, one to handle the long whip, were seated on the box; our luggage was fastened on behind with reins. When the fifteen passengers, including ourselves, were seated, with a wild eldritch shriek from the driver, a yell from his assistant and a crack of his whip, which sounded like a rifle shot, the Kafir boy who held the leaders sprang aside, the eight horses leaped forward into the air, then tore away, plunging to this side and then the other, shaving the corner with the hind wheel which made the crazy old coach lurch like a ship in a gale, and broke into a wild gallop, soon leaving Beaufort West far behind.

For some time after leaving the town our way lay over a long level plain reaching on all sides far into the distance; the curtains were soon lowered to keep us from being stifled by the penetrating, choking, powdery sand.

The horses had started off as if fully determined to make Kimberley before nightfall, but had now settled down into a good swinging trot, jolting us from side to side, one moment banging our heads against the sides of the coach, the next throwing us violently against our neighbours, until attempts to get into a comfortable position were given up as hopeless. The journey up country was a gradual ascent, for the interior of South Africa is a succession of elevated plateaus, rising from the sea in terraces, marked by mountain chains, until the plateaus culminate in the vast plains of the Orange Free State and the Transvaal, which are some 6,000 feet above the sea. In climbing a steep hill the male passengers were often unceremoniously ordered out of the vehicle by the half-caste driver and compelled to walk to the summit.

Our experience of farmhouse meals, which were taken en route, was anything but agreeable, but it taught the lesson never to travel through such a country again, no matter how short the journey, without carrying a hamper, even if it cost a shilling a pound for extra luggage.

At one of these resting-places where we changed horses, we paid one dollar for a cup of coffee and a sour sandwich. At times there was absolutely nothing to eat; then again a palatable dinner would be ready, but on such dirty linen and served with gravy so full of flies that it was impossible to eat it.

None of the other passengers seemed to have learned the lesson of bringing hampers of food with them, although most of them had passed over the same road many times. With all the discomforts of travelling the people of Africa are great travellers, two or three hundred miles by coach or cart being considered no great journey.

Very little life or attempt at cultivation was to be seen on the road Occasionally we came across a herd of cattle grazing, and the sheep seemed to have learned to eat stones, so little of anything else was there for them to feed upon. The open country is universally designated by the Dutch word “Veldt” translatable as “open field,” which it is in the best or the worst sense of the term.

At seven in the evening we arrived at a farmhouse, completely tired out with the continual bumping and jolting we had been subjected to all day, and felt strongly tempted to remain there for the next coach to pass through, but finding we should have to remain a week, preferred to take the jolting to remaining seven long, hot days in that spot. At daybreak next morning the loud banging at the door, and the notes of the driver’s bugle outside, warned us that the coach was ready to start; it seemed that five minutes had not elapsed since we fell asleep, we were so tired.

Climbing sleepily into the coach and yawning in chorus with our fellow-passengers, the driver shouted “right,” the boys let go the heads of the leaders, and off we went to the shrill notes of the driver’s horn in the still, cold, morning air. We slumbered uneasily for an hour after our start, waking up with a painful start as some one’s elbow would insinuate itself into his neighbour’s side, at any extra jolt of the coach. We really did not care if we never reached Kimberley, provided the coach would only stop for two or three hours to let us finish our sleep. The sun came out and warmed up the flies that had left us in the first half hours of our journey. These completed what the jolting had commenced and everybody was soon wide awake. Late in the day we stopped to change horses at a farmhouse, the owner of which was a typical Dutch woman weighing three hundred pounds. She sat in her chair from morning until night, everything she needed being brought to her; her daughter assisted her from her chair to her bed, which was the only exercise she had all day. She was not the sole representative of her kind that we saw in the country.

The second night we were climbing into the upland region, where the nights grew colder, requiring heavy, warm wraps, the stars shone like fiery gems, and threw a white, weird light over the country, in which not a sound could be heard but the rumble of our wheels and the cries of our Jehus. Frank bore the journey as well as any of the rest of us, and her condition of health spoke volumes for the climate.

The third night the coach rumbled quickly over a pine bridge spanning the Orange River, the river being about half a mile wide at this point; when once across we were in Griqua Land West, the land of diamonds!—but still one hundred miles away from Kimberley.

One more day and night on the road through very heavy sand, and we reached the Medder or Mud River, a considerable stream with very deep and precipitous bank’s, down and through which we rumbled with much difficulty, giving the wielder of the “whip” plenty of work to get us over. Toward the afternoon we began to see unmistakable signs of our nearing a large settlement.

We passed some two hundred wagons with their long teams of labouring oxen, while wayside stores became more plentiful and closer together.

At four o’clock we drove up to the Queen’s Hotel, where we alighted, tired and travel-stained, heartily glad to get to the end of our journey.