Through the Kalahari Desert Author:William Hunt Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER II. Living in stock—The story of the first diamond—How the mine was discovered—Shady customers—Cheating the revenue—" Diamond cut diamond"—Welcoming t... more »he ladies—The "I.D.B."— Hubble companies—Evils of the detective system—Martyrs to civilization. Thk next day was devoted to making prepaiations for our journey to the Kalahari. First I arranged to buy Mr. Caldecott's waggon and team of six mules, and advertised for a shooting-horse ; and then commenced to lay in a stock of powder and shot, pots and pans, kettles and coffee-pots, blankets and beads, pipes and tobacco, pails and water-barrels; and, most useful of all, water-bags : these last are a Cape institution, consisting simply of a stout linen bag, which is filled with water and hung in the sun to keep cool! The evaporation is so rapid that the contents keep nearly as cold as ice water : just the thing for America ! Everybody had some special recommendation to make of a particular article which was represented to be indispensable, and at first I was glad to profit by the experience of others. But at last Lulu pointed out that the capacity of a waggon was limited. " Look at this room: it's twice as large as any waggon, and it's just chock full. You surely are not going to cart all Kimberley off to the Kalahari Desert! " " That's just what I do want to do, Lu; and not only 18 The First Diamond. so, but I intend then to take Kimberley and the Kalahari per steamer to London. Just you bring your camera out, and ' take the town,' and to-morrow we will go and get a look at the bowels of the earth, and you shall ' take ' them too." I knew Lulu's weakness for photographing anything, from the moon to a monkey, would soon make him forget all his troubles : and half an hour afterwards he had secured several " ...« less