THE GLAMOUR OF PROSPECTING.* Mon people would imagine that the
glamour of prospecting for diamonds lay in the discovery of them. Discovery and thereby Easy riches are the only rewards valued by the diamond digger. Mr. Cornell was no doubt glad enough to welcome the rewards when they came, but for him the glamour of his enterprises in South Africa lay only partly in them. " What gave me ' diamond fever,' " he tells us, " I don't pretend to say. Certainly I have no love for the cut and finished article, and nothing would induce me to wear it ; but for the rough stone and for the rough life Entailed in searching for it I have always had a passion." For
him the life of the prospector is one spent in the wilds, "with the sand for a couch and the stars for a -ceiling." Any hardships that attend ihe life are " richly compensated for by the glorious
freedom and adventure of the finest of outdoor lives." The prospector, Mr. Cornell claims, is the true pioneer. " His pick and hammer open up the wild places of the earth (usually to the benefit of those who follow him more than to his own), and in the rush for fresh scenes and pastures new' which will inevitably follow the war he will be a factor of importance " :-
" The ideal prospector is born, not made. He may be versed in geology and mineralogy and excel with the blow-pipe, but unless he has the love of wild places in his bones he will never fulfil his purpose. He must be an adventurer ' in the older and honourable sense of the word ; often, unfortunately, he ' fills the bill ' in a more sordid sense. He should be able to ride, shoot, walk, climb and swim with the best ; indeed, if he still exists in the future he will probably also need to fly. And the wilds must call him. Something hid behind the ranges I Go and look behind the ranges ! ' as Kipling has it. That is the true spirit of the prospector ; he must love his work or he will never succeed in it."
If anything could discourage the base prospector out only for diamonds Mr. Cornell's book should surely do so, for we cannot discover that he, through all the arduous undertakings he
describes, found one diamond. Search after search was fruitless ; one hopeful enterprise after another proved a wild goose chase, and the travellers returned with funds exhausted, clothes in rags, and tools lost or broken. But for the true prospector as Mr. Cornell sees him the book should be an inspiration. Fever and thirst in great waterless deserts;
adventures with leopards and puff adders in wild mountain passes ; difficulties with hostile natives and treacherous guides are a few of the " little disadvantages " encountered, and such incidents as those of the swarm of scorpions and the cave of baboons would have been appreciated by Sindbad. But Mr.
• The Glamour of Prospecting. By F. C: Cornea. London : Fisher Unwin. [212. net.)
Cornell was amply compensated for all this by the interest of his excursions into little known districts of Africa—Namaqualand, the falls of the Orange River, the Kalahari Game Preserve, and isolated, wind-swept outposts on the old boundary of German South-West. Many of these districts, as he points out, have since the war been brought more in touch with travellers, but enough still remains of mystery and adventure in that strange land to beckon those who have in them the spirit of the pioneer.
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