|
Realizing
what a rare find the group had made, they quickly made their
way back to the main camp to share the news with Villianueva
and the others. After hearing the news and investigating
the site for himself. Vallianueva decided to set up a series
of shelters around the ravine and have some of the men work
in shifts to perform alluvial mining, or to remove the lose
material from the bottom of the ravine and sift through
it.
After a few weeks of working and acquiring a nice quantity
of diamonds, the men began breaking up the hard materials
and gathering its rich resource. They would break off portions
of the Kimberlite, take it to a location close to water
where they would essentially crush the stones with heavy
hammers, dump the material into buckets of water and churn
the material to help separate the diamonds.
Over
time, several shelters had been established and a crew had
been working on repairing one of the ships using pieces
of the other ships. Upon the completion of repairing a vessel,
Villianueva had a tough choice to make and so did his men.
It was time for a return voyage home, but what to do about
their island of sanctuary and their large find of diamond
deposits. Some men wanted to return home to their families
and friends, others wanted to stay to continue work, while
some wanted to return to the mainland, but come back to
this island and the riches.
The
men came to a decision, Villianueva and half of his crew
were to return to the mainland with the diamonds. The men
who wanted to stay on the mainland would, while the others
who wanted to were to gather supplies and return to the
ship. Since Villianueva had a wife and daughter back on
the mainland, he was torn on what to do. His decision was
going to be a difficult one.
|
