Diamonds (article 22 august 1906)
Diamonds is an article published in The Bystander on 22 august 1906.
Article about The Xema Expedition in which Arthur Conan Doyle was one of the shareholders.
Diamonds
Were it not that the latest treasure-hunting expedition has such serious and solemn names on its list of promoters, or rather financiers, one would be inclined to look upon it rather in the light of a fairy-tale. A fairy-tale come true, it will indeed be, if, as is confidently expected, the Xema, on arriving at her secret destination, picks up diamonds, and brings them home and hangs them round the necks of the brave, if rather plunging, diamond-digging promoters. These include, first of all, two Scotchmen — Lord Ardwall, a Senator of the College of Justice in Scotland, and the Marquis of Tweeddale — and then Lord Aberdare, Prince F. Duleep Singh, Sir A. Conan Doyle, and Admiral Sir Berkeley Milne, while on the Collis Diamond Syndicates (as it is called) Board of Directors are Sir Alexander Muir-MacKenzie, Bart., Captain Frederick Jackson, and Captain Hughes, R.N. The only detail about the expedition withheld from a palpitating public is the name and location of that island on the West Coast of Africa where the shiny stones lie hidden. As the capital of the Syndicate is £50,000, the brave treasure-hunters will, at least, not be handicapped by any lack of funds.
