till they may do better; and if they have done well then there falls upon them the Auri sacra fames. When £30,000 have been so easily heaped together why not have £60,000;—and when £60,000 why not £100,000? And then why spend money largely in this state of trial, in a condition which is not intended to be prolonged,—but which is prolonged from year to year by the desire for more? Why try to enjoy life here, this wretched life, when so soon there is a life coming which is to be so infinitely better? Such is often the theory of the enthusiastic Christian,—not however often carried out to its logical conclusions. At such a place as Kimberley the theory becomes more lively; but the good time is postponed till the capacity for enjoying it is too probably lost.
The town of Kimberley is chiefly notable for a large square,—as large perhaps as Russell Square. One or two of the inhabitants asked me whether I was not impressed by the grandeur of its dimensions so as to feel that there was something of sublimity attached to it! "I thought it very ugly at first," said one lady who had been brought out from England to make her residence among the diamonds;—"but I have looked at it now till I have to own its magnificence." I could not but say that corrugated iron would never become magnificent in my eyes. In Kimberley there are two buildings with a storey above the ground, and one of these is in the square. This is its only magnificence. There is no pavement. The roadway is all dust and holes. There is a market place in the midst which certainly is not magnificent. Around are the corrugated iron shops of the ordinary dealers in provisions. An uglier place I do not know how to
