Kimberley: a city of diamonds,

Discover a historic place shaped by conflict, captivating characters and, above all, the quest for gems.

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When the first 20,000-odd fortune hunters arrived after many days of travel from Cape Town along the Diamond Way, they were met by vast, empty plains and visited by horrendous dust storms and locust plagues.

The many tent bars stayed open all day and all night, as kopje-wallopers (the local name for diamond middlemen) slaked their giant collective thirst.

And into all of this excitement and confusion came young Barney Isaacs, soon to be reincarnated as Barney Barnato, actor, prizefighter, seller of smelly cigars and, initially, a kopje-walloper whose fortunes were about to change for the better.

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