Anyway, there's some sort of great witch or wizard living in the mountains.' Aitken smoked in silence for a time; then he said, 'I'll tell you another thing.

I believe there's a diamond mine.

I've often meant to go up and look for it.' Tam and I pressed him to explain, which he did slowly after his fashion.
'Did you ever hear of I.D.B .-- illicit diamond broking ?' he asked me.
'Well, it's notorious that the Kaffirs on the diamond fields get away with a fair number of stones, and they are bought by Jew and Portuguese traders.

It's against the law to deal in them, and when I was in the intelligence here we used to have a lot of trouble with the vermin.
But I discovered that most of the stones came from natives in one part of the country--more or less round Blaauwildebeestefontein--and I see no reason to think that they had all been stolen from Kimberley or the Premier.

Indeed some of the stones I got hold of were quite different from any I had seen in South Africa before.