The sound of mining —

And the sound of money —

All across Griqualand West, tent towns mushroomed overnight, teeming with fortune seekers from around the world. Tens of thousands by 1873, all descending on a patch of dusty ground that was soon to become a beacon of development on the landscape.

Kimberley.

In the modern world, industrial diamonds have hammered the industry business model,

China overwhelmingly dominates global production of synthetic industrial diamonds accounting for about 90% of the total total.

But in the 19th century, diamonds were still as rare as as teetotaler in a Kimberley tavern.

This episode we’ll hear about the entrepreneurs both black and white, and the future Robber Baron and colonial Dreamer, Cecil John Rhodes.

It was in May 1871 after the harvest at the Rhodes brothers cotton farm in Richmond in Natal had come in, that Rhodes began his long career of harvesting the right connections. Brother Herbert sailed to Natal two years earlier, and now Cecil was helping manage the 250 acre farm, helped by 30 black labourers. Herbert however had heard about the riches discovered in Griqualand West and headed off to the Diamond Fields in early 1871, leaving Cecil to run the show in Natal.

Young Cecil attended the annual meeting of the colonies agricultural society where he exhibited samples of their cotton, in attendance were Natal’s colonial elite. There were long after-dinner political speeches, all ending with a toast. IN the haze of cigar and tobacco smoke, and a haze of multiple shots of whiskey, one settler called for a man to offer the traditional toast to the Ladies.

So it was ironic that Cecil Rhodes rose in response, and thus delivered his first ever public speech according to his friend and biographer, Lewis Mitchell.

Ironic because Rhodes would never form a initimate relationship with a woman as far as we know . As he grew more powerful, he would always surround himself with young male private secretaries and later would make one - Neville Pickering, the sole beneficiary of his will.

In the Victorian era, being openly homosexual was socially unacceptable and illegal, so any such relationships would have been kept private. We are hampered by a lack of personal diaries or revealing letters from Rhodes himself, making it difficult to reach a firm, irrefutable conclusion about his private life.

The scale claim-owners did much of their own manual labour, but for the most part the work was done by black labourers, picking at the ground, smashing the bumps of earth and rock, sieving the lime dust through a coarse wire sieve, rubble thrown aside, what remained placed on a sorting table. A small scraper would be used to spread the rock on the tables, scooping after picking the diamonds out, repeat repeat.

In early 1872 Herbert went back to their farm in Richmond to welcome yet another brother, Frank, to South Africa. Cecil was left in charge and suffered under the stress, hard labour in a harsh climate, supervising his business, and a sudden death of his friend John Thompson. He was smoking and drinking too much, breathing in too much dust, dehydrated — and collapsed — to be nursed back to health by John Blades Currey’s wife, Mary.

He was still only 18 years old and almost died. In his miasmic state, he wrote his will which is prescient, and somewhat theatrical, leaving all his possessions to Britain’s Secretary of State for the colonies, Lord Kimberly instead of his family.

New promulgations were thus passed by the miners themselves, black people could not stay in the mining camps for longer than two days without a master, they also had to observe a curfew after 9pm. Punishment for failing to observe these rules, 25 lashes or 10 shillings fine. All this at a time when most of the English-speaking world was repealing lashing.

This is episode 235, and it’s back to high drama circa 1873.

Before that just some news .. unbelievable as it may appear, Apple Podcasts has named The History of South Africa pod as one of their top ten Best so Far podcasts of 2025. They have asked me to say so, so this is saying so.

An irregular musket salute is in order!!

Thanks to my fantastic listeners for helping make this podcast resonate, I am truly grateful.

And thus to our story this episode Cetshwayo Glamped and Crowned, Shepstone Stalled, Masiphula Poisoned, it’s early 1873, and King Mpande kaSenzangakhona of the amaZulu has been buried and the process of selecting a new king has begun

Cetshwayo kaMpande, his son is to be the new regent.

Or is he? This wasn’t a simple matter. Succession disputes had riven the Zulu nation from since Senzangakhona died, the last internal ruction had led to the Zulu Civil War and the shattering battle of Ndondakusuka near the Thukela River in 1856. I dealt with this significant moment in episode 209. Mpande was still king at the time, but Cetshwayo and Mbuyazi, his two eldest sons, were vying to be formally nominated as the king in waiting.

Mbuyazi was defeated in the battle, vanquished and killed, leaving Cetshwayo in de facto control of the kingdom, though his father remained king. Mbuyazi's followers, including five other sons of King Mpande, were massacred in the aftermath of the battle. But some escaped.

Succession had been murky ever since 1816 when Shaka had supplanted his half-brother and presumptive heir Sigujana. Cetshwayo may have been the eldest son of the King Mpande kaSenzangakhona and many of the izikhulu supported Cetshwayo, but Mpande favoured his next-eldest son Mbuyazi.

One of the central characters of our story was John Dunn who had supported Mbuyazi, but switched sides afterwards and was helping Cetshwayo collect firearms by the early 1870s. When Mpande died, Cetshwayo would turn to the British in Natal for recognition, because he faced two major threats. One was the Boers to his north who had taken control over the disputed territory around northern Vryheid, Utrecht, and the foothills of the mountains below Volksrus, and the other threat was internal. Cetshwayo was beholden to some powerful Zulu chiefs in the north, who’d helped him defeat Mbuyazi, and most of these opposed Cetshwayo doing deals with the British. They were traditionalists. The British would disturb the indigenous rituals they said. Cetshwayo saw things differently. He was playing a bigger diplomatic game, aware of the wider powers at play. If he could convince Natal’s commissioner of Native Affairs, Theophilus Shepstone, to ride into his territory and formally crown him king, this would keep the boers at bay, and simultaneously undermine those northern izikhulu who were conducting a whispering campaign against him.

In this geopolitical tango, Shepstone understood this power game only too well — he’d been installed in 1846 as Native Commissioner and virtually ruled the black population in Natal — as well as trying to rule the amaZulu north of the Thukela.The once and future king Cetshwayo began to move in July 1873, just before sending word to Shepstone, the period of mourning Mpande’s death now over. After gathering his amabutho regiments, he set off in full chief attire, having packed up his entire oNtini great place. Dozens of his isigodlo girls, his harem carried his goods and chattels.

They travelled up the Mhlathuze River, into the thickets which held a vast array of wild game. Cetshwayo ensured that all protocols were followed, including the purification rituals of a Great Hunt, an iHlambo, where the King would be indirectly washed clean by the amaButho washing their spears in blood. All evil influences that had gathered force during the mourning period after Mpande’s death in October 1872 would be dispatched.

I have to say a big thank you to Adi and Janice who hosted me at their farm Kalmoesfontein this week as part of the Swartland Revolution events they’re running— I was invited to give a little talk about Jan Smuts of the Swartland and relished the opportunity to delve deeply into a Great South African’s early life.

And to the folks that came to ask questions and be part of the event, thank you too for such a warn reception.

We’re going to deal with two main topics in the years 1871 leading into 1872 - One was the installation of Sir John Molteno as the First Prime Minister of the Cape of Good Hope which marked the start of responsible government in the territory.

But the other really big event of 1872 was the death of Zulu king Mpande kaSenzangakhona, leaving the way open for Cetshwayo kaMpande to seize the reins of power.

It wasn’t going to be that simple of course.

Let’s have a quick squizz at what was going on globally in 1871.

The Franco-Prussian war ended, leading to the Proclamation the German Empire in January. The North German federation and South German States were united in a single nation state and the King of Prussia was declared as the German Emperor Wilhem the first. Germany officially came into being for the first time. Otto von Bismarck would soon become the First Chancellor of the German Empire.

In French Algeria, the Mokrani Rebellion against colonial rule broke out in March 71, in March the Paris Commune was formally established in France. The Commune governed Paris for two months, promoting an anti-religious system, an eclectic mix of many 19th-century schools of thought. Policies included the separation of church and state, the reduction of rent and the abolition of child labor.

The Commune closed all Catholic churches and schools in Paris and a mix of reformism and revolutionism took hold — a hodge podge of folks who pushed back against the French establishment.

By late May 71 the commune had been crushed in the semaine sanglante, the Bloody Week, where at least 15 000 communards were executed by loyalist troops. More than 43 000 communards were imprisoned. The Paris Commune left an indelible mark on Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels — two men who, in turn, would go on to cast a long, indirect shadow over the course of world history.

In June 1871, the United States launched an assault on the Han River forts in Korea, hoping to pry open Korean markets for American trade. Washington wasn’t bothering with tariffs that year — gunboats were quicker.

Charles Babbage died on boxing Day, 26 December 1871. A man of many labels—mathematician, philosopher, inventor, mechanical engineer—but one overriding legacy: he imagined the computer before electricity even entered the equation. Babbage’s difference engine was the first mechanical attempt to automate calculation - it was his analytical engine that quietly cracked open the future. It carried, in brass and gears, the essential ideas of the modern digital computer—logic, memory, and even programmability. His inspiration? The Jacquard loom, which used punched cards to weave patterns into silk. Babbage observed this and thought: if a loom could follow instructions to weave flowers, why not numbers? Hidden in that question was the dawn of the information age—and even the first glimmer of a printer.

The popular movement towards responsible government had arisen in the early 1860s, led by John Molteno - and in a future podcast I will spend more time on his life - a fascinating character who was the first South Africa to attempt to export fruit. He married a coloured woman called Maria in 1841 but catastrophe struck when she and their young son died in childbirth and stricken by grief, he joined a Boer Commando fighting in one of the early Frontier Wars.

So it was then that on 22nd October 1872 Cetshwayo summoned all the indunas and izikhulu to kwaNondwengu to announce that King Mpande had died.

This is an episode packed with odd resonances, echoes, large whiskers, many presidents and the origin of a modern bank.

Now that the diamond fields were being exploited, this being1870, a plethora of politicians lined up to claim ownership — the ever-ambitious and unrealistic President Pretorius of the Transvaal among these, who as you heard last episode, had been chased away by the diggers. These were an international lot, not prone to being intimidated by old bearded men from the Transvaal.

His attempt at unilaterally granting drights to the diamond fields to messers Webb, Posno and Munnich had gone done like a lead balloon. As you heard, too, Nicholas Waterboer also claimed these fields, so too the Free State government under President Steyn. Waterboer was persuaded by his Cape educated lawyer the vigorous pen-and-ink warfare expert David Arnot, to ask the British Government to honour his claim on behalf of the Griqua. Waterboer didn’t need much convincing.

Author and Journalist Frederick Boyle who wrote “To the Cape For Diamonds” published in 1873 respected Arnot, meeting him in 1871 and describing him as very short, very thick, with a large face clean shaven and a dark skin burnt darker by South African suns.

“Mr David Arnot is one of those gentlemen who, in a larger or smaller sphere, make history…”

He’d conducted Waterboer’s business for 17 years, and as Boyle said, had made

“..not one mistake..”

Which is a miracle considering the forces at work in the transOrangia. A diplomats diplomat they said. Tenacious, unfailing, undaunted. He was President Pretorius and President Brands nemesis in some ways, a highly educated coloured man who was connected to the levers of power. He was also relatively wealthy, working as an attorney in Colesberg earning 2000 pounds a year. A man of his time, like other educated men and women of the Victorian era, he collected plants and wrote letters to famous scientists in his spare time.

Devout imperialist and friend, Richard Southey agreed. But the incoming high Commissioner, Sir Henry Barkly, needed to be pursuaded.

He’d just arrived, sporting enormous black whiskers, a large commanding figure, an authoritarian, gruff, former member of the English parliament, he didn’t want to be dragged into some territorial dispute so early in his governorship. He’d replaced Sir Philip Wodehouse as High Commissioner — Wodehouse congratulated himself when he left in May 1870 claiming not a shot had been fired by a British soldier during his stint — which was a stunning turnaround from the preceding 70 years, particularly the turbulent 1840s.

In the interregnum between the discovery of diamonds and annexation of the diamondiferous land by Great Britain, a short-lived but highly entertaining Free Diamond Republic sprang into being.

Self-appointed, proudly chaotic, and run by the diggers for the diggers. The Diggers Republic had all the trappings — including a flag which a ccording to historical accounts, featured the Union Jack in the top corner, similar to other colonial flags of the era. And its President? Stafford Parker was his name, and he was to rule over the territory for the grand total of twelve months. One reporter from London said that he “behaved modestly and does honour to his position … the order of the day — is solid civility —- listen to, but say nothing, and dig away….”

Golden rule amongst treasure hunters. Stay shtum as you grind away.

President Stafford Parker—ever the showman with a wink and a waistcoat—launched his corrugated iron canteen at Klipdrift on the banks of the Vaal with all the flair of a Mar-a-Lago meets muddy boots affair. Not content with presiding over a ragtag republic of diggers and dreamers, Parker decided he’d double as chief entertainer and purveyor of refreshments, slinging drinks and good cheer beneath a roof of rippling iron. Why not? If you're going to rule, you might as well pour the pints too.

This is episode 232 - Diamond Geology as an Art, Dinosaur Veldskoene and Waterboer’s claim

Just a quick note about that amazing podcaster Nicole Engelbrecht —She is the host & creator of True Crime South Africa and the author of Samurai Sword Murder, Sizzlers, and co-author of Killer Stories. Well now there’s another book in her growing body of work called Bare Bones, Cold Cases from True Crime South Africa as part of the Jonathan Ball stable.

I’ve been given view of an advanced copy and its chilling — perfect to read on a frozen winter’s night in front of a fire.

Right. 1870.

By the start of the year there were about 1000 diggers near the Vaal River, hunting diamonds, at the end of that year the number had risen ten to 10 000. They made their way to the area from around the world, once landing in Cape Town or Algoa Bay, and some in Durban, they’d travel up to the river diggings taking two months, or six weeks if they were lucky. Once there, they’d set up camp, pitching tents, building little shanties, or living in their wagons. These global prospectors first headed for the largest of these camps - a place called Klipdrift, which eventually became the town of Barkley West, about 35 kilometers north west of Kimberley.

The new Eldorado as it was being called saw men dressed in what was called a proper digger’s outfit. This consisted of a broad-brimmed hat, a corduroy suit, a stout waste belt with pockets all around, extra strong boots, a bowie knife, a revolver, and spare rounds of ammunition.

They’d have to secure their seat from the ports to the dry uplands, preferably in a Bullock-wagon or some in the Cape Scotchcart, drawn by horses. They were riding shotgun or at the back along with around three tonnes of goods consigned to the camps because everything had to be transported in. There was virtually no local food available, even water had to be carted from higher up the Vaal. It took forty days to trek to the diggings, with many holdups including a fairly lengthy delay at Bethulie in order to cross the mighty Orange River.

The River diggings stretched about 40 kilometres west and northwest towards Delportspoort.

The rush to gather alluvial diamonds along the rivers had begun along both banks of the Vaal River. The rise and fall of this important waterway had washed thousands of these gems onto the surface in channels — both current and ancient.

So who owned that land?

Griqualand West Captain Nicholas Waterboer believed it was his. The Griquas here were uneasily exposed in a salient of territory, a kind of peninsular on a map, projecting into the Orange Free State, across the Vaal River, and to the west, abutting the Tswana Territories of the Kalahari.

The diamond discoveries sent shockwaves through every corner of South African life, with the sciences feeling the first jolt. Geology and mineralogy suddenly mattered in a way they hadn’t before, as men sought to read the land for clues to its hidden riches. But at the root of it all lay something deeply human — an eternal hunger for instant treasure. It’s the same impulse that drives a gambler to scratch a card or chase a lottery win, that rush of endorphins when chance seems to offer everything. Or when a pan yields a diamond worth thousands.

Moshoeshoe, the Basotho king who’d outwitted, outfought and outlived most of his enemies, was nearing his end. He had managed to ensure his chiefdom survived in signing the Treaty of Aliwal North with the British, who then annexed his territory. Or at least were about to but there were some loose ends to tie up before the Colonial Office signed off on the deal.

One of the loose ends was the opposition from some French missionaries who took exception to the Treaty believing it was a cosy deal agreed between the British and the Boers of the Orange Free State which left Moshoeshoe’s people with far less territory than they had originally claimed. The most pressing matter was food. Could the Basotho feed themselves with less arable land following the ceding of much of the Caledon valley to the Boers.

David Dale Buchanan was the editor of the Witness Newspaper based in Pietermaritzburg who championed Moshoeshoe's claim for expanded sovereignty during boundary talks. Paris Evangelical Missionary Society’s Francois Daumas joined Buchanana in actively lobbied the British government in London to reverse or soften the settlement terms that had been unfavorable to Moshoeshoe.

Buchanan used his platform in Natal’s colonial press to rally public and political support for Moshoeshoe, portraying the Basuto as deserving more just boundaries—and influenced the colonial secretary to consider Moshoeshoe's case more sympathetically.

Meanwhile, Daumas took the issue straight to the corridors of British power in London, sailing to Britain in 1869. He pressed the Foreign Office and Colonial Office to reconsider the treaty’s terms, hoping to secure territory that the Conventions had removed from Basotho ambit. Their joint efforts helped shape the High Commissioner's Notice of May 13, 1870, with an amendment in November 1871. This modification adjusted the Aliwal North boundary by Extending Basutoland eastward along the Caledon River to its true headwaters, and Restoring territory around Chief Molapo that the Orange Free State had claimed. These revisions returned critical grazing land and strategic highlands to Basutoland.

Unfortunately, as you’re going to hear, Moshoeshoe wasn’t around to experience the fruits of their diplomacy.

So it was on a January morning in 1870 that Moshoeshoe roused himself, like a candle flickering before it went out. He was about to perform a remarkable act, almost unheard of in southern Africa tradition. In his last official duty, Moshoeshoe convened a meeting of chiefs and headmen at Thaba Bosiu, and announced he was abdicating in favour of his eldest son, Letsie.

It was almost a hospital pass, because Letsie would now take over a land compressed on all sides by pressure groups, African and Colonial. It was still unclear if Basotholand would survive — having barely scraped through the previous few years, the Free State Basotho war of 1865 to 1868 had drained the country of food, and crushed much of its spirit.

But it was not defeated, and emerged under Letsie, balanced on a knife-edge, now protected by the British Empire. Moshoeshoe followed up his announcement at the meeting with more orders, that when Letsie died, he should be succeeded by Motsoane who was the only child of Letsie’s first wife, Senate — and Senate’s father was Josepha who was the eldest son of Molapo’s first wife. This was an attempt by Moshoeshoe to create cohesion but it was doomed to fail because he was unilaterally changing Basotho laws of succession. Let us turn to the final weeks of Moshoeshoe’s life, marked by an unseemly rivalry between French Protestants and Catholics. It is striking how the distant quarrels of European theology left their mark on South African history.The old Basotho fox had toyed with Christianity for years. Sometimes he wore it like a borrowed coat; sometimes he tossed it aside. The French missionaries were his pawns in a diplomatic game, sometimes they attempted to make him in their own image.

This is episode 230, From Knysna’s Burning Forests to Tolstoy’s War and Peace: The World in 1869.

Globally, the end of the sixth decade of the 19th Century was full of fire and brimbstone, and some technology, social change, significant moments. The construction of the the Port Nolloth-O'okiep railway line is one notable tech development, but on the down side, the Southern Cape experienced a devastating fire that began in early February in the Meiringspoort area of the Swartberg Mountains, destroying numerous homesteads and ancient yellowoods. More about this in a few minutes.

IN the United States, Elizabeth Cady Stanton testified before the U.S. Congress, thus becoming the first woman to do so, and later in 1869, Stanton and Susan B. Anthony formed the National Woman Suffrage Association. Sainsbury’s opened in Drury Lane in London in May, Boston University was founded in the same month. A month later, John Hyatt patented celluloid in Albany New York, a product created by mixing nitrocellulose and camphor — thus creating the basis for the coming film revolution.

Like all good ideas, Hyatt had actually bought the original patent from Englishman Alexander Parkes who couldn’t figure out how to make money from his invention. It’s amazing how many inventions were co-opted by entrepreneurs after the inventor struggled to make a buck out of a good idea. Take the common computer mouse, invented by Stanford Research Unit student Douglas Engelbart in the early 1960s.

In the late 1970s, almost two decades after the mouse’s invention, Apple’s Steve Jobs saw a mouse being demonstrated along with what was called graphical user interface, GUI, at Xerox labs in Palo Alto California.

November the 17 however, was probably one of the most significant dates in the calendar when it came to the Cape, because that was the date that the Suez Canal was completed. For the first time in history, ships could now sail through the canal, linking the Red Sea to the Mediterranean, shortening the voyages between Europe and the far east by months. In Cape Town, there was fear and loathing about the Canal.

And so, to South Africa, let’s retrace our steps to February 1869.

It began, as such stories often do, with a wisp of smoke on the horizon.

According to the local newspapers, the fire that would become known ominously as the Great Fire of 1869 was first spotted on the 8th February. The conditions were perfect for a catastrophe. Southern Cape berg winds, searing, north-westerly to north-easterly gusts, swept down from the heights. Born of a low-pressure system sliding from west to east, they could reach gale-force strength, tearing through valleys like invisible predators. By the time the flames were first seen near Knysna, the air shimmered with heat, the humidity was almost non-existent, and the vegetation which was parched after years of relentless drought, stood waiting, tinder-dry.But in February 1869, the fire dominated every horizon. From its first sparks, it began a horrifying march: sweeping west towards Swellendam, east to Uitenhage, and threading through the Langkloof valley north of the Outeniqua Mountains. Then, inexorably, it spilled down towards the coast, devouring all in its path, Great Brak River, Victoria Bay, Knysna, Plettenberg Bay.

Episode 229 - Moshoeshoe and the Red Dust, How War and famine led to British rule in Lesotho - we’re speeding up on the trek along history’s trail.

First, a word about the Boer Basotho War of 1865-1868. The 1850s and 1860s marked a period of profound demographic disruption for the Basotho as the borders of Moshoeshoe the First’s kingdom shifted repeatedly under pressure from colonial conflict and Boer expansion, waves of refugees poured both in and out of the territory.

By 1865, the population of what is now Lesotho was estimated at 180,000 which was a sharp increase from five years earlier.

Then drought and a three year war against the Boers of the Free State had induced famine by 1868, and Moshoeshoe the First was running out of options as some of his people left the region. The war had created an immediate famine condition, exacerbated by the drought, and this had a knock-on effect when it came to politics and human migration.

After the territorial competition between the BaSotho and their African neighbours subsided to some extent as the Basotho emerged as a nation, the struggle against the Boers of the Free State gained momentum. Growth in the economies of both the Free State and Basotho had produced an ongoing competition for land and when drought struck, it stimulated violence.

It’s important to stress how the Free State economy had shifted from herding cattle to sheep — mainly as a result of Great Britain’s demand for wool. The Boers regarded the English as an oppressive occupying force, but that didn’t stop farmers of the Free State making a buck off the empire when they could.

This is reflected in trade data - in 1852 exports from the Orange River Sovereignty to Natal, the Cape and England totalled 256 000 pounds, with wool making up 230 000 pounds of that trade.

In a census of 1856, Boers had 1.2 million sheep and goats, and only 137 000 head of cattle. But the golden years of wool exports were over by the mid-1860s. The terrible droughts of 1860 and 1861 were known as the Red Dust when the Caledon River dried up for the only time in anyone’s memory.

If you want the full background, I covered the outbreak of the Boer Basotho war of 1865 in an earlier episode, along with the causes. The drought, and the scorched earth policy adopted by Free State president Johannes Brand, left Moshoeshoe with little choice. He could either surrender and be known as the Basotho King who gave away his people to the Boers, or he could ask the British to declare Basotholand a British Protectorate.

Some have said cynically that the British were entertaining this anyway, hungry for more land and even more so after the discovery of diamonds — but that’s tautological when it comes to Basotholand. The diamond discovery took place after Basotholand was folded into the British empire.

Still, we need to burrow into how this all worked out, the diplomacy and wheeler-dealing was extraordinary. By the end of 1867 the successes of the Boer commandos in their raids into Basotholand had put an end to the prospect that the Free State burghers would voluntarily submit to the reimposition of British control.

Eugene Casalis, the French missionary who had spent so much time in Basotholand, sailed to England from France to urge the British Government to intervene. This was not a lightweight ecclesiastical mission, Casalis had established a mission station at Morija at the foot of Moshoeshoe’s royal mountain Thaba Bosiu in 1833. He translated the gospel of Mark into isiSotho, and was revered for his political advice to Moshoeshoe.

The Duke of Buckingham who had succeeded Lord Carnarvon as Colonial Secretary in March 1867, was all ears. They say timing matters, and it so happened that CB Adderley who was parliamentary Under-Secretary was in favour of intervention provided it could be managed without expense.

IE, without sending an army to fight the Boers.

On the 9th December, Buckingham instructed Wodehouse to treat with Moshoeshoe.

A quick shout out, this being the modern equivalent of a tip of the hat to Richard, who has made a significant donation to help me host this series.

I was flabbergasted when receiving the Paypal payment. We have communicated over the years so this is just to say, thank you from the bottom of my heart Richard. When I’m next in Ireland, I promise to buy you a couple of rounds of St James’ Blessing.

What’s this? A cacophony of digging? Must be significant.

The date is somewhere in March 1867. A month after young Erasmus Jacobs had found an interesting stone near Hopetown near the Free State Border, but also near the newly formed Transvaal and Griqualand.

The world of diamonds swirls with myth and legend, fiction, fact. Diamonds glitter with dangerous promise — alluring but transient in their fortunes, hard as truth, and just as capable of cutting those who reach for them unprepared.

The rock that was found at Hopetown was placed on the table of the Cape Assembly shortly thereafter by Sir Richard Southey, the Colonial Secretary with the words

“Gentlemen, this is the rock on which the future success of South Africa will be built…”

Before Southey’s dramatic flourish, the initial response from officialdom was disbelief. For as long as anyone could remember, and this went all the way back to the VOC in 1660s, there had been rumours of great mineral treasure in the north.

A kind of disinformation campaign was launched by Jan van Riebeeck because from the time of his arrival he expressed belief in the possibility of a successful search for the traditional golden realm of Monomotapa. It was imperative to drum up more cash for the new tavern of the seas, and he was trying to convince the VOC of the exaggerated value of their new outpost.

And women in South Africa were taking notice, which probably from a 21st Century point of view appears somewhat unlikely. Mary Elizabeth Barber had an important role to play in South Africa's geological science.

The year 1867 was characterised by drought, and a severe depression made worse by reports that the completion of the Suez Canal would ruin all trade with the Cape.

So it wasn’t a moment too soon, so to speak, that Diamonds were discovered. Nearly two hundred years had passed since van Der Stel’s memorable expedition across what he called de Groote Rivier, the Gariep, the Orange. IT was on the Orange River, sixty kilometres above its junction with the Vaal River, that a village sprang up.

Hopetown. By all reports a thriving little settlement, with a number of farms dotted along the river banks nearby. The Koranna and the Griqua lived nearby, at the towns of Pniel and Hebron.

Switch to 1867. Picture the scene, sheep and goats, Erasmus Jacobs were doing what Boer boys did, he was roaming the veld, playing on the edge of the river. Here were garnets with their rich carmine flush, the fainter rose of the carnelian, the bronze of jasper, the thick cream of chalcedony, agates of motley hues, rock crystals shining in the light like beckoning stars. Lesser stones, not diamonds, nor valuable gems.

From one of these multi-coloured beds Erasmus and his siblings filled their pockets with stones thinking they could play a game of ducks and drakes. For the uninitiated town based gaslight grazer, ducks and drakes is the game of skimming stones.

Whomever skims the stone the furthest or with the most hops, wins. Simple game, but when you have no toys, stones are your friends. Luckily for the future of South Africa, Erasmus decided against skimming the diamond, and took it home. There it joined a pile of other shining stones he’d collected like a magpie. It was odd, this stone, and his widowed mother Mrs Jacobs mentioned it to a neighbour, the farmer Meneer Schalk van Niekerk.

Episode 227 — a turning point not just in our nation’s past, but in the arc of 19th-century global history.

For soon, the earth will yield its glittering secret — the diamond — and with it, fortunes will rise, empires will stir, and the southern tip of Africa will be irrevocably transformed.

But before we reach that seismic revelation, we journey first into the twilight of a king’s life — to the basalt crown of Thaba Bosiu, where Moshoeshoe, the great architect of Basotho unity, faced the gravest challenge yet to his people’s survival.

The year is 1864, and a new figure steps onto the veldt’s political stage — Johannes Brand, recently elected President of the Orange Free State. With his arrival came the end of internecine Boer squabbles. Now, unity of purpose would drive their ambitions — and that purpose turned toward Lesotho’s land.

Brand lost little time invoking Article 2 of the Treaty of Aliwal North — a clause etched into colonial parchment, defining the boundary between Free State territory and Moshoeshoe’s realm. He wanted it honoured, and in the Boers’ favour.

The British High Commissioner, Philip Wodehouse — successor to Sir George Grey — responded, dispatching Aliwal North’s Civil Commissioner, John Burnet, to parley with Moshoeshoe.

There, among the towering ramparts of Thaba Bosiu, Burnet argued the line was law — the Warden Line, drawn in 1858, marked Moshoeshoe’s northern limit. Yet Basotho families still tilled and dwelt across it.

Not out of defiance, but memory — for those lands were ancestral, soaked in history and spirit. To demand a retreat across the Caledon River would have meant inciting his own chiefs, rupturing the very fabric of the Basotho world.

Brand, determined to halt the Basotho’s slow advance toward Harrismith and Winburg, convened the Volksraad. A special session summoned Governor Wodehouse, pleading for intervention to preserve peace — or impose it.

By October 1864, Wodehouse had the contested boundary beaconed. But in a private memorandum — shaped by voices like Burnet’s — he concluded what Moshoeshoe already knew in his bones: no treaty or beacon could reconcile the irreconcilable.

For the Free State clung to the ink of 1858 — a document where Moshoeshoe had affixed his name to the Warden Line. But treaties are made on paper — and people live on land.

On the 14th of November, Moshoeshoe called a *pitso* — a major assembly of his chiefs. It was a moment to speak freely, to vent frustration, and to wrestle with the reality of what lay ahead. In the end, they publicly committed to accepting Wodehouse’s ruling.

Molapo and Mopeli, though reluctant, began evacuating their villages. In the days that followed, a steady stream of men, women, and children made their way south — driving cattle, carrying bundles of corn, and taking with them whatever possessions they could manage.

When Moshoeshoe appealed to President Brand for time to let Molapo’s people finish harvesting, Brand agreed. They stayed through the summer, gathering the last of their crops, and left again in February 1865.

By then, the land was quiet. According to British reports — and Moshoeshoe’s own understanding — the disputed territory now stood empty of Basotho.

But what neither he nor the British authorities knew was that the Boers were not content to leave it at that. A commando had already been mustered — eager to erase the memory of their defeat in 1858, and ready to strike.

South Africa’s history is marked by sudden turns — moments of violence, moments of discovery. Buried treasure, both literal and political, lies hidden until, almost by accident, it surfaces. Often, it’s not strategy or foresight, but chance — a misstep, a stray decision — that reveals the vast wealth beneath.

While the Boers and the Basotho were locked in brutal conflict, fighting for control of fertile valleys and mountain strongholds, something altogether different was unfolding a short distance away.

A diamond would be discovered.