SHINE BRIGHT LIKEADIAMOND
Peering over the barrier into the depths of the hole, I try to shut out the chattering of fellow tourists. I squint to blur the buildings and cars in the background and attempt to imagine this enormous pit as it once was. Once upon a time, instead of being filled with 22 fathoms (41 metres deep) of opaque, jade green water, it would have been filled with hundreds of diggers in desperate search of diamonds. That was 150 years ago this July, when ground was first broken for Kimberley’s Big Hole.
It wasn’t always a giant hole, of course. When diggings began in 1871, diamonds were being found fairly close to the surface. But with even the strongest squint and the best imagination, it is impossible to imagine that Kimberley’s famous hole actually began life as a hill, known at the time as Colesberg Kopje.
Fortune seekers had flocked to South Africa from around the world following the discovery of the Eureka diamond in Hopetown in 1866. But many found that Hopetown delivered nothing more than hope and they soon moved
