Wealth seemed to shimmer in the hot sunshine that poured last week upon a Union Jack unfurled from a tall staff at Grasfontein, South Africa.
When the flag should crumple down, 17,000 would-be diamond diggers would rush in a mad scrambling race to stake out diamond claims in a new field.
Oldtime prospectors grumbled They had no chance. The great diamond syndicates had hired professional runners who would distance the old fogies to richest diamond earth. . . .
Twenty minutes before the flag should have fallen the old prospectors made a rush. Whooping, they...