This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1908 edition. Excerpt: ...are richer in memories than whole generations in other places. Kimberley, Ladysmith, and Mafeking, in South Africa, as Lucknow in India, bear testimony to the same heroism, tenacity, and resourcefulness of the British when defending their own. As the inhabitants walk the streets they are themselves reminded, ...
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This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1908 edition. Excerpt: ...are richer in memories than whole generations in other places. Kimberley, Ladysmith, and Mafeking, in South Africa, as Lucknow in India, bear testimony to the same heroism, tenacity, and resourcefulness of the British when defending their own. As the inhabitants walk the streets they are themselves reminded, and can show the visitor with a just pride, of how here the great Boer gun threw its shell, and how there a place of security was afforded to the children and women. Almost every corner brings to mind some episode. Here stood the great gun forged by Mr. Labram to reply to the Boer shells. Here the tailings of the mines were raised in earthworks. There in a deep and wide mine pit the children lived most of the time. There was the scene of some narrow escape or some fatality. There stood the bridge by which, just before it was blown up, Mr. Rhodes entered the town with brave resolve to aid in its defence and share its fate, whatever that might be. There is the place where General French galloped in with his cavalry, cheered.by the expectant throng. It is something, too, that Kimberley is the chief home of the most beautiful gems in all the world. How the name Golconda fired the imagination of our boyhood when we were taught' The diamond lights up the secret mine'! Kimberley has dispelled all that farrago. Its mines, far surpassing Golconda, with workings some of them 1600 feet below the surface, need other light than its gems, which lie deeply imbedded in dark-coloured mud and have to be crushed out of the ' disintegrated blue' after it has been raised in trollies, each bringing up about two cubic yards of the ' blue.' In this diamond industry lies the main source of the wealth of Kimberley, not a little of which, in the old days of individual...
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