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Title: The glamour of prospecting
Author: Fred C. Cornell
Release Date: April 30, 2023 [eBook #70674]
Language: English
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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE GLAMOUR OF
PROSPECTING ***
THE GLAMOUR OF PROSPECTING
IN THE WILDS OF SOUTH AMERICA
Six Years of Exploration in Colombia, Venezuela, British Guiana, Peru,
Bolivia, Argentina, Paraguay, and Brazil. By LEO E. MILLER, of the
American Museum of Natural History. First Lieutenant in the United
States Aviation Corps. With 48 Full-page Illustrations and with maps.
Demy 8vo, cloth.
This volume represents a series of almost continuous explorations
hardly ever paralleled in the huge areas traversed. The author is a
distinguished field naturalist--one of those who accompanied Colonel
Roosevelt on his famous South American expedition--and his first
object in his wanderings over 150,000 miles of territory was the
observation of wild life; but hardly second was that of exploration.
The result is a wonderfully informative, impressive, and often
thrilling narrative in which savage peoples and all but unknown
animals largely figure, which forms an infinitely readable book and
one of rare value for geographers, naturalists, and other scientific
men.
T. FISHER UNWIN LTD. LONDON
[Illustration: THE AUTHOR AT NAKOB, READY FOR A LONG TRIP.
_Frontispiece._
]
THE GLAMOUR
OF PROSPECTING
WANDERINGS OF A SOUTH AFRICAN PROSPECTOR
IN SEARCH OF COPPER, GOLD, EMERALDS, AND
DIAMONDS
BY
LIEUT. FRED C. CORNELL, O.B.E.
AUTHOR OF “A RIP VAN WINKLE OF THE KALAHARI,” ETC.
WITH ILLUSTRATIONS AND A MAP
T. FISHER UNWIN LTD
LONDON: ADELPHI TERRACE
_First published in 1920_
(_All rights reserved_)
PREFACE
Most of this record of wanderings in wild parts of South Africa had
been written and was ready for publication before the outbreak of
war: and since then there has been a radical alteration in much of
the country described; for, with the conquest of German South-West by
General Botha, the Union Jack now floats over the huge tract of country
between the lower Orange River, the twentieth degree of east longitude,
Portuguese Angola, and the South Atlantic.
As a result also of that campaign, new railway lines have come into
being, and with the linking-up of the railway between Prieska,
Upington, and the captured German system at Kalkfontein, the traveller
to-day can ride in comfort in a saloon carriage from Cape Town to the
farthest extremities of the conquered territory.
And, incidentally, many of the wild spots I have described have been
brought within easy reach. For instance, the lonely little police post
at Nakob (described in the closing chapters, and the scene of the
violation of Union territory by German troops) was, at the outbreak
of war, separated by 250 miles of difficult, semi-desert country from
the nearest British railway at Prieska. To-day the line runs close by
where the post stood, and passes within sight of the hill in British
territory the Germans then occupied.
Upington, too, with a fine bridge spanning the Orange, has been brought
into touch with the rest of South Africa; and, with the fertile oasis
of the Orange River stretching on either hand and giving marvellous
results in the growing of citrus and other fruits, cannot fail to
become an important and thriving centre. There are rich mineral
deposits in the vicinity, one of which (the “Areachap” copper-mine,
mentioned in Chapter V) has, I believe, been reopened since the
railway at Upington has rendered 150 miles of costly waggon transport
unnecessary, and the marvellous “Great Falls of the Orange River,”
ranking, with the Victoria Falls and Niagara, amongst the world’s
greatest cataracts, is now within a day’s journey of the railway, and
with the coming of peace, will undoubtedly be visited by thousands of
visitors, and come to its own.
A railway has also been built to within easy distance of Van Ryn’s Dorp
(mentioned in Chapter IV), and it is safe to predict that these new
lines will be productive of a great accession of mineral wealth to the
Union, wealth that has hitherto lain untouched and unexploited owing to
its great distance from a railway.
These new lines, however, much as may be expected of them, still
leave untapped vast spaces of the country I have described. Notably
the mountainous Richtersfeldt region of Northern Klein Namaqualand
(see Chapters VII to XI), with all its wealth of copper and other
minerals, and which lies to-day as solitary and untrodden as when I
left it. The Southern Kalahari, with its fine ranching possibilities
and its remarkable “pans,” is still a huge “Royal Game Reserve,”
forbidden to the farmer and the prospector; and though the dry Kuruman
River (Chapter XVII) was the route for the flying invasion of German
South-West (to the astonishment of the Germans, who believed the desert
impossible by troops), the desert has long since claimed its own again:
and the region is once more given over to the vast herds of gemsbok and
a few wandering Bushmen.
To turn to the newly acquired territory of Great Namaqualand and
Damaraland, much of the latter still remains practically unexplored,
and although concessions over vast tracts of country were granted to
various private companies by the German Administration, few attempts
have been made to develop the great mineral wealth known to exist.
There are exceptions, notably the rich copper deposits of Otavi and
the Khan copper-mine, both having been worked to great advantage
prior to the war, whilst the remarkable diamond discoveries on the
coast have added enormously to the wealth of the country. But much of
Northern Damaraland, Ovampoland, and Amboland, etc., has scarcely been
scratched, and this is notably the case in the vast _terra incognita_
of the north-western portion known as the “Kokoa Veldt.” Here but
little prospecting has ever been allowed, but copper abounds, tin
and gold have been found, and the former in abundance, and there are
other valuable minerals and precious stones waiting the day when the
territory in question is thrown open to individual enterprise.
In conclusion, let me point out that this book, though recording
faithfully some of my own prospecting trips, is in no wise intended
to serve as a handbook to the would-be prospector; indeed, he should
carefully avoid doing many of the things herein recorded. But should
he contemplate becoming a prospector, let him at any rate not be
discouraged by reading of the few discomforts and hardships I have
experienced, for these, after all, were richly compensated for by the
glorious freedom and adventure of the finest of outdoor lives, spent in
one of the finest countries and climates of the world. And far be it
from me to do anything to discourage the prospector. He is, I maintain,
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 the 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! 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. I
have had men out with me who were good enough theoretically, but were
quite useless to cope with the misadventures they had to encounter, and
soon gave up the life for something easier. I have had others to whom
the glamour of a life spent in the wilds, with the sand for a couch and
the stars for a ceiling, outweighed all its little disadvantages.
FRED C. CORNELL.
CAPE TOWN, 1919.
CONTENTS
CHAPTER I
SOME WILD-GOOSE CHASES--DISCOVERY OF DIAMONDS IN GERMAN
SOUTH-WEST AFRICA--BRIEF HISTORY OF THE NEW MANDATORY,
LUDERITZBUCHT pp. 1-13
CHAPTER II
RUMOUR OF “HOTTENTOTS’ PARADISE”--UP THE COAST ON A SEALING
CUTTER--WALFISH BAY pp. 14-29
CHAPTER III
THE NAMIEB DESERT, “SAM-PANS”--CAPE CROSS--SWAKOPMUND--WINDHUK
pp. 30-43
CHAPTER IV
MORE DIAMOND RUMOURS--PROSPECTING IN A MOTOR-CAR--VAN
RYN’S DORP--PROSPECTING IN EARNEST--A PATRIARCH--NEWS OF
BUSHMAN’S PARADISE pp. 44-62
CHAPTER V
“ANDERSON’S DIAMONDS”--PRIESKA, UPINGTON--THE SOUTHERN
KALAHARI pp. 63-75
CHAPTER VI
ZWARTMODDER--THE MOLOPO--RIETFONTEIN--THE GAME RESERVE pp. 76-91
CHAPTER VII
KLEIN NAMAQUALAND--RICHTERSFELDT--PORT NOLLOTH AND THE
“C.C.C.”--STEINKOPF--WONDERFUL NAMAQUALAND FLOWERS--TREKKING
TO RICHTERSFELDT--FLEAS!--MONOTONY OF THE COUNTRY--MOUNTAINS
IN SIGHT pp. 92-103
CHAPTER VIII
RICHTERSFELDT--ALEXANDER BAY--MOUTH OF THE ORANGE RIVER--“HADJE
AIBEEP”--HELL’S KLOOF--A DESERTED COPPER-MINE--ROUGH
GOING--A MAGNIFICENT VISTA OF PEAKS--AN OLD GOLD PROSPECT
pp. 104-121
CHAPTER IX
GOLD CAMP--THROUGH THE MOUNTAINS TO ARIEP--TATAS BERG AND
COPPER PROSPECTS--A “MOUNTAIN” OF COPPER--THE GREAT FISH
RIVER--THE “GROOT SLANG”--ZENDLING’S DRIFT pp. 122-144
CHAPTER X
ZENDLING’S DRIFT--JACKAL’S BERG--THE RESULT OF TOO MUCH
WHYMPER--HUGE NUGGET OF NATIVE
COPPER--A DIFFICULT PASS--KUBOOS--DEGENERATE NATIVES--BACK TO PORT
NOLLOTH pp. 145-158
CHAPTER XI
SECOND TRIP TO RICHTERSFELDT--SMASH-UP IN HELL’S KLOOF--CHRISTMAS
AT KUBOOS--TESTING THE “BANKET”--A NEAR THING IN
THE RAPIDS--AFTER A LEOPARD--NEW TRAILS--HOTTENTOT
SUPERSTITION--STEWED FLAMINGO AND OTHER WEIRD DISHES--END OF THE
TRIP pp. 159-184
CHAPTER XII
BRYDONE’S DIAMONDS--THE GREAT FALLS OF THE ORANGE--MOUTH
OF THE MOLOPO--BAK RIVER--THE GERMAN SOUTH-WEST
BORDER--KAKAMAS--LITTLE BUSHMAN LAND pp. 185-212
CHAPTER XIII
GRAVEL TERRACES AT ZENDLING’S DRIFT--SECOND CHRISTMAS AT
RICHTERSFELDT--GERMAN POST AT ZENDLING’S--MAKING A RAFT--HIPPO
AT THE LORELEI MOUNTAIN pp. 213-223
CHAPTER XIV
PERMIT FOR THE FORBIDDEN GAME RESERVE--VAN REENEN AND THE
SCORPION--SECOND VISIT TO THE GREAT FALLS--OLD GERT, OUR
GUIDE--BUSHMAN ARROWS AND THEIR POISONS--BUSHMAN INOCULATION AGAINST
SNAKE-BITE--ANTIDOTE FOR SNAKE-BITE--TALES OF “THE GREAT
THIRST” pp. 224-236
CHAPTER XV
THE “PANS” OF THE KALAHARI DESERT--THE MOLOPO
ROUTE--BOOMPLAATS--ENTERING THE RESERVE--SPOORS--THE WATER
CAMP--THIRST--THE GREAT SALT PAN--LOST! pp. 237-259
CHAPTER XVI
FORMATION OF THE DUNES AND PANS--“KOBO-KOBO” PAN--RAIN IN
THE DESERT--SCORPIONS--AAR PAN--MIRAGE AND “SAND-DEVILS”--KOICHIE
KA--THE PIT AND THE PUFF-ADDER pp. 260-276
CHAPTER XVII
THE KURUMAN RIVER--WITDRAAI--AAR PAN AND EASTWARD--GEMSBOK
AND T’SAMMA--DRIELING PAN--WILD DOGS--THIRSTY CAMELS--SEARCH
FOR WOLVERDANSE--“NABA”!--BUSHMEN--END OF THE TRIP pp. 277-293
CHAPTER XVIII
TRIP IN SEARCH OF “EMERALD VALLEY”--FEVER AND FAILURE--BACK
TO GORDONIA--SECOND TRIP TO BAK RIVER--“SOME GUN!”--THE
PACK-COW--SURLY NATIVES--“ROUGHING IT” pp. 294-307
CHAPTER XIX
RESULT OF KALAHARI TRIP--NAKOB--LACK OF POLICE ON FRONTIER--WORKING
A KIMBERLITE PIPE--UKAMAS--DRUNKEN GERMAN OFFICERS--SLOW
TREKKING--A BAD SMASH pp. 308-323
CHAPTER XX
WAR!--VIOLATION OF BRITISH TERRITORY AT NAKOB--THE END pp. 324-334
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
THE AUTHOR AT NAKOB, READY FOR A LONG TRIP _Frontispiece_
FACING PAGE
“BABYING” FOR DIAMONDS 8
SEALERS AT OLIFANTS ROCKS 20
TAKING THE HORSES ACROSS OLIFANTS RIVER 20
PROSPECTING PARTY NEARING THE MOUNTAIN OF RICHTERSFELDT,
NAMAQUALAND 26
DRIFTWOOD ON THE DESOLATE BEACH NEAR CAPE VOLTAS 26
THE TERRIBLE DESOLATION OF BARREN, RIVEN ROCK
BELOW THE GREAT FALLS 36
T’SAMMA IN THE DUNES 52
IN THE HEART OF THE SOUTHERN KALAHARI 52
A FLOWER OF THE DESERT, SOUTHERN KALAHARI 68
THE CAMEL POST AT ZWARTMODDER, GORDONIA 68
A BEAUTIFUL GORGE OF THE ORANGE RIVER (NEAR
“AUSENKEHR”) 84
GRANITE RANGE BEHIND KUBOOS, RICHTERSFELDT 94
ENTRANCE TO A BAD PASS, RICHTERSFELDT 94
FEEDING THE HUNGRY AT THE STEINKOPF NATIVE MISSION
STATION, LITTLE NAMAQUALAND 100
HARD PULLING IN THE HALGHAT RIVER KLEIN, NAMAQUALAND 100
“KOKER-BOOMEN” (_ALOE DICHOTOMA_), RICHTERSFELDT
MOUNTAINS 112
A MOUNTAIN OF LACMATITI NEAR ZENDLING’S DRIFT,
RICHTERSFELDT 112
THE DEEP GORGE, 500 FEET OR MORE IN DEPTH, IN
WHICH THE ORANGE RIVER IS PENNED BELOW THE
GREAT FALLS 132
LAUNCH OF THE “OUTRIGGER” 168
“OUTRIGGER” ON WHICH WE CROSSED TO THE GERMAN
POST AT ZENDLING’S DRIFT 168
HOTTENTOT REFUGEES FROM THE GERMANS AT MOUTH
OF THE MOLOPO, ORANGE RIVER 192
INTERNATIONAL BEACON IN THE BAK RIVER, BORDER OF
GERMAN SOUTH-WEST 192
THE MAIN FALL, GREAT FALLS OF THE ORANGE 202
DUMPED WITH MY BELONGINGS IN THE DESERT WHILST
THE OXEN WERE DRIVEN ON TO SAVE THEM FROM
DYING OF THIRST 218
PACKING THE CART FOR THE JOURNEY 218
“OLD GERT” 230
“CANDELABRA EUPHORBIA” 230
ON THE GREAT SALT PAN, IN THE CENTRE OF THE
SOUTHERN KALAHARI DESERT 242
ON THE GREAT SALT PAN, SOUTHERN KALAHARI 254
BUSHMAN AT BOOMPLAATS, SOUTHERN KALAHARI 282
TEACHING CAMELS TO EAT T’SAMMA 282
THE HUGE NESTS OF THE “SOCIAL BIRDS” 288
WASHING FOR DIAMONDS AT THE BASE OF THE ESCARPMENT
AT NAKOB 300
A BREAKDOWN ON THE ROAD FROM PRIESKA 300
AN INTERNATIONAL BOUNDARY BEACON BETWEEN
GERMAN (LATE) SOUTH-WEST AFRICA TERRITORY
AND BRITISH (GORDONIA) 316
GRANITE MONOLITH AT “LANGKLEP” 328
WATER-PITS IN THE DRY MOLOPO AT NAKOB 328
THE GLAMOUR OF PROSPECTING
CHAPTER I
SOME WILD-GOOSE CHASES--DISCOVERY OF DIAMONDS IN GERMAN SOUTH-WEST
AFRICA--BRIEF HISTORY OF THE NEW MANDATORY, LUDERITZBUCHT.
What gave me “diamond fever” 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. Yet the luck attending
many of my ventures has been but bad, or at the best, indifferent. The
first tiny glittering crystal that I found at the bottom of my wooden
“batea” in Brazil, many years ago, had cost me weeks of hard work and
every penny I possessed; and the months of hard digging and perilous
prospecting that followed that first “find,” and that led me through
the diamond-fields of Diamantina and Minhas Geraes, left me none the
richer except in experience. But the memory of those long-ago hardships
is a faint thing compared with the glamour that still clings to that
time; and even here in South Africa, the home of the diamond, not all
the vicissitudes of years spent on the Vaal River Diggings, or of
prospecting in far wilder spots, have taken away the fascination that,
to me, lies in this most precarious of all professions. Still, the
fruitless searches have been many, and I have often been called upon
to make long and arduous trips where the quest of precious stones has
proved nothing but a wild-goose chase.
A stray diamond, very possibly dropped by an ostrich, and maybe the
only one for a hundred square miles, has often led to a rush to where
it was found, whilst, frequently, circumstantial tales of the finding
of “precious” stones have been founded on the picking up of a beautiful
but worthless quartz crystal.
At no period of late years were rumours as to the finding of
diamonds more rife in South Africa than in 1907, when the sands of
Luderitzbucht, in adjacent German territory, were found to be full of
them, and when luck led me many hundreds of miles in another direction,
and spoilt my chance of being one of the first in those new and
wonderful fields.
Ever since the discovery of the first South African diamond in the
Hopetown District in 1867, a belief has been prevalent among the
thousands of diamond seekers scattered along the Vaal River Diggings
that rich fields of a similar nature must exist far lower downstream.
Yet, although the theory is logical enough, and many expeditions have
from time to time searched the banks far beyond the confluence of
Vaal and Orange, and a few have even reached the little-known lower
reaches of the latter and located both promising gravel and even stray
diamonds, nothing of a payable nature has so far been discovered in
that direction.
In the latter part of 1907 I was shown an extremely beautiful stone
of about twenty carats, that had been picked up by a transport rider
some fifty miles below Prieska; and the accompanying gravel that this
man brought in was so exactly a replica of the Vaal River “wash”
that I came to terms with the finder and set about arranging a small
expedition to accompany him and test the spot.
Before completing my arrangements, I went into Kimberley to try and
find an old digger partner of mine, who had always been particularly
anxious to explore the lower Orange River, and who, I thought, would be
just the man to accompany me.
After some trouble I found him, and before I could even broach the
subject of my visit he opened fire on me. “The very man I wanted to
see,” he burst out; “in fact, I was just writing to you. Man, I’ve just
seen a whole lot of diamonds from a new place entirely; they’re small,
but the chap who found them swears you can pick them up by the handful
where he got them.”
It appeared that the finder of these small stones was again a transport
rider, who had been working in German South-West Africa, and had
brought back a small phial full of these tiny stones, which he said
could be had for the picking up anywhere in the sand near a certain bay
he knew of. An hour later my friend had found him again, and I saw them
for myself--nearly fifty small, clean, and brilliantly polished little
diamonds, of good quality, astonishingly alike in size, and quite
different from either “mine” or “river” stones in appearance.
The man’s story was circumstantial enough, and March, my former
partner, was most anxious to accompany him back to German South-West,
and tried hard to induce me to join him.
Now, for years rumours had been current among prospectors and diamond
diggers, as to the existence of the precious gems in abundance
somewhere along the desolate, wind-swept shores of the little-known
country lying north and west of the Orange; but the region was too
remote and too inhospitable to encourage expeditions in that direction,
and the German _régime_ of the country by no means added to its
attractiveness. So that, tempting as the little “sandstones” were, I
was not to be persuaded; moreover, I had committed myself to the other
venture and consoled myself with the reflection that, after all, my
one big diamond from the Orange River was worth more than the whole
phialful brought from German territory. And when I told my tale in
turn and spoke of the big twenty-carat beauty I had seen, not only did
March promptly decide to come with me, but Du Toit, the discoverer of
the German stones, immediately threw in his lot with us, arguing,
doubtless, that it would be easier and quicker to fill bottles with big
diamonds than with little ones. “Anyway,” he said, “the other place
can wait; we can go there afterwards if we think it worth while.” And
so it was agreed, and thereby we probably missed a fortune, for the
place where Du Toit had found the diamonds is to-day one of the richest
diamond-fields in South-West Africa.
Anyway, the decision once arrived at, we lost no time in getting under
way, and a few days later we were on our way towards the spot where
the twenty-carat stone had been found, and which we fondly hoped would
prove as rich in big stones as Du Toit declared the sands of the German
coast were in small.
Into the details of that disastrous trip I shall not enter here.
Suffice it to say that four months later, ragged, footsore, broken in
health and practically penniless, we tramped back into Prieska, having
searched the southern bank of the river for nearly three hundred miles
without having found a single diamond. Gravel there was in abundance,
containing all the so-called “indications”--agates, jasper, chalcedony,
banded ironstone--in fact, all the usual accompaniments of the diamond
as they are found higher up the river, but never the diamond itself.
So good had these “indications” been that we were eternally buoyed up
by the hope that sooner or later we must strike the right place, and so
we had wandered on till the fine outfit we had started with had gone
piecemeal to keep us in food; and it was only when our small funds were
absolutely exhausted, and our tools and kit reduced to what we stood in
and could carry, that we gave up the quest of the “Fata Morgana” that
had led us on and on into the wild country near the “Great Falls” below
Kakamas, and beyond all trace of civilisation.
For weeks we had had no news, and had not seen a newspaper or received
a letter for months, and I well remember, when at long last we reached
Prieska, with what eagerness we hastened to the little post-office
for the budget we expected waiting for us. And the very first letter
I opened told me what this particular wild-goose chase had cost us,
for both it and numerous wires and newspapers of long weeks back
told of the sensational discovery of diamonds in the sands of German
South-West, and the fabulous finds that the lucky first-comers had made
there.
Newspaper reports spoke of men picking them up by the handful, filling
their pockets with them in an hour or two, of bucketsful lying in the
Bank. In fact, it was Sinbad’s wonderful “Valley of Diamonds” over
again; and, giving due allowance for the exaggeration usual to such
discoveries, there still could be no doubt that we had missed a fortune
by not going there with Du Toit four months back, instead of on our
disastrous trip down the river.
I had always liked Du Toit, who was one of the best Afrikanders I ever
met, but never did he show to such advantage as when he got this news;
his sun-flayed face went a shade pale as he read it, but all he said
was, “Ah, well, better luck next time, boys.”
But we didn’t get it.
* * * * *
At De Aar the little party divided, March and our guide of the last
venture going back to the River Diggings, whilst Du Toit and myself
returned to Cape Town, intent on getting up to German South-West Africa
as soon as possible.
And as German South-West Africa, now a Mandatory of the Union of South
Africa, will figure prominently in these pages, it may be as well
to give a brief account of that extensive country, which, until the
discovery of diamonds already alluded to, was very little known to the
average man even in Cape Colony, its next-door neighbour.
As early as 1867, owing to reports of rich mineral deposits existing
in the country then known as Great Namaqualand and Damaraland, the
Cape Government proposed to the Imperial Government the annexation
of the whole of the West African coastline from the Orange River to
Portuguese Angola, but no definite action ensued. And, in spite of
various “Resolutions” the Cape Government subsequently made in favour
of this extension of territory, nothing happened till 1877, when a
Special Commission was sent to Damaraland, where they received offers
of submission from the principal chiefs of the country.
The Imperial Government was, however, adverse to taking over the
whole of this vast coastline, with its then unknown hinterland, but
sanctioned the hoisting of the British flag at Walfish Bay, the
natural port of a huge stretch of country; and this tiny mouthful of
territory, bitten as it were out of the surrounding country that so
soon afterwards became German, has, much to the annoyance of Berlin,
remained British ever since.
At the time this annexation took place the hinterland was well
populated by various native tribes, the Damaras (also known as
Hereros), a people of Bantu descent who came from the north, and the
Namaquas, a Hottentot race who had gradually spread from the south.
The true aboriginals of the country were probably what are known to-day
as “Berg Damaras,” a little people of Bushman characteristics, small in
numbers, but ethnologically of far greater interest than either of the
two invading races. On the irruption of the Namaquas, these aboriginals
were mostly conquered and enslaved, but a few escaped to the mountains,
and retain their national characteristics to this day. Herero and
Namaqua eventually met somewhere about the vicinity of where Windhuk
now stands, and for a time each treated the other with respect; but
about 1840 the Namaquas, strengthened by the accession to their ranks
of certain half-breed desperadoes who had fled from Cape Colony and who
were well armed and mounted, attacked the Damaras to such purpose that
they were soon completely conquered and enslaved, and Jager Afrikander,
the chief refugee and desperado, became their chief. Between 1863 and
1870, however, the Damaras again rose and waged a war of independence,
being, however, again crushed. Ten years later a rising again occurred,
and the whole country was plunged in warfare. Meanwhile, however, the
white man had arrived upon the scene, the British at Walfish Bay, and
numerous white pioneers, including many Germans, had penetrated the
country beyond it.
Prominent among the pioneers were several missionaries of the Rhenish
Missionary Society, and upon their heels followed the traders, so
that when in 1880 the above-mentioned native trouble broke out, a
considerable number of white men were settled in the interior.
As British responsibility was conterminous with the boundaries of
her Walfish Bay territory, these venturesome settlers had but little
protection afforded them; and as German enterprise developed farther
south and trading ventures were started, Germany asked the British
Government for its protection for these pioneers. Certain negotiations
followed, and by June 1884 Germany had made up its mind to extend its
own protection to its subjects in Damaraland and Great Namaqualand,
and incidentally to afford the cover of its sovereignty to an enormous
concession of land near Angra Pequena which had been obtained by a
wealthy Bremen merchant named Luderitz from certain native chiefs.
This bay of Angra Pequena, so named by the Portuguese who discovered
it, is now known as Luderitzbucht; it lies about two hundred and fifty
miles south of Walfish Bay, and, although vastly inferior to the latter
port, also affords good anchorage. Here Luderitz started large trading
stations; and in 1884, in pursuance of Bismarck’s scheme of colonial
expansion, a belt of land twenty miles in width along the coast from
the Orange River northward to Portuguese territory (excluding, of
course, Walfish Bay) was placed under the protection of the German
Empire.
From that time German expansion marched quickly, and in June 1885 the
German dominion was extended over the whole of the vast hinterland up
to the 20th parallel of east longitude, the Gordonia border of the
present day.
Late in the day, but luckily just in time, the statesmen of Cape Colony
realised that this was but a step towards driving a German barrier
across South Africa from sea to sea; and as a counter-stroke, in 1885,
Bechuanaland (lying east of the new territory) was annexed as far north
as the Molopo River, and declared under British protection up to the
northern confines of the Kalahari Desert.
The Germans, foiled in their design of further expansion, set about
making the most they could of Damaraland. But red tape, officialism,
and their harsh and overbearing methods, hampered them in their attempt
at colonisation; moreover much of the land was practically desert
and up to the time of the discovery of diamonds at Luderitzbucht the
country had been run at a loss, and there had been a determined attempt
by the Socialists in the Reichstag to force its abandonment.
The Herero and Hottentot rebellion in 1903 dragged on for years, and
cost the Germans much blood and treasure, for they found themselves
utterly unable to cope with the extraordinary mobility of the native
commandos. These, excelling in guerilla warfare, harassed them
incessantly, and, although in vastly inferior numbers, gave the raw
German troops--fresh to the country--endless trouble before they were
subdued or captured.
Towards the end of this costly campaign the warfare was waged with
extreme bitterness, and indeed it ended in the virtual extermination of
the Herero race.
* * * * *
With this slight, and, I hope, pardonable digression, I will return to
Cape Town, where Du Toit and I at length embarked for Luderitzbucht.
[Illustration: “BABYING” FOR DIAMONDS.
The machine is called a “baby” (or more correctly “bébé,” after the
French digger who invented it), and is universally used by South
African diamond diggers.]
The _Frieda Woerman_ took us up the coast in comfort. We passed Port
Nolloth in a fog which showed us nothing of the forlorn little northern
copper port, and fog clung to us till we reached Luderitzbucht.
These sea-fogs are a feature of the South-West African coasts, and on
the British (Namaqualand) coast they are beneficial, as they distribute
a certain amount of moisture to the scanty vegetation of the coastal
belt; but at Luderitzbucht there is no vegetation for the fog to
moisten.
For, north, south, and east of it there is nothing but sand and barren
rocks, and this description applies to practically the whole of the
coast belt for hundreds of miles in either direction.
Luderitzbucht, at the time of which I write, was little more than a
forlorn collection of corrugated iron huts clustering around one or two
of the more important buildings, dignified by the names of “hotel,”
store, and Customs House. The streets were ankle deep in sand, and the
first thing that struck me was the enormous number of empty bottles
that lay piled and scattered about in all directions--principally
beer bottles, of course, but also thousands of mineral-water bottles,
for water was at that time extremely scarce. The very little obtained
locally was of poor quality, had a vile alkaline taste, and often
alarming medicinal effects upon the new-comer; moreover, it had never
been sufficient even for the scanty population existing here before
the discovery of diamonds. A large condensing plant had supplied the
deficiency in an intermittent manner, for it frequently broke down or
got out of order, and it was the usual thing in the early days to have
cargoes of water brought by steamer from Cape Town.
With the discovery of diamonds came the influx of “all sorts and
conditions of men” usual to “rushes” all over the world, and water
rose to famine prices. Washing in sea-water, when tried by a few
over-particular new-chums, was followed by extremely painful results,
for the brine aggravated a hundredfold the painful sun-blisters
inevitable in a country where the blazing rays of a sub-tropical
sun beat back with redoubled fierceness from the glaring, scorching,
all-pervading sand. A helmet, whilst absolutely essential, is after all
but little protection from a glare that comes from the sand all around
one as from a huge mirror. We soon found that, if this glare was to be
borne at all, it was by using spectacles of smoked glass, and these,
fitted with wire gauze side-protectors, are also essential in the
blinding sand-storms that form a frequent variation of Luderitzbucht
weather conditions.
We found the place so crowded that it was almost impossible to obtain
even the roughest accommodation; the hotels were full, the stores were
full, every shanty dignified by the name of a dwelling was crammed, men
“pigging it” four and six in tiny rooms meant for a single occupant,
and food, and above all water, at famine prices.
So great had been the rush, for a time, that the police had been quite
unable to cope with it, and when I came to see more of the motley crowd
of “fortune seekers” that had invaded the place, I easily forgave the
irascibility of the stout, overfed and overheated German officials
who had had to deal with them all. What a lot they were! Only a small
minority were genuine prospectors, engineers, or mining-men with a
legitimate interest in the diamond discoveries; the majority were
shady “company promoters,” bucket-shop experts, warned-off bookmakers
and betting-men (“brokers” they usually styled themselves), and
sharpers of all sorts, on the lookout for prey in the shape of lucky
diggers or discoverers. Then, too, there were a number of self-styled
“prospectors,” runaway ships’ cooks, stewards, stokers, and seamen,
the bulk of whom had never seen a rough diamond in their lives, and
of course a modicum of genuine men of past experience--principally
ex-“river-diggers”--men whose small capital was running away like water
for bare necessities in this miserable dust-hole of creation.
We soon found that most of the available land in the vicinity of
Luderitzbucht had been taken up, and much of it had already changed
hands two or three times. Companies and syndicates were being
“floated” at a great rate, many of them by unscrupulous scoundrels of
promoters, acting upon the “reports” of equally lying and unscrupulous
“prospectors.”
_Schurfscheinen_ (prospecting licences) were at that time transferable,
and as they were daily becoming more difficult to procure, they often
changed hands several times, and for quite large sums, before they were
even used for their legitimate purpose of enabling the holder to locate
and peg-off a claim. And often, when, as a result of an expensive
expedition, ground was located and title secured, the diamonds shown to
back up the “discoverer’s” or “promoter’s” highly coloured report would
be the only ones ever seen by the gullible purchaser or shareholder.
The conditions under which diamonds were found made “salting” a very
easy matter to carry out and a very difficult one to detect. The small
and brightly polished little gems, usually running three or four to
the carat--that is to say, about the size of hemp-seed--were generally
found in the surface deposit of loose sandy shingle spread over much
of the sand-belt near the coast, and differing from the sand of the
country only in being slightly coarser. This loose deposit, in common
with the sand, is in many places heaped up into small, wave-like
ripples by the action of the prevailing wind, and wherever the diamonds
exist these little ridges are exceptionally rich in them. The method of
searching for them was simply by crawling along almost flat upon the
ground, and turning over the shallow layer with a knife-point, though
on some of the claims hand-washing in sea-water was being attempted.
Most of the diamonds so far had come from a place known as “Kolman’s
Kop,” a mile or two inland from the bay, and on the railway to
Aus--indeed, the line ran right through this diamondiferous area--and
it was here that Du Toit had picked up his stones. So plentiful
were the little “crystals” that many a little bottleful of them had
been brought into Luderitzbucht in the early days and given away as
curiosities, without the slightest notion as to what they really were.
A few keen-eyed Kaffirs engaged in construction work on the railway,
and who had worked in the Kimberley mines or on the Vaal River
Diggings, first realised what they really were, and several of these
“boys,” who afterwards came to Cape Town, and there attempted to
sell the stones, were convicted and sentenced to various terms of
imprisonment under the provisions of the “I.D.B.” Act of Cape Colony.
Few, if any, of those who read the report of their trials believed
their story that they had picked up the stones in the sands of German
South-West Africa, but the few who did believe and made investigation
were amply repaid for their trouble, for the first-comers picked up
diamonds by the handful.
A few days tramping the surrounding district soon convinced us that all
the likely ground near Luderitzbucht had been taken up--and indeed much
that was unlikely--and we decided to clear off to an outlying district
where distance and want of water had thus far prevented “prospectors”
from penetrating.
A general examination of the gravel, sand, and various deposits had
shown to we old diggers the significant fact that, whatever the origin
of the diamonds, there was some analogy between these fields and those
of the Vaal River Diggings, for prominent everywhere were the familiar
pebbles of striped agate, chalcedony, jasper, etc., we knew so well.
Most of these pebbles were, however, very much smaller than those of
the Vaal River; moreover the action of wind and water had “graded” the
loose deposits to such an extent that whole acres appeared to have been
worked by sieves of a uniform mesh.
Now, this “grading” was also a feature of the diamonds themselves, for
they were of a remarkably uniform size, and in this respect differed
entirely from those of any other known deposit; for at Kimberley, or
on the Vaal River Diggings, one of the fascinations of the precarious
profession of diamond-digging lies in the fact that big and little
stones are found together, and the next spadeful of ground may bring
the digger a stone the size of a pea, or one the size of a potato.
Now, the general theory as to how the diamonds came to be in the
Luderitzbucht sands was that they had come from the sea, either from
a rich pipe beneath it, or from a huge deposit washed down the Vaal
and Orange Rivers during the course of countless ages, and out to sea,
whence the north-setting current had brought the diamonds ashore. And
we--pundits all--believed that, as the sea had obviously done the work
of “grading” the stones, there must exist vastly heavier deposits
_somewhere_ along the coast, where, it should follow, we should also
find vastly bigger diamonds. And those were what we wanted, the bigger
the better.
CHAPTER II
RUMOUR OF “HOTTENTOTS’ PARADISE”--UP THE COAST ON A SEALING
CUTTER--WALFISH BAY.
At that time rumour was rife that, somewhere in the terrible
wilderness of sand-dunes stretching north-east of Luderitzbucht,
there existed an oasis where not only water was plentiful, but where
diamonds, big ones, abounded. This fabled oasis was usually called the
“Hottentots’ Paradise,” and tradition maintained that to this remote
and inaccessible spot the remnant of that poor degenerate race of
natives that had escaped extermination at the hands of the Germans in
the recent rebellion had retreated. It was also rumoured that these
men were well armed, that they had cattle and food in abundance, and
that, cut off by a wilderness of waterless country, the Germans had
hesitated to attack them. There were other versions; in fact, no two
agreed exactly, except that the oasis was situated somewhere between
Luderitzbucht, Walfish Bay, the high plateau of the interior, and the
sea, and that there the diamonds were as big as they were abundant.
Already one or two abortive expeditions had started with the intention
of searching for this place, but none of them had got far; thirst had
in each instance conquered them; and at least one had lost every animal
it started with.
One day, when we were looking round as to the best direction in which
to make our own attempt, I was asked by a prospector to join an
expedition just being outfitted to search for this place, and he put
such a plausible tale before me that I hastened to consult Du Toit.
He shook his head when I told him the way this expedition proposed
travelling. “No water,” he said; “they’ll be back within a week, if
they get back at all! There are only two ways of searching for the
place: from the coast, having a boat with plenty of water waiting you,
or with camels. These fellows talk of mules--well, let ’em go. I’ve
heard of something better.”
Then he told me he had met a man he had known on the River Diggings
who had turned sealer, and had for some years past plied his dangerous
trade along this wind-swept coast in a little ten-ton cutter, and
that this man had told him that north of Sylvia Heights there existed
a wonderful beach where the pebbles were identical with those of the
Vaal River Diggings, but that they were very much larger. He said they
lay graded by the tide for miles and miles along the beach--agates,
chalcedonies, jaspers, and banded ironstones (the _bandtom_ of the
digger); and that, when he had come back from a holiday in Europe
and found all Luderitzbucht diamond-mad, he had resolved to go to
this beach, where he believed he would find them lying thick, but
that he had been in some trouble with the police and could not get a
_Schurfschein_. As we both had obtained these valuable documents, he
was quite prepared to run us up to this spot in his little cutter,
sharing expenses, and sharing in all claims we might be able to peg.
Now, this seemed a perfectly God-sent opportunity for locating the
“big stones” we all felt certain existed, and we set about getting
in stores for the trip at once. These consisted principally of hard
biscuit, “bully beef,” tea, coffee, and sugar, and above all water.
Of the latter we had two fairly large breakers, and a miscellaneous
collection of other utensils, ranging from big oil-drums to canvas
water-bottles--in all, an ample supply for fifteen or twenty days. We
went on board that very evening. Besides our pal the skipper, there
were two other hands, men who, had they chosen to wash themselves,
would probably have proved to be white, but who were so coated with
seal oil and the accumulated grime of many voyages that it was
impossible to say what colour was underneath it all. They spoke a
jargon that they fondly imagined was English, but I believe they were
Scandinavians of sorts. The little half-decked cutter barely held us
and our belongings, and would have been none too comfortable even for a
short trip such as we hoped for and anticipated.
And, unfortunately, our voyage was both long and disagreeable, for we
had scarcely got clear of Luderitz Bay one fine evening than it came
on to blow great guns, and so heavy did the weather become that our
skipper had to run clean out to sea. Up to then I had fondly imagined
I knew something about the sea, and was proof against such a very
amateur malady as sea-sickness; but alas! I had a lot to learn. Indeed,
I soon found that, in spite of a good deal of knocking about the sea
at various times, I really knew nothing of bad weather. There was no
snuggling down in a cosy cabin or the soft cushions of a big saloon
about this experience, no looking at big seas through the comforting
protection of thick plate-glass portholes. Here the huge waves were
towering, threatening, imminent; and nothing but the coolest of heads,
and strongest and steadiest of hands at the helm, could have kept the
little cockle-shell from shipping a big sea and foundering. Portions
of big seas she shipped repeatedly, and little seas in the intervals;
in fact, for hours she appeared to consider herself to be a sort of
submarine of which I suppose I must have been the periscope--for I was
continually endeavouring to stand erect in my attempt to dodge the
waves. Within an hour or two of leaving the bay I was wet through, and
continued so till I got on shore again; and during that period of three
nights and two days I had ample reason to know that sea-sickness is not
nearly as laughable as it looks! They gave me rum and water, and it
made me worse; they coaxed me with hard ship’s biscuit and fat bully
beef, and somehow it failed to entice me. Once, in a comparatively
dry interval, they managed to light a stove and make some alleged
coffee. It tasted so of seal oil that it merely effected the apparently
impossible by making me feel worse than I did before.
The skipper assured me that it was all my fancy when I told him that
the coffee-pot must have been used for trying down seal, and offered
to prove it by making another brew in the legitimate utensil used for
that purpose, that I might taste the difference. The only consolation
I had during the whole memorable sixty hours was that Du Toit was
apparently even worse than myself. He did not even attempt to dodge the
water as we shipped it, but lay with closed eyes and hands mechanically
clutching the oily stays, just where the first spasm caught him, and
except for groans, nothing coherent passed his lips but profanity
during the whole voyage. We had left Luderitzbucht at sunset on Tuesday
evening, and the gale that sprang up that night blew itself out
sufficiently by Thursday afternoon to enable them to put the cutter
about towards shore again. I did not witness the operation, but I heard
some cryptic remarks thereto, and knew by the way the crew fell over
me they were hurrying about something. Then the motion changed, and a
wave went over me broadside instead of lengthways. The sail flapped
furiously, and then she heeled over so that I rolled off my seat. And
then a quite new motion began, a bobbing, jerking, wrenching movement
that started fresh trouble. However, by dark that night we were in
sight of land, and I began to have some faint hope that, after all, we
might survive.
I was aroused from a broken and uneasy slumber by a chorus of quacks,
and cackles, and grunts, sounding as though the cutter had run clean
into a farmyard, and at this phenomenon I had just sufficient curiosity
in me to open my eyes and sit up. Dawn was breaking and we were close
to land, in comparatively smooth water, to the leeward of a small
island, from which arose the hubbub I had heard. It was not a farmyard,
however, but an island covered partly with big seals, and partly with
penguins and other sea-fowl in such incredible swarms that they
jostled each other for elbow-room. This was one of the many guano and
sealing islands lying off the coast of German South-West Africa, all of
which are British possessions belonging to Cape Colony. On several of
them diamonds are supposed to exist, but they are prohibited ground to
prospectors. I believe this to have been Hollam’s Bird Island, but had
no chance to inquire as my sitting position immediately brought on the
old trouble, and I had other urgent matters to attend to.
However, our troubles were almost over, for less than two hours later
the cutter was deftly manœuvred into a little indentation where the
water was comparatively smooth, and we got out the tiny dory that had
filled up most of the cutter’s foredeck room and landed. And never were
men more pleased than Du Toit and I, and we there and then agreed that
one trip in that cutter was enough. Once we had found the diamonds, we
would send it back to Luderitzbucht to charter a decent-sized boat to
go back in; but as for travelling back ourselves in her--not much!
According to the skipper the beach he knew of lay about three or four
miles down the coast, but this was the only safe landing-place and
anchorage, and here we must camp. So we got our water and provisions
ashore, and by the aid of a big bucksail and some driftwood we made
a shelter to live and sleep in. This driftwood lay in abundance all
along the sandy, desolate shore, and served excellently for fuel,
though it was too dry and rotten to be of much service for anything
else. The landing even of our few stores and belongings took up the
best part of the day, and we decided not to make our first trip to our
diamond beach till the morning; but just before sunset Du Toit and I
went a short distance inland to where the first high dunes began, and
climbed a prominent one for a look-round. And east, north, and south
there was nothing but sand; not a tree anywhere, only here and there a
stunted bush struggling forlornly against adversity; nothing but bare
waves, mounds, and ridges of desolate dunes as far as the eye could
reach, and to the west the equally (but not more) desolate ocean. No
sign of life anywhere except a few gulls over the sea, though on our
way back a jackal followed but a few paces behind, full of curiosity
at the strange beings the like of whom he had probably never seen
before. We saw several of these jackals during our stay there, and
they were all quite fearless. Their spoors and those of the _stronte
woolfe_, or brown hyena, were numerous, and the only spoors of any kind
to be seen along the desolate shore, where these creatures probably
picked up a precarious living from the dead fish occasionally stranded
there. A short distance up the coast we found a flat space where the
sand was comparatively hard, and where, apparently, in the past a
shallow lagoon had existed. Here there were a few straggling bushes,
thick-leaved and resinous, and scanty clumps of a sort of strong, wiry
rush seemed to point to moisture at a short distance below the surface.
Here, too, we found huge heaps of the shells of a species of large
limpet, shell middens showing that at one time a people existed in the
locality, probably the _strand looper_, the beach-roaming forerunner
of both Bushman and Hottentot. But except for the shells, no vestige
of him remained, nor of the water that he at one time drank at, though
probably a few feet dug in the sand might have laid that bare.
I wanted badly to sleep that night, but apparently the others had
different views. The sand was soft and dry, and a shallow hole scooped
in it for my hip and a heap for my pillow, with a blanket spread over
all, made a couch fit for a Sybarite, especially after the battering
my bones had received on board the cutter. Du Toit was already snoring
when I snuggled down, but I was far too used to his _basso profondo_
to let that keep me awake, and was just dropping off when the skipper
started an interminable argument with one of the other men on some
weird technicality connected with the sealer’s craft, and kept it up
apparently for hours. I did not like to interrupt them, but time after
time, just as I got fairly under way, their voices woke me. I saw the
big camp fire of driftwood sink and die down till nothing but a few
embers remained; I saw the late moon rise and flood the wide solemn sea
of dunes with mysterious light, saw the shadowy slinking forms of two
or three jackals sneaking about, less than a stone’s throw away; heard
the soft, soothing swish of the waves on the beach, and Du Toit’s solo;
but above all came this incessant wrangle.
At last I called out to the skipper, “Look here, Jim, when are you
fellows going to shut up? It must be nearly morning, and I want to
sleep!”
“Sleep?” said he. “Great Scott! why, I thought you’d never want to
sleep again! Why, man, you slept all the way from Luderitzbucht here!
Sleep? Why, you never opened your eyes all the way!”
“That was sea-sickness,” I said, “not sleep--sea-sickness!”
“Must ha’ been sleeping-sickness,” he chuckled, and the two other
asses chuckled too, and repeated his attempt at a witticism over and
over again with fresh chuckles till I got too ratty to do anything
but swear. And still they smoked, and talked, and yarned; until at
length, in sheer desperation, I grabbed my blankets and, with a parting
benediction that must have kept them warm till morning, cleared away
out of earshot, scraped a fresh couch out with a swipe of my foot,
snuggled up in my blankets and went to sleep instantly.
I awoke shivering, for as usual along the coast the early morning had
brought a dense sea-fog that enveloped everything, and had soaked
my blankets through and through. It had been to guard against this
drenching “Scotch mist” of a fog that we had erected the bucksail
shelter, from which Jim and his co-idiots had driven me, and under
which I now found them snoring in feeble opposition to Du Toit. They
were snug and dry, but the big sail above hung bellying down with
its soaking weight of accumulated moisture, whilst the guy-ropes were
stretched taut for the same reason.
[Illustration: SEALERS AT OLIFANTS ROCKS.
The only white man (Irish) is the man standing behind.]
[Illustration: TAKING THE HORSES ACROSS OLIFANTS RIVER.]
Of course I simply had to do it--they were too snug and dry and warm,
and I was too wet and cold, to allow of any other course of action!
So I just snicked the guy-ropes slightly in a weak spot and hurried
back and turned in again in my wet blankets, hoping for the best. It
came soon--a muffled squelch--followed by a perfect bedlam of polyglot
profanity. I heard someone get mixed up with the pots and buckets and
make disparaging remarks about them; I heard another’s periods cut
short by a sound impossible to write, but that conveyed a pleasant
picture of an attempt to get rid of a full mouthful of sand--in fact,
though I could see nothing, I could hear enough to conjure up a vivid
picture of what was happening under that extremely wet and extremely
heavy bucksail.
At length they struggled out, as I could visualise by the storm of
recrimination and accusations.
“You donder!” I heard Du Toit snort (I found later his nose was badly
bashed by a bucket). “I knew you didn’t tie the _verdomte touw_
properly!”
“Oh, blazes!” retorted Jim’s voice, “here’s a slab-sided son of a
zand-trapper, that don’t know a rope from a reim, trying to tell a
sailor-man how to tie knots. H----! Why, you snored the blamed thing
down! Where’s your partner anyway? Asleep, I s’pose, under all that.
Well! what did I say about sleeping-sickness?”
They then appeared to search for me; and then one of the incoherent
gentlemen made a remark to Jim.
“So he did,” I heard him agree; “cleared out when we were talking. I’d
clean forgotten. He’ll be asleep somewhere. Sleep!”
Then they came and found me, and of course found me asleep, and made
fitting remarks.
I relate this little incident at full length because it happened to be
the only cheerful happening of that disastrous trip.
Directly the fog lifted and we had re-erected the tent and had some
breakfast, we took a sieve and a spade or two and started towards
the beach, leaving one of the crew to watch tent and cutter. It was
probably nearer four miles south than three--a long, wearisome drag
through heavy sand for the most part, for the tide was high and we
could not follow the water’s edge.
At length we came to it, and I must confess that when I first set eyes
upon that beautiful stretch of clean and polished gravel I felt that
Jim had been right, and that here, if anywhere in German South-West, we
should find the “big stones” in plenty.
For this mile-long beach looked like a vast débris heap of all the
fancy pebbles the “new-chum” digger usually collects during his first
month or so on the River Diggings: striped agates of all shades,
jaspers, cornelians, chalcedonies, and above all the yellow-and-black
striped banded ironstone, _band-toms_ of the digger.
And along that most disappointing beach we searched day after day,
always hoping and expecting to find, and always in vain. We tried
the larger-graded pebbles farther from the water first, hoping for
Cullinans or at least Koh-i-noors, and by degrees we worked down to
the water’s edge, where the grit was but little coarser than that of
Luderitzbucht; but all to no avail.
We sank prospecting-pits 5 or 6 feet in depth at regular intervals,
always finding the same promising material, always getting the same
disappointing result. We turned over the big stones by hand, we
“gravitated” the small stuff by sieve, as we had learnt to do years
before; there were no diamonds there.
The sun flayed us, for the heat during the day was terrific, and the
nights were correspondingly cold and damp with the heavy sea-fog, that
came down always towards morning. We grudged ourselves time for food
and sleep, so obsessed were we with the idea that the diamonds _must_
be there somewhere. Moreover, the little food we did get was of bad
quality, and the water abominable. A good deal of knocking about South
Africa had inured me to drinking bad water--alkaline, stagnant, full
of animalcules, etc.--but this stuff was different, and I soon found
that Jim had been right when he had protested that the coffee-pot was
not generally used for seal oil. It was not the pot that the taste came
from, it was the water itself. Every beaker, every cask, every drum,
every utensil was impregnated with oil, there was absolutely no getting
away from it. And yet so soaked in the same unctuous, all-pervading
liquid were the three sealers that they could not taste it; in
fact, they could not understand my own and Du Toit’s repugnance to
drinking it, in the least! But to me, as water, this liquid was quite
undrinkable, as coffee I swallowed it with an effort and kept it down
with a greater one, and as tea I never had the pluck to try it more
than once.
One morning, after an exceptionally heavy fog, a drop or two of water
percolating through the bucksail and falling on my nose not only
awakened me, but gave me a brilliant idea. “What an ass!” I thought,
as I jumped up there and then. “Why, I could have had a pint or two
of rain-water every day had I thought of it!” I cleared out with a
dipper and pail, and sure enough there was quite a pint of water caught
in the slack of the sail. And I scooped it out, and raked the embers
together, and put my own tin “billy” on to boil and promised myself a
cup of tea made with pure water, not oil! And I went and woke Du Toit
and told him, and he came and sat by the fire to watch me brew it. Of
course we’d no milk, but we had sugar, and I poured out two “beakers”
(enamelled mugs) of it, and set them to cool. Du Toit was in a hurry;
he blew his. “Smells good,” he said, and took a big gulp.
“Scalded you a bit, eh?” I asked, as I noticed the tears come to his
eyes in a valiant attempt to swallow what he’d supped. He nodded,
didn’t seem to trust his voice somehow! Then I took mine, first
pouring it from cup to cup to cool it, and taking a mighty draught
“at one fell swoop.”... As soon afterwards as I was able I went over
to Jim and roused him gently but firmly. “Jim,” I asked, “how did you
make this bucksail waterproof?” “Oh!” he replied enthusiastically,
“she’s a real good ’un is that bucksail! I took a lot of trouble
with her. Soaked her in paraffin first of all, then went over her
with raw linseed oil. She still leaked a bit, and a feller at the
whaling-station at Saldanha Bay gave me some whale oil for her, and I
soaked that into her. Then, when I heard what you fellows wanted up
here, I bunged some good old seal oil into her, and now she’d take a
lot of beating!”
And “she” would have--for she tasted of all the lot--I haven’t
forgotten that tea yet!
We spent ten days incessantly searching the gravel, and at length gave
it up in despair. Jim advised us that we had only about water enough
for six days, and, bad as it was, we knew we could not do without it,
and the only question was whether to return to Luderitzbucht, or to
try our luck at another place a lot farther up the coast. One of the
Scandinavians suggested the latter. He said he had been there but once,
but that the gravel was identical with that we had been trying. Only
there was much more of it. It was a long way off, however, somewhere
near Cape Cross, north of Walfish Bay and Swakopmund, and if we decided
to go we should have to call at Walfish Bay for water. But, Jim
continued, we were nearer the latter place than Luderitzbucht, the wind
would probably be more in our favour; and we voted _en masse_ for these
fresh fields. Before sailing, however, Du Toit and I went about four
miles inland into the dunes to an extremely high and prominent one, a
real sand-mountain about 200 feet high, from which we hoped to get a
view of the sandy wastes generally, as we had still a lingering hope
that we might yet find a similar deposit to that of Kolman’s Kop, with
plenty of small stones, even though we could not find the big ones.
From this huge, bare dune--the sand on the crest of which lay piled for
the crowning 10 feet in an almost sheer wall--we had a fine panorama
of the terrible waterless waste surrounding us, treeless, bare, and
horrible in the glaring sun, awful in its featureless monotony of
huge wave after wave of verdureless sand. Away south, in the far
distance, we could see higher land near the coast, probably “Sylvia’s
Heights,” and inland, faintest of faint cobalt against the glare, the
outline of a long range of mountains, between which and the farthest
distinguishable sand-dunes danced a lake of shimmering mirage, seldom
absent in these wide spaces of the desert. Here and there, among the
long ridges of the dunes, spaces could be noted which appeared to be
covered with low bush, and towards one of these “pans” I made my way,
whilst Du Toit struck out for a similar one in an opposite direction.
The going was extremely difficult, for the dunes here lay in long
parallel lines, very close together, very high and steep, and naturally
with very deep corresponding valleys between; and my way lay across
them. The distance appeared nothing, but each successive dune I climbed
seemed to bring me no nearer the pan I was aiming for, and which was
only visible for a second or two as I reached the crest of each big
sand-wave. Anything more tedious than this crossing of the bare dunes
it is impossible to imagine, though slower progress might conceivably
be made in an attempt to cross a closely built city by climbing up,
over and down the houses instead of using the streets.
However, I reached the pan at last and found it to be an oval-shaped
“floor,” strewn thickly with water-worn pebbles and quite free from
sand. Scattered bush grew here and there upon it, and near the centre I
saw larger trees growing. These I found to be tall thorn-trees, called
locally _cameel doorn_, a species of thorny acacia which is usually
found in or near watercourses; and at this time of the year they were
covered with little yellow balls of bloom, scenting the air deliciously
with the smell of cowslips. And here, in the middle of this sea of
dunes, they lined a watercourse, and though it was bone-dry, there
was evidence that at one time a considerable quantity of water had
flowed there. Many of the larger trees, the girth of a man, were dead,
and much larger blackened stumps were plentiful. This dry watercourse
disappeared under the sand-dunes at either end of the pan, and a closer
inspection of the whole extent of the latter showed that it was the
remaining trace of what had at one time undoubtedly been the wide bed
of a river of considerable extent, of which the narrow tree-lined
watercourse in the centre had been the last surviving trickle. Later,
I found many of these beds among the dunes, all choked with sand and
long dead and extinct, but showing indisputably that this country was
not always the waterless desert it is to-day. In some cases water still
flows deep in their sand-choked beds, and can be obtained by digging.
An hour or two spent in this spot convinced me that there were no
diamonds to be picked up, and I turned back coastwards, after being
rejoined by Du Toit. He had been to a similar pan still farther inland,
and his conclusion had been that of myself, that it formed part of an
ancient river-bed overwhelmed and choked by the dunes. He also said
that from a high dune there, through his glasses, he had seen a very
much wider expanse of country of a similar nature through a break in
the dunes inland, and that it had appeared to be quite thickly wooded.
He had also seen moving objects in that direction, but whether gemsbok
or cattle he could not say. At any rate it was apparently an oasis, and
quite possibly the “Hottentots’ Paradise” we had heard so much about.
At least, so thought Du Toit. “But it’s a long way, and the dunes seem
to get worse in that direction. It would take us a day and a half to
reach it; that means we’d have to take water for three days, for we
could not depend on finding water there. And if it is the place, there
are a lot of well armed Hottentots there, and we’ve no rifles, and
we’ve no trade goods to barter with. No, it’s not worth the risk; but,
man, if the yarns we’ve heard are true, there must be piles of diamonds
there!”
[Illustration: DRIFTWOOD ON THE DESOLATE BEACH NEAR CAPE VOLTAS.
The low point in the distance.]
[Illustration: PROSPECTING PARTY NEARING THE MOUNTAIN OF RICHTERSFELDT,
NAMAQUALAND.]
So we turned our backs reluctantly on that unknown oasis--which may
indeed have been no oasis at all, and nothing more than a big pan
similar to those we had examined--and toiled back to the coast.
No matter how good a walker a man may be in the ordinary way, he will
find the first few days’ walking in the dunes a most painful and
exhausting experience. Wading through loose sand up to the ankle,
climbing up it at a steep angle, and plunging down it on the other
side of the dune, only to repeat the process, _ad infinitum_, exercise
a terrific strain upon muscles scarcely called into play in ordinary
walking; and ten miles a day across country like this is a severe
strain upon a new hand at the game. With practice, of course, he can
do double, and with experience he falls into a peculiar shuffling gait
which is the most noticeable feature about the farmer and others who
dwell in these sandy districts and who are nicknamed “Zand-trappers.”
All of which Du Toit imparted to me as we walked back to the coast.
“You lift your feet too high,” he said, “like these blooming Germans do
when they’re goose-stepping. Walk like this.”
I told him I should be sorry to, and he appeared annoyed; but I found
that, though I could beat him easily on the hard flat, I stood no
chance with him in the sand, and what I had always put down to bunions
or sore feet was really this “zand-trapping” gait that he had acquired
in his youth, and never got rid of. Most men who live among the sand
wear low _veldtschoens_, without socks. These _schoen_ are easily
kicked off and emptied of their accumulation of sand periodically;
whilst many adopt the practice of cutting a small hole in the sole
near the toe, through which they occasionally shake out the dusty
contents. Ordinary boots last but very little time, as the sand has an
extraordinary abrading action upon the leather, cutting the stitching
holding sole and upper together in a few days.
We got back and told Jim about what we had seen, and he put finality to
the matter by declaring that if we were mad enough to try to reach the
oasis we could walk back to Luderitzbucht with the diamonds, as he’d
be “somethinged” if he’d wait for us! Moreover, he’d packed everything
on to the cutter, and if we wanted to beat up to Walfish Bay and Cape
Cross we’d better get on board at once.
I had hoped for a good night’s rest that night, but instead, like a
lamb to the slaughter, I was led to that wretched cutter, where again,
to a modified extent, what Jim called my “sleeping-sickness” floored
me. However, this time the weather was fine and the breeze was fair,
and two days later we ran into Walfish Bay.
A magnificent stretch of water, perfectly protected from the prevailing
winds, and capable of accommodating an enormous fleet, it is certainly
the key of the huge German hinterland; and it was a very far-seeing
policy on the part of England not only to secure it for herself, but
to hold tight to it against all the wiles and blandishments of German
diplomacy.
For had England given it up, the Germans would have undoubtedly
transformed it into a most powerful naval base, which would have
been not only a menace to the Cape mail route, but to all British
possessions farther south, and would incidentally have forced the
maintenance of a powerful fleet at or near the Cape.
Important as the place is strategically, however, England (or rather
Cape Colony, of which it forms an integral part) has done little to
develop this small slice of territory. A fairly good pier and a few
forlorn-looking corrugated iron buildings looking as though they had
been dumped down, forgotten and deserted, constitute the settlement,
which stands forlornly on the bare sand.
A resident magistrate, a few born-tired officials, a “hotel”- and
store-keeper--in all a handful of the slackest white people I ever
saw--constituted the population. The condensing gear on which they
relied principally for water was out of repair, which (according to
Jim’s remarks about it) appeared to be its normal state; and here we
had to wait four days before we could fill our miscellaneous collection
of water “tanks.”
CHAPTER III
THE NAMIEB DESERT, “SAM-PANS”--CAPE CROSS--SWAKOPMUND--WINDHUK.
Meanwhile a local acquaintance of Jim’s asked Du Toit and me to go
with him a day’s journey up the Khuisiep River, to a place in the
Namieb Desert, where he believed that tin existed, and I jumped at
the opportunity. We had good horses and travelled light, with a few
roster-kooks and some biltong by way of provisions, and a water-bottle
each. Riding south from the forlorn-looking settlement, we followed
the thin line of vegetation denoting the river-bed, which, when it
contains water, empties itself into the lagoon terminating the southern
extremity of the bay. Thence, striking inland, the bed widens till it
becomes a long stretch of wooded country offering the most striking
contrast to the barren desert and sandhills that hem it in on either
side. But, in spite of the thick verdure and fine trees, there is no
water to be met with along the whole route, except immediately after
rains, and at one or two spots where pits have been sunk.
What a treat those trees were, though! The eye, aching with the red-hot
glare of a whole landscape of bare, scorching sand, turned to their
beautiful greenery with a wonderful sense of rest and relief.
Most of them were varieties of acacia, _cameel doorn_, such as I have
described, and others covered with huge, bean-like pods, and most
striking among them were fine, majestic trees resembling big oaks in
outline, and giving the whole well-wooded expanse a beautiful park-like
aspect.
There was plenty of welcome shade, especially from a smaller but
thicker-leaved tree of a variety of wattle; grass and creeping plants
made a verdant carpet, butterflies flitted about among brilliant
flowers, and bright-plumaged birds called to each other in the trees.
In fact, to us, fresh from sand and sea and “sleeping-sickness,” it
was Paradise. And I said so to Du Toit as we off-saddled for a bite at
midday, knee-haltering our ponies and taking our snack under the shade
of a big mimosa. I said to him, “Let’s stop here! Anyway, if we find
diamonds or tin, let’s stop here! What can we want more? Green trees,
birds, flowers, grass, shade for the seeking, water for the digging!
This is Paradise, and it’s good enough for me. I’m going to sleep.”
And I did, Du Toit, with unwonted consideration, offering to keep an
eye on the horses, and wake me when it was time to trek again. But
I did not sleep long. I awoke with the pleasant sensation of being
stabbed all over with red-hot needles. One eye was too swollen to
work, but the other advised me of the fact that it was not needles
that were troubling me, but a small yet most iniquitous insect that
had sampled me before in other sandy parts, but that, in my delight at
the beautiful trees and beautiful shade, I had forgotten. This was the
“sam-pan.” I had seen him before, but this time I had evidently found
him at home, where he lived! He was all over me--a small, pernicious
infliction ranging in size from a pin’s head to a shirt-button, flat,
almost circular in shape, and with legs all around his perimeter.
Entomology is not my strong point, but that’s how he looks, and he
feels as though he had a mouth on each foot. And in this case he had
caught me just as he might have caught the most abject greenhorn: lying
asleep in the shade of a tree where there were obvious signs that
cattle, or big buck, had been in the habit of standing.
These horrible little pests are one of the biggest scourges of the
desert. They are a species of tick that breed in the droppings of
animals, and burrow in the sand of the immediate vicinity, lying low
till some juicy, full-blooded victim comes along for them to perform
upon. For this reason they are always plentiful under certain shady
trees, favoured by oxen and big game as a resting-place in the heat
of the day. Choose one of these spots and sit down in the pleasant
shade and watch the sand around you. Not a sign of insect life for the
first few minutes--and then! A tiny eruption in the sand near your
elbow, and there, scratching his way to daylight--and you--comes the
pioneer, followed by others till the whole earth is alive with them.
And bite! So poisonous are they to some people that to be bitten badly
leads to blood-poisoning, and in any case the intolerable itching from
their bites spoils a man for sleep or anything else but scratching and
inventing new profanity for days and days after he has been victimised.
All of which I had known, and still Du Toit and his companion in crime
had caught me beautifully, with the enticing shade of that big tree.
They lay sleeping peacefully, a bare twenty yards away, under a bush
thick enough to shade them and too small to have harboured oxen--or
sam-pans.
We followed the Khuisiep till late that evening, when we came to a
water-hole where our horses drank, and near which we slept that night,
not too near, for the immediate vicinity was literally buzzing with
mosquitoes. The stagnant water was also full of their larvæ--so full
that we strained it through a handkerchief before boiling a billy of
it for coffee, and got a spoonful of larvæ to each billy. Still it was
quite drinkable as coffee, much better than the oleaginous liquid Jim
provided us with.
The following morning we left the Khuisiep and turned up a tributary
watercourse (dry) coming from the desert eastward; a few miles up
which we left the sand behind and came into rocky, broken country,
sterile and quite without vegetation. Here there were many outcrops of
granite, and in certain parts of the dry stream-bed garnets were lying
by the bucketful. They were a constituent of the granite, but in many
instances had been mistaken for ruby tin. Black titaniferous iron-sand
also abounded in this stream-bed, and in many of the small quartz
reefs large crystals of jet-black tourmaline were to be seen--some
of them huge specimens as thick as one’s wrist. Unfortunately, real
prospecting was out of the question, as we had neither tins nor tools;
but the country is a most interesting one, and it is quite possible
that some day a valuable discovery of tin may be made there. Want of
water--that great handicap to prospecting in South Africa--prevented
us even “panning” the river-bed; but certain sand and gravel, which I
took back to the nearest water that night and panned there, yielded
both tin and copper, and a fine “tail” of gold. This spot was just over
the border of British territory, but the unnamed river apparently came
from the mountains, plainly visible in German territory eastward. Our
trip back was uneventful, and we arrived at Walfish Bay the following
evening, where we solved the water question and found Jim ready to
start. Before doing so I indulged in the extravagance of purchasing a
small cask for water for my own use; a procedure that called forth such
an amount of elaborate sarcasm from Jim and Co. that I soon regretted
it, more so as I found on broaching it that the contents tasted as
strongly of tar as the other had done of oil.
Again the cutter had favourable winds, and this time neither Du Toit
nor myself was seasick, a fact Jim commented upon most ungraciously,
as he said we took up less room and were far less in the way when
suffering from “sleeping-sickness” than we were doing now we thought we
were sailors. There’s no pleasing some people!
We landed at a spot some seventy miles up the coast, and not far
distant from Cape Cross, where Diego Cam, one of John of Portugal’s
intrepid old navigators, placed a _padrâo_, or stone cross, when he
first landed there in 1460 or thereabouts. This cross, from which the
Cape takes its name, has long since disappeared, but according to
Jim the sculptured socket in which it was set can still be seen on
a prominent point of the rock. Probably it was the only part of the
monument that the early souvenir-hunters could not take away with them.
However, much as I wished to see it, we did not get to Cape Cross that
journey. We landed in a little cave within a short walk of the beach we
were in search of, a beach identical with that one we had prospected
lower down the coast, and which yielded identical results. We searched
it for a week and found no diamonds.
Moreover we wandered inland, for the interior here, though barren and
inhospitable, did not present the difficulties of the huge sand-dunes
we had encountered lower down. Flat sandy wastes there were, devoid
of vegetation, but easily traversed, and these were also broken by
frequent barren kopjes, whilst but a few miles inland we saw high,
flat-topped mountains. In many of the dry watercourses and on certain
spots on the sand-flats we found likely-looking gravel, but never
any diamonds, and at the end of ten days we decided to return to
Swakopmund, from whence we could pick up a steamer to Luderitzbucht.
Jim suggested this course to us, whilst offering, if we so wished, to
carry out his original offer to land us there himself. “But,” said he,
“if you’re not keen on it, I’ll just drop you at Swakopmund, where
you’ll get a boat easier than you would at Walfish Bay. We’ve got
something else on up here that might be worth our while--if you really
are not keen!” We quite fell in with Jim’s view, for we neither of us
relished beating back against headwinds all the way to Luderitzbucht in
the cutter; besides, Jim had proved himself a white man right through,
and we didn’t want to stand in the way of that mysterious “something
else” he had on. We never asked him what it was, but some funny things
could be told about those sealing cutters’ doings along the coast in
those days--when none of them were particularly keen about the German
Customs regulations! Well, good luck to Jim and his “crew” anyway--they
were good sorts!
So they landed us at Swakopmund, and before leaving again Jim told us
that he expected to be back in Luderitzbucht in about a month, and,
if we were still there and cared to do it, he would take us down to
a place not far north of the Orange River mouth where he had heard
diamonds had been picked up.
But our late experience had shaken our faith in promising-looking
gravel patches, and so we omitted to follow up this clue, which, as
events proved later, might very probably have led us to discover the
famous and fabulously rich Pomona fields. So, with a vague promise
to meet again somewhere, we parted from Jim, who cleared away up the
coast--ostensibly at least--on his mysterious errand, and whom I never
saw again.
The officials at Swakopmund were both surly and suspicious, but luckily
our papers were in order, and we could show sufficient funds to satisfy
the immigration authorities; and as we found we should have to wait ten
days for a steamer, we decided to run up to the capital, Windhuk, after
first having a good look round Swakopmund and the immediate vicinity.
Disappointed in their efforts to obtain the country’s natural port at
Walfish Bay, the Germans had done their best to construct a harbour at
Swakopmund, which is really the mouth of the Swakop, or more correctly
“Tsoachaub” river. This river, in common with all others of this
country, only flows during the summer months, but water can be obtained
in abundance almost all along its course by digging in the sand. From
a few miles inland its banks are covered with vegetation, and indeed
these long dry river oases are a frequent and pleasant feature of this
part of the Protectorate.
Although large sums of money must have been spent upon the attempt at
a harbour at Swakopmund, it appears to be a very qualified success.
There is a stone jetty that offers some protection to tugs in fine
weather, but ships have to lie in the roadstead, and when the
prevailing gales are blowing landing is both difficult and dangerous.
The township boasts quite a number of good buildings, and is a credit
to the orderly ideas of German officialism. A good deal of ore was
being brought down by rail from Otavi, a copper-mine some 250 miles
north-west, connected by a 2-feet gauge line. This and the landing of a
tremendous amount of army stores, waggons, and artillery made the port
quite a busy one. And an Englishman whom we met at the hotel told us
that the amount of stores landed during the latter part of the recent
Hottentot and Herero rebellion had been enormous, and that depôts were
being built all over the country inland to allow of their storage.
Considering that the two races were practically wiped out at the time
peace was declared, it is difficult to understand what all these stores
and munitions of war are needed for.
We went to Windhuk on the third day, a slow and tedious journey of 237
miles which took us over twenty-four hours to accomplish.
At Swakopmund the coastal sand-belt is at its narrowest, a short run of
a few miles taking one clear of the dune region; thence the country,
though sterile, is broken and hilly, and the line gradually ascends
towards the plateau that forms the interior. Here the scenery--after
the awful monotony of the sandy wastes near the coast--was interesting
and in places not without beauty; hill and plain, mountain and
river-bed, succeeding each other, and the latter, though dry, being in
most cases extremely well wooded. Many of the mountains are lofty, and
most of them are table-topped. Windhuk is a pretty place. Lying nearly
5,000 feet above sea-level, it is built in a rocky plain surrounded by
hilly and picturesque country. Vegetation is abundant, as the rainfall
is good; moreover, there is an abundance of water, mostly obtained from
thermal springs in the hills to the north of the settlement. There are
five of these hot springs, ranging in temperature from tepid up to
nearly boiling-point, and many of the houses have this water laid on
in pipes. It is also used when cold for irrigating gardens, etc., but
in addition there are cold springs that issue from the limestone of
the valley below.
[Illustration: THE TERRIBLE DESOLATION OF BARREN, RIVEN ROCK BELOW THE
GREAT FALLS.]
Boring has also produced water at no great depth wherever it has been
attempted, and as in the rainy season (January to April) the rainfall
varies from 15 to 20 inches, it can readily be seen that Windhuk, and
in fact most of the neighbouring portion of Damaraland, is by no means
badly off in that respect.
As in Swakopmund, the principal houses, public buildings, etc., were
all new and well built, and the place was then rapidly growing; and
with a good climate, and green trees everywhere, Windhuk is likely to
become a most pleasant abiding-place.
Between the hills north of Windhuk there is a smaller settlement known
as Klein Windhuk, which is situated in a very fertile valley, where
vegetables and fruit are grown in abundance. Should some means be found
for conserving the water which flows away in such abundance during the
summer months, this and many similar valleys are well suited for the
growing of mealies and lucerne, for which there is apparently a very
great demand.
Windhuk was at that time an important military station; in fact, the
civilian population was insignificant, and the hotel was crammed
with officers. Among these I met a Hauptmann, whom I will call
Müller, who was a most striking contrast to the general run of
overbearing, swashbuckling officers. He spoke English well and was
most courteous and affable, especially when he learnt that I knew
something of geology. He had just returned from a trip south to the
Gibeon district, and he showed me some samples of excellent “blue
ground”--Kimberlite--he had found there. He badly wanted me to return
with him and prospect the place, but as I had made all arrangements
to return to Luderitzbucht and Cape Town, I could not do so. And much
to my regret, for his theory that these were the pipes from which the
coastal deposits of diamonds had come originally was not as far-fetched
as it appeared at first; for he explained it by a theory of glacial
denudation of such pipes in the remote past, and said there was
abundant evidence everywhere that such action had taken place, and that
the glaciers had travelled from north-east to south-west right across
the country to the sea.
As I could not go, I suggested to Du Toit to do so, but this he would
not do, as he got on with the Germans worse than I did; in fact, if
they treated me with scant courtesy, they treated Du Toit with none!
These Germans profess to despise the Boers, and many of the latter who
fled into German territory rather than accept British rule after the
Boer War had been very glad to return to the protection of the Union
Jack.
Meanwhile Hauptmann Müller very kindly lent me a horse and took me
round the settlement, talking incessantly the while of the future of
the Protectorate, of which he had a great opinion. He had been in the
Cape Colony and Transvaal, and spoke with admiration not unmixed with
envy of our rich mines and splendid resources.
“We came late,” he said; “you English had all the good land. But now we
have diamonds and copper here, and when the Protectorate pays we will
develop the country--that is, if we have not fought you before then.”
For this refreshing man made no secret of his belief that war between
England and Germany was inevitable. “You English have the pick of the
world,” he said, “but you cannot keep it! You have no army, and we are
building a navy that will equal your own. And when ‘The Day’ comes we
shall smash you up and take what we want, and you will decline into
a little second-rate Power. We must do so; you cannot confine us to
Europe and the waste places of the earth.”
He told me that a toast I had heard in the hotel was being drunk all
over the German Empire, and that every officer longed for the war. “It
means their chance, it means promotion to them,” he explained; “your
Empire is declining, it has seen its day; and now comes Germany’s.” We
parted perfectly good friends, and I certainly preferred his impudent
frankness to the scowls and surly demeanour of most of his compatriots.
Returning to Swakopmund, we caught the _Frieda Woermann_ back to
Luderitzbucht, and in that comfortable little liner had a very
different trip from the one we had experienced in Jim’s cutter. At that
time the skipper of this well-known coast boat was an enormously fat
man, and his chief engineer was built on the same lines, and it was
a standing joke, whenever they happened to appear on deck together,
for the passengers to rush in mock panic to the opposite side of the
ship, with the avowed intention of balancing her and keeping her from
capsizing. But they were a very harmless, good-natured old pair, and
played scart interminably.
Luderitzbucht was still prospecting-mad, but apparently no new
discoveries had been made of any great importance, and new regulations
were being promulgated at such a rate, and such restrictions were
being placed upon diggers and prospectors, that men were beginning to
leave the country. So frequent and so contradictory had been these new
regulations, that it had often happened that men who had been absent on
a pegging expedition for a week or two would return to find that the
new laws rendered all their work useless. In short, there appeared very
little scope for us there; and after one or two abortive trips to spots
we had heard of, and which we found to be useless or already pegged, we
decided to return to British territory.
We were strengthened in this resolve by what we heard from a relative
of Du Toit’s: a certain Stuurmann, who had been in German employ during
the whole of the Hottentot rebellion, and was one of the many Dutch
transport-drivers living in the Boer camp just outside Luderitzbucht.
This chap had at one time followed the Orange River from its mouth up
to the Great Falls, and the account he gave of certain spots on its
banks, and notably of huge stretches of gravel near the Great Fish
River mouth, made us all eagerness to get there as soon as possible.
The description of these gravels tallied, it is true, with the blank
patches we had gone so far after, but in this case, we argued, they
were near that possible source, the Vaal River Diggings; and though we
had followed similar patches in vain from Prieska down to below the
Great Falls, there remained this 150 miles of the almost unknown lower
reaches, and they had always appealed to us!
Moreover, Stuurmann said that in places he had noticed innumerable
bright crystals sparkling in the gravel there, and had never even
picked them up, as in those days he had had no thought of diamonds.
At any rate, here was a place where a prospecting party would not be
handicapped by being followed by “claim-jumpers,” as was happening here
at Luderitzbucht, or have to contend with constantly changing mining
laws; besides, there were no Germans there, and that appealed to us
almost as much as the diamonds! But a properly organised expedition
would be necessary, and to arrange this we decided to return to Cape
Town first.
This Stuurmann was a most interesting man to talk to; he had been all
through the Hottentot campaign, and had the greatest contempt for the
fighting power of the Germans. Towards the latter end of the campaign,
he said, they had begun to learn a little and adapt themselves to the
conditions the country demanded of them; but even so he (Stuurmann)
considered that with a good commando of burghers he would take German
South-West from them any day! And this was the opinion of his mates,
between whom and the Germans there was very little love lost; though
to be but just, their employers, the Government, paid these Boer
transport-drivers extremely well.
Stuurmann also gave me much interesting detail as to the terrible
treatment meted out to the unfortunate natives, both Herero and
Hottentot, who were unlucky enough to fall into the hands of the
Germans.
I had seen something of this myself, and had heard more from ex-German
soldiers themselves, who with extraordinary callousness used to show
whole series of illustrated postcards, depicting wholesale executions
and similar gruesome doings to death of these poor natives. One of
these, that enjoyed great vogue at the time, showed a line of ten
Hottentots dangling from a single gallows, some still standing on the
packing-cases with a noose round their necks, waiting for the soldiers
to kick their last standing-place away; some kicking and writhing in
the death struggle, for the short drop did not break their necks, but
only strangled them slowly, and one having a German soldier hanging on
to his legs to finish the work more quickly. And each and every German
soldier in the photo was striking an attitude and smirking towards the
camera in pleasurable anticipation of the fine figure he would cut
when the photo was published. This, I repeat, was only one of many
that enjoyed a big sale in German South-West for the delectation of
admiring friends in the Fatherland. Absolutely no mercy was shown to
these unfortunate creatures: they were made to dig big graves, and
were shot down by the hundreds beside them, whilst practically the
whole remnant of both races who escaped this fate were exterminated in
the detention-camps at Luderitzbucht and Swakopmund. Towards the end
of the long, dragging war, the Germans conceived the plan of sending
Herero prisoners captured in the north for internment to Luderitzbucht,
where they were strangers to the country and where escape was hopeless,
whilst the Hottentots captured in the south were sent north to
Swakopmund.
There is a small low-lying promontory in Luderitz Bay known as Shark
Island, and here the Herero prisoners were crowded in thousands,
shelterless, with no proper supply of food or water: and here, huddled
together like penguins, they died like flies.
Often on a blazing day, such as is common in Luderitzbucht, they
received no water whatever, either having been forgotten, or the
supply having failed; the food(?) supplied them was never sufficient
for a tithe of them, and they often fought like wild animals and killed
each other to obtain it. There were also a large number caged in a wire
enclosure on the beach; these were slightly better off, as, although
they received no rations from the military in charge of them, a few of
their number were let out each morning and went ravenously foraging
in the refuse-buckets, bringing what offal they could back to their
starving fellow-prisoners. Cold--for the nights are often bitterly cold
there--hunger, thirst, exposure, disease, and madness claimed scores of
victims every day, and cartloads of their bodies were every day carted
over to the back beach, buried in a few inches of sand at low tide, and
as the tide came in the bodies went out, food for the sharks.
Now, Stuurmann and the other men who told me these things were no
negrophiles (a Boer as a rule has an excellent idea as to how to keep
a native in his place as the white man’s inferior), but so terrible
had been the treatment of these natives by the Germans that even these
case-hardened transport-drivers spoke of what they had seen with the
utmost horror and abhorrence. Yet these men are looked down upon as an
inferior race by the Germans, who themselves, as far as the troops and
officials in German South-West are concerned, are utterly devoid of
all humanity when dealing with natives. I saw much of the trait myself
later; it is unpleasant and distasteful, and bodes but ill for the
future relations of white and black in the German colonies.
I was by no means sorry to leave Luderitzbucht, for during the whole
of this brief stay it blew incessantly and the air was a sort of
semi-solid mixture of whirling sand, that cut and stung, and choked
and blinded, and permeated every orifice and crevice, and generally
made life utterly unbearable. When this prevailing wind reaches a
certain violence, the whole country practically gets up and walks,
big sand-dunes shift along and others come after them, like the
waves of a slowly moving sea; wide stretches of hard land are denuded
of every grain of sand, and others buried deep in it, and it is a
curious fact that these storms actually blow diamonds! A claim deep
with diamondiferous sand has often been swept clean of its contents
in a few hours; sand, gravel, and diamonds being lifted up and borne
away, to be deposited in some more favoured spot. Even the big dunes
of a hundred feet or so in height are not stationary; though their
movement is slower, it is none the less sure. In many instances these
huge sand-waves have passed slowly but irresistibly over strongly
built dwellings and the like, burying them completely for a time, and
gradually passing onward and re-disclosing them....
We came down the coast in the _Hellopes_, an alleged passenger-boat
that rolled like a hog and smelt like its sty; and we were both very
glad to see Cape Town again.
CHAPTER IV
MORE DIAMOND RUMOURS--PROSPECTING IN A MOTOR-CAR--VAN RYN’S
DORP--PROSPECTING IN EARNEST--A PATRIARCH--NEWS OF BUSHMAN’S PARADISE.
In Cape Town I found rumours of new diamond deposits were as rife
as they had been in German territory, and had scarcely rubbed the
Luderitzbucht sand from my eyes before I was called upon to go and
verify a new “discovery,” this time much nearer home.
By this time the craze had so spread that people were arguing that,
as diamonds were found in sand at Luderitzbucht, the sands all up the
coast might be full of them, and wild and indiscriminate pegging was
going on all over the place.
Amongst other local syndicates, one had been formed for the purpose of
investigating certain deposits alleged to still remain undiscovered on
both the German coast and our own, which spots were only known to the
promoter. The “plum” of these spots was an alleged deposit of “blue
ground” which the discoverer claimed to have found many years before
at a wild part of our own coast, when landing from a sealing cutter.
The exact locality was kept a dead secret, but when, one fine morning,
the papers blossomed forth with the alleged discovery of diamonds near
Lambert’s Bay, about 150 miles north-west of Cape Town, the owner of
the map declared that it was near enough to his “discovery” to render
instant action necessary.
Within a few hours the syndicate had sent for me, and the same day four
of us were jammed into a small motor-car _en route_ for the spot. “Take
nothing but what you stand in,” ordered the owner (and driver); “we
shall be back in four days!”
Cars were few and primitive in those days, and the roads we had to
traverse were as primitive as the car. For a long time the owner of
the map would not show it, or give more than a vague notion of where
we were bound; but eventually Malmesbury and Eendekuil, then the
terminus of the railway in that direction, were left behind; we climbed
the difficult pass of “Pickaneer’s Kloof” and spent the first night
dragging the rudimentary car through the sand-drifts below Macgregor’s
Pass. We broke down hopelessly at red-hot little Clanwilliam, hearing
to our dismay that there was another ahead on the same errand, and
after maddening delay splashed on again, in pouring rain, through a
terrible track leading to Van Ryn’s Dorp, along the steep mountain
slopes skirting the Olifants River. The four days we allotted for the
whole trip were taken up in reaching Van Ryn’s Dorp, a remote little
village on the road to Namaqualand, and where our car created a mild
sensation, for it was the first to be seen there. Away to the right of
the dorp towered a magnificent isolated table-mountain, its reddish
sides as sheer as gigantic walls.
The sun was just setting, and I shall never forget the marvellous
effect upon the huge buttresses of “Matsie-Kamma,” as the mountain is
called, for the towering cliffs appeared as though turned into golden
molten fire, whilst over it hovered a peculiar cloud, similar to the
“Tablecloth” of Table Mountain. Behind ran a long escarpment of similar
flat-topped mountains, and on them the glow was rapidly fading through
a whole gamut of exquisite shades between crimson, mauve, heliotrope,
and purple, till on them the sun had completely set, and they stood out
a cold clear indigo against the cinnamon and green of the sky.
But we had other things to think of besides mountains or sunsets: we
wanted to get to our “diamonds.” The car could go no farther towards
the coast, but a Cape cart could, and early next morning we were off
again, and, toiling through an awful track, we slept that night at the
“back of beyant,” the little mission station on the dreary sand-flats
of Ebenezer. By this time we had forced the “discoverer” to disclose
his map, and found we had to go to the mouth of the Olifants River,
cross it to the barren, waterless, almost unknown and uninhabited coast
north of it and find our way to a remote sealing-station some distance
up that coast.
I will not weary the reader with a recital of all the asinine things
that happened before we got to the spot, but suffice it to say that
at nightfall one evening, footsore, hungry, ragged, and half dead
with thirst, we found the little hut where the sealers lived, a most
desolate spot many miles away from drinking-water. The sealers--all
coloured men--were oily and grimy to a degree, but they looked askance
at us when we burst in upon them in the clothes we had left Cape Town
in! Tattered, torn, dusty, covered in melkbosch-juice from the thickets
we had traversed, they took us for a shipwrecked crew. It was dark by
the time we had explained what we were after.
“Blue ground!” said the foreman, an European. “Yes, it’s about half a
mile up the coast! I’ll take you to it first thing in the morning.”
“So it was right, then!” we agreed. We accepted their hospitality, and,
packed like sardines, tried to sleep on the floor of the hut, in an
atmosphere of seal oil and rotten seals, whose huge carcasses polluted
the beach for miles.
By daylight I was on the spot, peering through the raw sea-fog for the
“blue ground” we had come so far to find.
It was there, cliffs of it, millions of tons of it, blue shale, utterly
valueless, and, except in colour, bearing no atom of resemblance to
diamondiferous “blue ground”!...
It took us best part of a week to get back to Cape Town, and I swore
that nothing would ever induce me to try prospecting in a motor-car
again!
* * * * *
Even our short absence had allowed of more stories coming through as
to rich finds in German West; moreover, there were rumours as to the
finding of diamonds in Namaqualand at no great distance from the spot
we had just returned from; and a week or two later I set out alone,
with the intention of properly prospecting the country in the vicinity
of Van Ryn’s Dorp, and, if needs be, northward into Namaqualand. But
this time I did not go “as I stood,” but with a complete and compact
outfit of tent, tools, gear, and provisions for a prolonged period.
These I sent ahead by waggon to Van Ryn’s Dorp, following myself by
post cart a fortnight later, and doing the journey in half the time and
with a tithe of the discomfort I had experienced in the motor-car.
At Van Ryn’s Dorp I heard the encouraging (or disquieting) news that a
very finely equipped expedition had passed through a few days before,
going north after diamonds, which they professed to have found on a
previous trip. I therefore obtained a small donkey-waggon and team,
with a coloured driver and two boys, and pushed on to Zout River,
a stream running from the direction of Little Bushmanland into the
Olifants, and on the banks of which some years previously a fine
diamond had been found. The exact spot was at the bridge over which
ran the lonely but important road to Namaqualand and the north, and
from this spot my actual prospecting began. And from the first I
had interest of the most absorbing: for if there is any country in
the world where encouraging prospects may be found, it is in that
same north-west region. The stream facilitated prospecting, it was
crystal-clear, and with abundant water; but unfortunately, as the
name implies, it was salt, salt as brine and undrinkable even for the
donkeys! All along its banks there were “indications” of minerals,
and all alike proved to be but “indications.” Heavy gravel led to my
washing systematically all along its beds for diamonds, and finding
promising but baffling results in the sieve. Using a prospecting-pan
for possible gold gave me similar results: here and there a tiny yellow
“tail” at the end of the pan showed that gold had been there, but all
efforts to trace it to its matrix failed.
Copper there was in abundance, though in small and isolated
occurrences; here and there grains of tin showed among the black
titaniferous iron-sands of the river: and iron and galena were
everywhere. In fact, so multitudinous were these various “indications,”
and so barren of tangible result was the following-up of any and all
of them, that I began to realise that the description that had been
applied to the north-west as being the “Land of Mineral Samples” was
not much exaggerated! Still, day after day I worked along towards
the Olifants, finding my results getting poorer and my water getting
shorter every day. The whole region was most bewildering; it was as
though the waste from a big assayer’s laboratory had been dumped all
along that stream, and none of the “samples” found led to anything but
a big note of interrogation.
At last, in a tiny side-stream, I found some minute nuggets of gold,
and my hopes rose; moreover, a native “herd” whom I chanced to come
across told me that a big white reef ran right across this same stream
a few miles up, and that he had always heard there was “goud” in it. So
I abandoned my laborious panning and struck up the stream, and found a
wide quartz reef just as he had described, but no trace was there of
gold in it.
Lower down this “Zout” river I came into an astonishing region of
brilliantly coloured clays and marls, ranging in colour right through
the gamut of reds, yellows, and blues, as also a fine deposit of
milk-white Kaolin; and these in turn gave place to high banks of a sort
of volcanic mud, or ash, of a bright blue colour, through which the
stream had cut a deep bed. These high banks or mounds exactly resemble
the huge tailings of the Kimberley diamond-mines, both in appearance
and in substance: and, indeed, this deposit is apparently analogous to
Kimberlite minus its various inclusions.
I should have much liked to explore this wild and desolate part of
the country farther, but water was now our chief anxiety; moreover the
land from hereabouts was private property, upon which the hampering
restrictions of a prospecting licence did not give me the right to
prospect “without the consent of the owner!” This owner, I found from
my boys, was nothing more than a coloured man who leased the land from
Government for a few pounds per annum to run his goats on; moreover
he did not live on the property, but a good two days’ trek away, so
I did not trouble to obtain his consent. I merely mention this _en
passant_ to show by what absurd conditions a prospector is bound. Here
was a man, absolutely ignorant of minerals, and with absolutely no
right to them (for they are Crown property in such cases), and yet a
miserable lease, which only granted him surface rights, still made him
the arbiter as to whether a licensed prospector should set foot on his
10,000 morgen or so of land!
Of course there was no one to stop my prospecting, but had I done
so and made any discovery I could not have legalised it without his
consent, and being made to pay through the nose for it! The system is
utterly wrong. There are millions of acres of land in the Cape Province
held under such terms, the owners or lessees of which will neither put
a pick in themselves nor allow the prospector to.
By this time the weather was getting bitterly cold, hoar frost lying
thick every morning, and the water freezing even in my little patrol
tent. And as there was no firewood obtainable, and the two “boys” were
suffering badly at night, I decided to work upstream toward Little
Bushmanland, as I had heard that the upper reaches of this little river
had plenty of wood. So we loaded up and trekked for a day towards a
“farm” rejoicing in the name of “Douse the Glim.” In this direction
I found wood in abundance, and the “boys” built themselves a tiny
_pondhoek_ of boughs and branches, and by keeping a roaring fire going
just outside of it all night they managed to keep from freezing.
Here we had to send the donkeys a full day’s journey away for water
and grazing, and had to fill our water-barrel periodically from the
same place, and here--although in a comfortable camp--my luck was no
better than lower down the river. Samples of all sorts, “indications”
in abundance, and nothing more. Along these upper reaches, however,
I found many masses of a ferruginous gravel hardened almost into
conglomerate and containing a small portion of gold, but in no case
sufficient to pay for working in such a remote region. These gravels
are in appearance identical with certain Australian gravels which are
both gold and gem bearing, and may probably have been the source of the
diamond that had been found lower down, and of the gold I saw traces
of. During the three weeks that I had been out, thus far, I had seen
but one solitary human being except my two “boys,” the herd who had
told me of the gold reef; for, although but a day’s ride from Van Ryn’s
Dorp, the region is a very solitary and deserted one, much of the land
being _brak_ (alkaline) and unfit for stock to run on.
So that the life, though not without interest, was a very lonely as
well as a very hard one; so cold were the nights that the two blankets
I had brought utterly failed to keep me warm even when I turned in “all
standing,” and I soon abandoned my canvas camp-stretcher for a warmer
lair on the ground itself. Then at daybreak, Sam, the elder of the
“boys,” would make coffee, and with a hurried snack of food we would
start off for the day, carrying pick, shovel, sieve, and pan, and food
and water for midday. Thus I tried the whole of the adjacent country
systematically, sieving the grounds in the stream-bed and “gravitating”
them (a diamond-digger’s trick) when water was sufficient, or using
the prospecting-pan for the purpose of finding traces of gold or other
metals.
When water failed, or the “indications” occurred far from it, small
portions of the concentrates of sand and gravel would be bagged and
tied up and labelled separately, the same applying to samples of rock
taken from various parts or depths of a reef. All these samples had
in any case to be carried back to water, and, in the case of rock, to
camp, where each portion had to be carefully pounded into the finest
powder by pestle and mortar before it could be tested for the mineral
it might contain--hard and laborious work, varied by drilling holes
in hard rock for dynamite charges, or “gravitating” concentrates in
ice-cold water till the brine cracked the hands and caused most painful
sores. Then, the day’s work over, sunset would often find us miles from
camp, and we would trudge back, and load ourselves up with dry wood for
the night’s fire, and feel too tired to attempt to cook.
Boer meal was the staple food; a big three-legged pot of it boiled into
steaming “pap” made an excellent breakfast, and every few days I would
bake a batch of “roster kookies,” little flat cakes made of the same
meal with a little baking-powder to make them rise, and baked over the
embers on a “roster,” or gridiron. Or occasionally I allowed the “boys”
to make me a big loaf similar to their own, the composition being the
same, but in this case the dough was massed into a loaf shaped like a
flat Dutch cheese: the embers were thrown aside and the loaf buried in
the ashes, and covered deep in them. Bread thus baked is of course very
hard and often burnt on the outside, but when this is cut away it is
excellent.
Of fresh meat we had none, and although I gave the “boys” plenty of
such luxuries as bully beef, sardines, and golden syrup, they pined for
the flesh-pots of Egypt in the shape of their dearly loved sheep or
goat _vleesch_. But there were no sheep in the locality; and although
Sam spent the whole of a Sunday away at a farm about ten miles off, he
failed to bring any meat back. The next Sunday, however, both of them
cleared off in the early morning and did not return till nearly dark,
when they brought in a big goat between them. Within a few minutes the
head was off and buried in the ashes, and the knives were at work
cutting up a big pot of _vleesch_. Then Sam cut off a leg and brought
it to me. He spoke English quite well, did Sam. “Baas,” he said, “here
is the _geldt_; I did not pay for this bok, he was present!” “Present!”
I said, in surprise, for sheep-farmers do not usually refuse good money
for their small stock. “How was that, then, Sam? Who gave you it?”
“Nie,” he replied; “it was an ou baas of mine, I work for him once. And
this bok he little sick, so the ou baas give him for present! Baas like
me cook some _vleesch_ for him, now?” “No,” I said, with feeling; “very
good of you, Sam, but I won’t deprive you of it. Little sick, was it?
Well, well!”
All that night the camp sizzled and smoked, and certainly that “sick
bok” smelt good! They ate his head, baked in the ashes; they ate a
big potful of boiled _vleesch_, and promptly put in another; they cut
strips of him and broiled them on the embers, his internal arrangements
frizzled and smoked and were devoured by the yard. I had my cold bully
beef to the accompaniment of a really most appetising smell, smoked a
pipe and turned in, and still they ate on. Whether they ate all night I
cannot say, but certainly, when I woke again in the morning, they still
sat there eating, and the remains of the “bok” looked very sick indeed.
At length I became convinced that, whatever might exist in this wild
district, diamonds certainly did not, and I determined to make a flying
trip to the north-east, towards the long escarpment of mountains that
stretched all along the horizon in that direction, and which was
apparently the watershed from which the various rivers and streams of
the country (now mostly dry) had had their source.
[Illustration: T’SAMMA IN THE DUNES.]
[Illustration: IN THE HEART OF THE SOUTHERN KALAHARI.]
There were no roads in the right direction, and the country was too
rugged to allow of using the cart, so I determined to “hump my swag.”
Leaving one man in camp, I took Sam with me, and we carried food for
six days (kookies, biltong, and the like), a small trenching tool,
sieve and pan, a canvas bag and water-bottle and a blanket. Even
this minimum of necessities meant at least 50 lb. weight for each man,
and was more than was comfortable for such rough country and long
distances as we were bent on covering; but it was our only chance of
visiting a certain valley where again diamonds were supposed to exist,
and which I had set my heart on visiting. We found, as is usual in
such cases, that the mountains seemed to recede as we progressed, and
although we did a good fifteen miles before night, we appeared very
little nearer them. During the whole day we saw no human being, though
we saw sheep once on the flank of a kopje: nor did we find a drop of
water the whole distance, much of which was up the courses of dried-up
streams.
About sunset we were lucky enough to find a few trees flanking one of
these latter; and, making a wind-break of bushes and a big fire, we
tried to make ourselves comfortable for the night. Luckily the spot
was sandy, and we scooped a sort of bed in it that looked unpleasantly
like a grave, and was within roasting distance of the fire; and with
plenty of dry wood at arm’s reach, and my one blanket well tucked round
me, I fell asleep almost immediately. I woke up about an hour later
with my blanket smouldering on one side of me, whilst my other side was
apparently frost-bitten. A wind had sprung up and was blowing sparks
and embers all over me, whilst Sam snored peacefully and in safety on
the other side. Whilst I was making new arrangements, I was startled
by a man stepping into the firelight. He was a poor tatterdemalion of
a Hottentot, clothed in nothing but a few rags, and literally blue
with cold and famished with hunger. I woke the reluctant Sam, and he
made a billy of coffee, part of which warmed the poor shivering wretch
enough to enable him to talk. He spoke but a few words of Dutch, but
Sam understood his “click” language and interpreted. He said he had
been working for a prospecting party a long day’s trek to the north,
but had “earned enough,” and was on his way back to Calvinia, where he
belonged. He had expected to find _trek boeren_ at some old water-pits
an hour or two north of where we were, but found the “pits” dry and
the place deserted. And with the usual improvidence of a native, he
had eaten all his food and drunk all his water before he got there,
and would certainly have had a bad time had he not seen our fire. I
questioned him about the prospecting party, who apparently were the men
I had heard of in Van Ryn’s Dorp. “Yes,” he said, “they were looking
for ‘blink klippers’ (bright stones) in a sand river, and finding them
too, lots of them.”
What with this piece of news, and the cold, and the dodging of sparks
and embers made necessary by a change of wind about every half an hour,
I rested very little that night.
In the morning I gave the Hottentot a plug of tobacco and a little of
our precious water, for he informed us we should find some about an
hour farther on in the direction we were going, and he set out quite
light-heartedly on his eighty-mile tramp “home.” He was literally “as
he stood,” an old battered tin water-bottle appeared to be his only
possession; but he had some money tied up in his rags, and offered to
buy some more of my coveted plug _tabaki_, which I could not spare him.
Few of these Ishmaelite Hottentots can be prevailed upon to work for
any length of time; a week or two, and they want the few shillings due
to them, and away they trek to the nearest dorp, be it even 150 miles
away, where mouth-organs, tobacco, golden syrup, or other delicacies
dear to the native soon account for their little hard-earned cash.
Seldom indeed do they buy a blanket or make any provision for the cold
weather that they feel so bitterly. And pneumonia and kindred chest
troubles carry them off wholesale.
An hour farther on we found the water he had spoken of. It was a
small and nearly dry pit, and the bucket or two of water left in it
was filled with squirming animalcules. But the little we carried was
getting perilously low, and we made a fire and boiled a billy of it
for coffee, straining it through a handkerchief, and getting quite a
tablespoonful of mosquito larvæ and other weird things in the process.
Still, the coffee was drinkable in spite of a strong animal taste,
and all might have been well had I not had the temerity to look at
those animalcules through my prospecting glass afterwards. I was sorry
immediately, but it was too late--the coffee had been drunk.
That evening, footsore and dog-tired, we straggled into a narrow sandy
valley between rocky kopjes, the foothills of a big mountain behind and
the spot long reputed to be rich in diamonds. There was not a scrap of
wood, not a bush or a bit of vegetation anywhere, nor could we find any
of the dry cow-droppings which can be used as an alternative fuel. We
had scarcely a pint of water between us, and had to reserve that for
the morrow, and long before the end of a bitterly cold night I would
have given my chance of any diamonds I was likely to find for an armful
of firewood or a cup of hot coffee.
It is seldom very dark on the wide spaces of the veldt, but the night
was of inky blackness, and rain threatened in all directions; and as
we huddled up under the shelter of a big rock the wind swept howling
round us, chilling us to the very bone. Occasionally a few drops
of rain fell, but luckily the threatened storm kept off, and after
an interminable period of fitful naps, punctuated by an occasional
tramp up and down to warm our half frozen limbs, the bright “morning
star” that heralds the dawn rose and showed cheerily through the
lightening clouds. Still, it seemed an endless time to daybreak, and
all my attempts to cheer myself with visions of a possible Golconda
to reward me brought me but scant comfort. With morning, cold, bleak,
and cheerless as a bad November day in Europe, we started up the sand
river, finding almost immediately large masses of rock garnet and
countless quartz crystals, bright, glittering, but of course quite
valueless. And though I put in a long, thirsty day, till well on in
the afternoon, searching and sieving, not a particle of anything else
did I find to warrant the “diamondiferous” reputation of that wretched
valley. Meanwhile I had sent Sam with our water-bottles to a kloof he
knew of a couple of hours’ journey away, where he had found water on a
previous visit; and late in the afternoon he returned with sufficient
to make a billy of coffee, for the fuel for which he brought a small
bundle of laboriously collected twigs. As I had seen quite enough of
this “Sindbad’s Valley” by this time, we struck out for home, not
following our previous route, but striking straight across more open
country to the north-west. Except that we found sufficient wood before
dark to make a fire that lasted only long enough to tantalise us (and
make us feel colder than ever, afterwards!), this night was a replica
of the previous one, and I determined that, if I had to spend another
night on the veldt, I would at all costs make for a spot where wood was
to be found, if such were possible. However, late that afternoon, and
when we were still a good ten miles or more of rough country from our
camp, Sam climbed one of the isolated granite kopjes that form such a
feature of that part of Klein Namaqualand and Little Bushmanland, and
yelled out that he could see a “house.” It turned out to be the canvas
“house” of a trek Boer, who, with his small flock of sheep and a few
oxen, had pitched his portable residence at some old abandoned pits
that a lucky shower had partly filled with water, and near which, at
the foot of a big kopje, we found enough wood to keep us fairly warm
that night.
He was a most naïve sort of old chap, typical of the degenerate “poor
white” trek Boer of these barren, desolate and almost uninhabited
wastes, appallingly ignorant and indescribably dirty. His canvas
“house” was about 15 feet square, and in it he and his enormous wife,
two grown sons and three strapping daughters lived, slept, and had
their being. He questioned me minutely as to who I was, where I came
from, whether I was married, how many children I had, etc., and at
each and all of my answers in broken Dutch he and his whole tribe
laughed immoderately. He himself, as he proudly told me, had seen an
Engelsman before, often, but not so his children. I gave him a little
tobacco, which he had not seen for some weeks, and offered to buy a
goat from him to kill for our general benefit, but this he would not
sell; in fact, I always found it extremely difficult to get these
“back-of-beyant” farmers to sell any of their scanty small stock at
any price. They lived entirely upon milk and Boer meal, which they
ground themselves in a small flat stone hand-mill, catching the meal
in a goat-skin below. In fact they were as primitive, practically, as
the Bushman of the desert; more primitive certainly than the patriarch
Abraham, after whom the old man was named. I had sent Sam on to the
spot where he had seen the wood, to make a _Scherm_ and a big fire for
the night, but the old man wanted badly for me to sleep in his house!
Seven adults--and four of them women--all in a tiny room where there
were also several fowls, two big lurchers, and a sick kid! The fact of
there being any impropriety in my sharing a room with all his womenfolk
certainly never entered his head, and he evidently thought me quite mad
to choose the cold night outside to the “warmth” and comfort (?) of his
_huis_. Thanks to the roaring fire, we put in a fairly good night, and
afternoon of the next day saw us back in camp--none too soon, for my
stout boots had given in and I was wellnigh barefooted.
Next day I struck camp and started back to Van Ryn’s Dorp, disheartened
with my fruitless search and eager for news, for I had heard nothing
for six weeks.
In the dorp I found letters from Cape Town, telling me of still more
marvellous finds in German South-West, for now parties had struck south
from Luderitzbucht, and the fabulously rich Pomona fields were upon
everyone’s lips. There was talk of a bucketful of diamonds having been
impounded and lying in the “Deutsche Bank” waiting for a decision as
to their rightful owner; of the first prospectors picking up diamonds
by the handful, filling their pockets with them (which they literally
did!). And I thought of Jim and his offer to take us south, and wept
and would not be comforted!
The local news was startling, too; diamonds, and prospecting for them,
were on everybody’s lips, and rumour was persistent that a large number
of stones had been found by the party who had gone north. One of these
prospectors, it appeared, had passed through the dorp post-haste on his
way back to Cape Town, and had let drop many hints as to the richness
of his finds. One man solemnly assured me that, although he had not
seen the actual stones, he had been shown a fragment of the rock with
the holes in it from which they had been picked, like currants from
a bun! “There was the shape of the facets quite plain,” he concluded
triumphantly, and there were many other “confirmations” of a like
nature. But, absurd as most of these rumours were, there appeared to
be too much smoke to be quite without fire, and I determined to try
to reach that prospecting party and see what truth there might be in
it. But its exact whereabouts was hard to discover till by luck a
waggon came in from a distant part of the backveld within a few miles
of where this party were working. These waggoners were bastards of a
queer breed, German on the father’s side with a Hottentot mother, and
their Dutch was worse than my own--which sweeping assertion I make with
all due consideration. And as a result we got on very well together,
and they agreed to go as soon as they had had their burst out, and got
their provisions in.
Three days did this, and taking nothing but some food and my sleeping
gear, I turned back again with these peculiar mongrels, who were still
so full and reeking of bad _dop_ that I was afraid to smoke anywhere
near their breath. They were genial kind of savages, however, and
once the _dop_ was finished we got on very well together. We had to
make a detour by way of their dwelling, a canvas _huis_ similar to
friend Abraham’s, but decidedly cleaner, and where I slept cosily on
the corn-sacks in the waggon; and three days after leaving the dorp
I came up to the prospecting party, in very wild country, at a place
called Davedas. I heard them blasting long before I reached them,
and extending to them the prospector’s etiquette learnt in an older
country, I did not go near their shaft, but sent one of the drivers to
say that I should like one of the “baases” to come over to my waggon.
He came back telling me that he had been told to _voetsack_, and a few
minutes afterwards a white man came across to me and surlily told me
to do the same. I politely told him that all I wanted to know was how
far his ground extended and where his pegs stood, and he explained
that the whole earth was his and that I could get to hell out of it.
Altogether he was a most polished and obliging kind of chap. Meanwhile
the men had outspanned, and here we stayed the night. After dark
several of the “boys” came down to our fire, and to my astonishment
and delight I recognised one Jonas, a Cape boy who had worked for me
on the diggings some three years before. He was as pleased as I was,
and told me all about it. He said that, as far as he knew, not a single
diamond had been found, nor had there been any trace of diamondiferous
ground or “wash,” except in a sand river some miles back on the road.
As for where they were sinking a shaft, well, he thought they might
be after copper, for they had gone down on green stains in a quartz
reef in granite, but as for diamonds----? As all this coincided with
and confirmed what I could see of the country itself, I decided not to
trouble about the matter, and get back as soon as possible. So I gave
Jonas enough twist tobacco to make him happy, and having heard how one
of his “baases” had met me, he went back with the avowed intention of
“putting the wind up” that same surly individual.
What peculiar variety of lie he used I don’t know, but it was
effective, for the next morning he turned up with a broad grin, and a
bottle of milk, and a polite message as to where the pegs were.
Later I went round and looked at them; they were all base mineral
licences. And as I saw no use for base minerals hundreds of miles from
a railway, and as the ground showed no trace of anything else, I turned
back towards Van Ryn’s Dorp. At the sand river and at a weird-looking
spot known as “Dood Drenk” I found traces that the sand had been
worked, but as half a day’s sieving found nothing, I gave up all hope
of and all belief in diamonds existing in that locality.
There was no chance of getting back to Cape Town for a few days, and
whilst waiting for the post cart I heard something that again sent my
hopes sky-high, for a time!
I had bought a few stores on previous visits at a small local
store-keeper’s named C. He was a Jew, and had all the curiosity and
enterprise of his extraordinary race. And one evening he came to me in
a most mysterious manner, and after a lot of circumlocution he told me
that if I liked to join him in a trip he would show me a big diamond
“as big as the top of his thumb,” and take me to the place where it had
been found. And after a great deal of talk he showed me a scrawl from
a customer of his in the district, which conveyed such intelligence.
This man, he explained, was an old coloured man who had been granted a
piece of land somewhere on the northern bank of the Olifants River, on
Government ground there, and not far distant from gravels that I had
seen and thought well of on my previous trip. C. had several messages
to come out and see the stone, and all his efforts to get the old man
to bring his precious treasure-trove in had failed, as the finder had
heard of the I.D.B. Act, and feared the police would take both him and
the stone. Well, it took time to make C. understand the provisions of
that Act, but eventually he followed my advice and took out a licence
himself, and the pair of us set out for the scene of the find, quite
prepared to peg the whole country.
The weather had turned both wet and colder, and the discomforts of
that three days’ trip in an open cart to Olifants Drift, Ebenezer,
and thence in a boat to a lonely part of the north bank of the river,
I shall never forget; but suffice to say that at length, cold, wet,
tired, and generally disgusted, we stood in a native _pondhoek_ before
a frightened old nigger, who, being repeatedly assured that I was not a
policeman, and only wanted to see the “diamond” and where it came from,
at length dug up from the floor of his hut a tiny tobacco-bag from
which, rolled in a whole volume of rags, he eventually produced a big,
bright, but utterly worthless quartz crystal!
Disheartened and disillusioned, I turned back towards Van Ryn’s Dorp,
but my luck was dead out, for scarcely had I passed Olifants Drift when
the cart got badly smashed up and I was forced to bivouac for four days
on the veldt.
It was a wild and lonely spot, and during the first two days of my
enforced wait I saw no one, but on the third I woke to find the whole
veldt alive with a magnificent flock of beautiful fleecy Angora goats.
They were trekking north, and after 3,000-odd of them had passed with
their “herds,” a very fine Cape cart hove in sight with their owner. He
proved to be a certain Mr. Brand, a nephew of the late president of the
O.R.F.S., who had for many years been farming in the Gibeon District
of German South-West Africa. He had been to Cape Town to buy these
Angoras, with which he intended stocking his farm experimentally, and
was trekking with them over the 800-odd miles of wild country between
Table Bay and his lonely home.
He had plenty of time, and stayed a whole day with me, and when he
heard what I had been after he told me a tale that almost sent me back
to the wilds of German territory again. It was the tale of the first
discovery of diamonds in German South-West, years before they were
found in Luderitzbucht, a tale of a German soldier on patrol, separated
from his comrades and lost in a blinding sand-storm. He had struggled
on for days, lost to all sense of direction, and when at his last gasp
had been found by wandering Bushmen, and taken to an oasis in the
desert, where not only was there an abundance of water, but diamonds
by the thousand. Here he was kept captive, but eventually escaped and
got back to Swakopmund, where he had been struck off the rolls as dead.
His one idea was to organise an expedition to go to this spot for the
diamonds, but no one believed him; his tale was laughed at, and it was
thought that his sufferings in the desert had driven him mad.
One fine day he was missing again, and it was found he had taken mules
and a considerable amount of water, and no more was heard of him, until
some months later his body was found in the sands near Swakopmund,
bloated and swollen with the poison of a Bushman’s arrow, that had
pierced him through and through. His rags of clothing had been rifled,
but in an old pocket-book near was found a rough diary he had kept of
his route, and four large rough diamonds.
This was the tale that Brand told me, and this had been the origin of
the belief of the existence of the oasis usually known as “Hottentots’
(or Bushmen’s) Paradise” to which I have previously alluded, and the
search for which from Luderitzbucht had already cost several lives.
Well, Mr. Brand assured me that he was one of the four men who had
seen both the diamonds and the pocket-book with the original map. And,
seeing I was keenly interested, he said, “Why not go after it yourself?
I will help find the money. But you must take camels and work from the
coast. And you must land near Hollam’s Bird Island, at Strandlooper’s
Water, and go straight east.” And although I had not told Brand so,
this was close to the spot at which we had searched the beach, and from
the dunes of which Du Toit has seen an oasis in the heart of the dunes
eastward. So that, although I abandoned the Van Ryn’s Dorp district as
a bad job, I had much food for thought on my way back to Cape Town.
CHAPTER V
“ANDERSON’S DIAMONDS”--PRIESKA, UPINGTON--THE SOUTHERN KALAHARI.
In Cape Town I heard that the prospecting craze had reached Port
Nolloth, that the whole of the beach there had been pegged, and that
parties of prospectors had spread northward up the coast towards
the Orange River. Apparently, therefore, Du Toit and myself were
forestalled in our cherished scheme of trying the gravels along the
lower reaches of that little-known stream; but I wrote immediately to
my old partner, telling him of all I had heard from Brand, and asking
him to join me in an organised attempt to reach Bushmen’s Paradise.
Unfortunately, however, my letter crossed one of his announcing his
immediate sailing from Durban for Australia, and I never heard from him
again.
Such an expedition as I proposed would undoubtedly have located the
spot had it existed, but whilst the scheme was yet in embryo I had an
offer which drove all thoughts of it out of my head for some months.
One day I was asked to examine a small collection of stones brought
from a remote part of the Kalahari Desert, and give an opinion as
to what kind of deposit they might denote. And I found this little
“parcel” to consist of an almost complete assortment of various
minerals usually found in or associated with diamondiferous “blue
ground”--or Kimberlite. Garnet, olivine, chrome-diopside, ilmenite
(often called “carbon”), all were there, as well as one or two of the
rarer minerals generally found in the same company; and although there
were a few extraneous fragments of other stones having no bearing on or
connection with the rest, I had no hesitation in saying that if they
had all been found together they certainly denoted an occurrence of
“blue ground” in the immediate vicinity.
I was then told the romantic story of their discovery, a tale of forty
years back, of a time when diamonds had but recently been discovered in
Kimberley, and little was known of the true nature of the pipes there.
At that time a traveller named Anderson, who had seen the new mines,
entered the Kalahari on an exploring and shooting expedition--one
of many he made in that region--and somewhere in the vicinity of
Hachschein Vley he had come upon a valley enclosed by rocks similar to
those forming the walls of the Kimberley mines, and a slight excavation
he had been able to make in the limestone capping had produced not only
these samples, but “hundreds of garnets,” and certain green gem-stones
that he had afterwards sold in Cape Town. The hostility of a native
tribe in the vicinity had prevented his following up his discovery, and
he had been forced to leave the spot, to which he had always intended
to return, but had never been able. He was now dead, and certain of his
papers, including a description of the spot and how to reach it, a map
and the samples, were now in the possession of the gentleman who had
shown them to me.
The opinion expressed by me as to the probable source of the stones
was corroborated by several well-known geologists; an expedition to
endeavour to locate the spot was finally decided upon, and I was
commissioned to undertake it.
Now, the Kalahari is practically what it was in Anderson’s day (though
since then the whole of it has become British), and the Bushmen
that were a menace to the old traveller, though still existing, are
a dying and scattered race, too few and too timid to be taken into
consideration to-day.
And though an examination of the old map showed the spot to be
marked in close proximity to where the most northern of our border
camel police posts has since Anderson’s day been established, the
region is still wild, remote, and very little known, so little, indeed,
that it was almost impossible to obtain any exact information in Cape
Town as to the best route to follow to get there.
In those days, and indeed up till after the war broke out, Prieska
formed the railway terminus in that direction; beyond it there
stretched 150 miles of very bad, almost waterless country, wellnigh
uninhabited, before Upington could be reached; and even when this
little border dorp on the Orange River was arrived at, it was but the
“kicking-off place” for the Southern Kalahari, and a good 200 miles
of the desert had to be traversed before the truth of the traveller’s
tale could be confirmed or otherwise. So here was an adventure worth
having; a long trek through a little-known country, almost untouched
by the prospector, with sport and adventure _en route_, and who knew
what riches waiting to be discovered at the end of it? And within
forty-eight hours of the decision to send us, my fellow-adventurer
and myself were ready for our long trip. Except the lightest of
prospecting-gear, arms and ammunition, and a box of stores, we took but
little from Cape Town, for the trip was in no sense meant to include a
long stay at the spot--simply a verification of its existence, and as
rapid a return as possible to the nearest base of communication to send
word of the result.
The few people in the concern who had ever been farther than Upington
warned us that we were mad to attempt the journey at such a time, one
of the hottest months of the year, telling us awful yarns of the thirst
we were likely to suffer, and counselling a wait of some months till
the cooler season; but the promoters were eager for the mine, and urged
the danger of delay, as at any time the place might be stumbled on
(after its forty years of waiting). And we were as eager as were they!
So one fine summer’s day the north-bound mail carried us 500 miles
north-east to De Aar, whence we pottered for half a day back at an
obtuse angle, east, about 100 miles to Prieska, when the train journey
ended and the trek began.
Few years ago as it was, at that time there was not even a motor-car
service to either Kenhardt, Upington, Kakamas, or any of the far
townships of the German border. Twice a week a post-cart jogged
over the apology for a road, with letters to the “backveld,” and
occasionally a commercial traveller followed the same path; but
wayfarers of any description other than local farmers or stock-buyers
were rare enough to make us the object of a considerable amount of
curiosity, and during the few hours we stayed in the little “border”
dorp the place was humming with rumours as to who we were and where we
were bound for.
We had been warned that this kind of thing would happen, and that if
our true object leaked out we should be followed--perhaps forestalled.
And I must say that for naïve and insatiable inquisitiveness into
the doings of strangers, the inhabitants of the wild and neglected
districts of the north-west are very hard to beat. At the lonely and
poverty-stricken farmsteads all along the route we were invariably
subjected to a regular inquisition, as to who we were, where we came
from, where we were going, and above all, why, why, why had we come
into those parts? Why? indeed! For there appeared little or nothing to
attract anyone to this desolate and barren countryside, devastated by
drought, neglected and ignored, without any of the conveniences of more
favoured regions, a very Cinderella among South African districts. The
advent of a rare stranger--especially if he looked a townsman and an
“Engelsman”--usually gave rise to some faint hope that at length the
_spoorweg_ (railway) was coming, or roads were to be made, or a mine
opened, or some kind of _Gouvermentse werk_ to be started to benefit
the country at long last.
But after all, we had little to fear from these poor chaps; the danger
came from the townsmen we had left, for our coming and our object were
both known in Upington before we got there, and all arrangements had
been made for our being followed. However, I anticipate.
We succeeded in hiring a light spring-waggon with six good horses, and
the fourth day saw us at the drift at Upington, having passed through
one of the most dreary and monotonous parts of South Africa _en route_,
a part calling for no special mention, as it is utterly devoid of
scenery or of any object of interest. Dreary stretches of flat stony
veldt, incredibly bare, and denuded of even its modicum of straggling
vegetation, for miles on either side of the road, by the crowds of
donkeys that then hauled the heavy transport-waggons from the railway
to the far back-veldt, and which crawled along at a snail’s pace over
the interminable distance, often taking three weeks to accomplish the
150 miles between Prieska and Upington.
Luckily we were in no such case, but trundled comfortably along,
doing our thirty-five or fifty miles a day, outspanning at night and
sleeping under the cart, and getting seasoned for the real work of
the desert farther north. On our right hand, most of the journey, ran
a long line of barren hills; these denoted the course of the Orange
River, which we left at Prieska and did not see again till we reached
Upington. Altogether a most dreary and monotonous journey so far,
and by no means the “joy-ride” we anticipated, the only pleasurable
incident being when the surly driver sat on a scorpion by the camp
fire one evening. However, at last the dreary stretches of sad-looking
veldt, varied only by heavy sand, became broken by a few prominent
granite kopjes, and eventually, on cresting a low stony ridge, we came
in sight of the long winding belt of vegetation denoting the Orange
River. On its far (northern) bank, white houses were dotted along in
a thin straggling line; this was Upington. Beyond, as far as the eye
could reach, stretched a vast, slowly rising, undulating expanse of
sad, dun-coloured, featureless country, the southern dunes of the
Kalahari, the “Great Thirst Land”--the land we were bound for, and
in the wilds of which we hoped to find a fortune. Away to our left,
westward and at a great distance, rose a line of jagged fantastic
peaks, pale cobalt against the white glare of the sky; these peaks I
had cause to know only too intimately later. They were the Noup Hills,
an almost unexplored maze of low mountains situated below the Great
Falls of the Orange and just on the border of German South-West, some
seventy miles distant from us. Before reaching the very welcome river,
however, we had to toil through a terrible “drift” of the softest, most
powdery sand and silt that ever hampered a team even in this country
of sand-drifts; it was a sort of sand-quagmire, in fact, if such a
thing is imaginable, and in it the waggon sank up to the hubs, and
progress was most maddeningly slow. This silt is really that brought
down and spread out on either side of the river by successive floods,
and is, wherever irrigated, most astonishingly fertile. Once through
it, and amongst magnificent trees we came to the river, this most
welcome oasis between two deserts; for the southern country is quite as
well-deserving of the name as the true Kalahari of the northern bank.
In flood-time it is a broad and noble stream with some magnificent
stretches of water, often 400 yards or more in width, but at the time
of our arrival it was low, and we were able to drive through its
shallow _drifts_ and climb out on the north bank without recourse to
the pontoon by which it is usually crossed. Along its bank’s summit
runs the straggling street, knee-deep almost in Kalahari sand. A
“hotel,” post and telegraph office, a church or two, and quite a number
of large stores made the one street; these stores I found wonderfully
well stocked considering their 150 miles’ distance from a railway, and
apparently far too numerous for the inhabitants’ requirements. Many of
them had sprung into being during the German-Hottentot-Herrero War,
when Upington had flourished exceedingly on the enormous amount
of transport passing through it on the way to the German border.
Since those palmy days things had slumped, most of the store-keepers
apparently living on each other and all uniting in praying for a new
war. They had great hopes when Ferreira broke across the border in his
German-inspired, abortive raid, but unfortunately for them it ended in
smoke.
[Illustration: A FLOWER OF THE DESERT, SOUTHERN KALAHARI.
Flowering succulent, about 3 feet high.]
[Illustration: THE CAMEL POST AT ZWARTMODDER, GORDONIA.]
The proximity to the German border was rendered noticeable in Upington
principally on account of the prevalence of German money there.
Practically no English silver was to be seen, and except at the post
office the cheap, trashy-looking mark passed for and purchased the
equivalent amount of a shilling’s-worth.
I have already alluded to the fertility of the silt on the banks of
the Orange River, but scarcely believed the statements of some of
the inhabitants until, later, I saw with my own eyes the marvellous
crops that it is capable of producing. Oranges, especially the variety
known as the “Washington Navel,” grow to a profusion, perfection, and
abundance truly wonderful, as do peaches, grapes, and in fact almost
every variety of fruit; though both soil and climate seem to favour the
various varieties of citrus most of all.
Between the trees of the carefully cultivated groves the farmers grow
lucerne, which again thrives astonishingly, crop following crop almost
as fast as it is cut, eight or nine times a year being quite common.
Unfortunately, the irrigable land consists of a comparatively narrow
strip averaging about half a mile in width, though there are spots
where it is much wider, and in many places the river is split up into
numerous channels enclosing densely wooded islands, which, wherever
cleared and cultivated, give the same abundant crops. Lower down the
river a certain amount of grain is grown, and it is claimed that
wheat has here yielded the wonderful harvest of 246 bushels for one
of seed--surely a world’s record? Altogether it needs no prophet to
predict that the time will come when this long, winding oasis through
the desert will be populated and utilised from end to end, as it
deserves to be. But except for a brief drive or two we saw but little
of this fertile belt on this visit, for within twenty-four hours of
our arrival we were _en route_ again, this time in a Cape cart drawn
by eight sturdy oxen, who are far better able to cope with heavy sand
than are horses or mules, and whose steady, untiring walk or jog-trot
gets them over the ground at a far quicker rate than would appear.
As we were now entering a region where water is at its scarcest, we
carried a considerable quantity of this prime necessity, a small cask,
several tin cans, and a big canvas water-bag and aluminium water-bottle
each. Our driver was a Boer who had been in the camel police, and knew
the road to the north well, and for _voorleir_ we had a diminutive
Hottentot Bushman boy with the most marvellous eyesight imaginable.
Often this queer, monkey-faced little chap would call our attention to
game far ahead of us, the long neck of a _paauw_ among the bushes, a
good 500 yards away, and which our field-glasses hardly showed us, or a
tiny _steenbok_ standing motionless among cover at double the distance;
and his dexterity at picking up a spoor and following it was almost
superhuman.
He knew each and every hoof-mark of his own eight charges even when
they were mixed up with hundreds of others at the various water-holes,
and he often pointed out the spoor of animals in the hard stony places
that occasionally divided the dunes, and where the closest scrutiny of
my own fairly good eyes showed me nothing. He was a source of perpetual
interest to me, and taught me a good deal of veldt lore on that long
trudge to the north. But our driver was by no means a pleasant man;
he was a taciturn and bad-tempered individual who hated and despised
all Englishmen and took little pains to conceal the fact, and within
twenty-four hours of leaving Upington I was hard at work trying to
keep the peace between him and my companion. The latter was a young
Englishman, an accountant from Cape Town who had put in a good veldt
apprenticeship in the B.B.P. in Rhodesia, and who, finding our driver
would not be companionable, wanted to punch him. This I would have
been very pleased to let him do thoroughly, but having left Upington,
and with no other team or teamster to replace him, it would have been
extremely bad policy. Moreover in some cases he was not at fault!
For instance, G. was constantly accusing him of cruelty to his oxen,
but this was only apparent, or in some cases necessary. G. wanted to
push forward, as I did, and could not understand the arbitrary manner
in which we trekked, outspanning in awful spots for hours in the sun
without an atom of shade, pushing on in the dark when G. wanted to
sleep, and above all stopping for hours in the night to sleep, and
keeping the oxen tight-spanned in their heavy yokes. This “unnecessary
cruelty,” as G. termed it, annoyed him so much that one night when we
were all asleep he quietly let them loose, “so that they could have a
good sleep, poor things,” as he put it. A few hours later, when inspan
time came, there was trouble, for the “poor things” had cleared, some
on the back trail for home, two old hands straight ahead to the next
water-hole, and the rest due east into the real dunes of the forbidden
Game Reserve, where there was an abundance of grass. The result was a
day’s delay in retrieving them, and in future G. admitted the driver
knew his own business best. Indeed, trekking in these deserts is an
art in itself, bound by laws that are only known to men who know the
roads intimately; and to attempt to trek a certain number of hours,
and outspan a certain number of regular times, is out of the question.
In the hottest time of the day, when the sand is almost red-hot, the
oxen cannot and will not trek; then, whatever happens, at sunrise and
sunset they must be loosed and rested for a while, and the problem is
made more difficult by the necessity of finding grazing for them _en
route_, and, above all, watering them. Much of our trekking was done
at night, when oxen travel well, but this was a great drawback in many
ways, as it left us ignorant of much of the country travelled through.
All up the border, which, as I have before written, is the 20th degree
of east longitude, there stretches a narrow fringe of desert “farms,”
many of them huge blocks of 20,000 morgen (roughly 40,000 acres)
each, mostly, too, of barren, sandy, waterless land, “farms” indeed
only in name. Some of them have one or two water-holes, some have
none whatever. A few have so-called “homesteads” on them, generally a
forlorn dwelling little better than a hovel, though there are one or
two exceptions of a better type. But wild and desolate as are these
stretches of land, many of them are capable of sustaining large flocks
of sheep, goats, and cattle; indeed, the number of fat beasts running
on certain of these inhospitable-looking wastes is surprising. And
the “poverty” of the scattered inhabitants is not nearly as bad as it
appears, their wretched homes and the squalor of their surroundings
being almost as inexcusable as their appalling filth. This latter was
the more noticeable at some of the farms along the Molopo, the dry bed
of which eventually forms the route north, where water can always be
found on boring. Often there is an aeromotor and a well-built stone
dam full of water, stagnant and filthy and full of animalcules for the
want of cleaning out; and from this filthy pestiferous brew the owners
would dip the drinking-water for their needs, rather than take the
two minutes’ trouble of unhitching the motor and getting a splendid
stream of crystal water, flowing pure and fresh from the abundant
supply below. Of course there were exceptions, but the bulk of these
degenerate people apparently never dreamed of washing themselves,
except when they made their periodical visit to _nachtmaal_ at
far-distant Upington. The vicinity of one of these “farms” was usually
heralded by an appalling smell, for generally in the near vicinity were
to be seen several swollen, rotten carcasses of goats, cattle, sheep,
or horses, dead of _lungziekte_ or _nieuwziekte_ or _paardeziekte_, or
one of the many diseases that had recently devastated the animals in
these parts.
No matter how near they might have died to house or water, no attempt
appeared ever to have been made to drag the putrid carcass away or bury
it, and the offal of slain animals usually strewed the vicinity of the
house to the very doorstep. Quite recently an epidemic of typhoid had
devastated the whole of this border region, and I believe many learned
treatises were written as to what peculiar form of fever it may have
been and how it originated--but surely the cause was not far to seek!
However, we jogged steadily along, and after one or two experiences
gave these places as wide a berth or as short a visit as we possibly
could, and this much to our driver’s disgust, for naturally he wished
to visit all of them, spend an hour or two in gossiping at each,
and whenever possible sleep in the ferret-hutch atmosphere of their
interiors at night, instead of out under the stars as we did. Still,
_De gustibus non disputandum_ holds good in Gordonia as elsewhere, I
suppose, and as long as he did not delay us and kept his distance for a
while afterwards, we did not mind where he slept.
It is not my intention to turn this account into a guide-book
description of the journey, most of which was absolutely featureless
and uninteresting, but a brief outline of the route followed might be
of interest.
Trekking from Upington at 5 one evening, we kept on steadily till 11,
when we turned in on the cool sand and slept comfortably till 4.30,
when we started again, and at 7 o’clock passed the deserted copper-mine
at Areachap, which had but recently been closed down, and presented the
sad sight of a beautifully equipped and rich little mine being beaten
in its struggle for existence by the heavy handicap of being situated
170 miles or so from the nearest railway. Rich heaps of ore lay there
ready to be carted away, there was much valuable machinery going to
rack and ruin, and the buildings must have cost a large sum to erect;
and here it stood, alone and deserted in the midst of the solitary
waste of veldt, guarded only by a couple of coloured “boys”--a sad
monument of man’s energy wasted in a hopeless fight against adverse
circumstances, or worse! The tall yellow shaft was visible hours after
we had left it, a most prominent and incongruous landmark in the wide
expanse of desert.
A mile or so farther on we found that rain had fallen, and at the
pools of shallow water lying in the road were Namaqua partridges by
the thousand. These little plump, pretty game-birds are really a
sand-grouse, and to such an extent do they abound in these districts
that at the rare water-holes and at their drinking hours the air is
literally full of them. An hour or two after sunrise and again at
sunset they come to the water, huge coveys of them whirring in from
all directions, and swarming towards the drinking-place in incredible
numbers. In the stone-strewn _aars_ that are a feature of this country
these little birds take advantage of their marvellous protective
colouring, and I have often actually kicked against them crouching
amongst, and absolutely indistinguishable from, the stones around them
until they moved, when a whole covey would whirr up from beneath my
feet. The driver frequently killed them with his whip from his seat on
the cart, and we called down upon us his derision by shooting a few
single ones that we put up by the path. He told us that was by no means
the way, and that with one cartridge he would fill the pot for us,
which of course he easily did by hiding behind a bush near the water
and firing into the thick of them. Indeed, it is no uncommon thing to
bag fifty or more at a shot in this manner, and though far from being
“sport,” we soon found that on a long trip where ammunition could not
be replenished it would scarcely pay to pot at single partridges; and
in future we kept our big Kaffir pot filled with them by this most
unsportsmanlike but profitable method. A bit of bacon, an onion, a
little pepper and salt, and a potful of these little chaps, make a stew
fit for a king, and with plenty of Boer meal “pap” and syrup and roster
kook, G. and I sighed for nothing better; but the driver turned up his
nose at the despised _vogelkies_ and pined for his beloved _vleesch_.
Whenever he could get a chunk of goat or sheep he filled a pot and ate
to repletion of the half-cooked, tough, and flavourless contents. When
he could not get it, and perforce had to eat the birds, a dozen of them
were but a sort of appetiser to him. As a beverage we drank tea, quarts
and quarts of it, made in the kettle itself, without milk and with an
abundance of sugar, for this was a trip _de luxe_, during which neither
food nor water ran short.
On the third day two white men overtook and passed us, on horseback,
not keeping the trail but away to the right of us, and apparently
anxious to avoid us. This was peculiar, as in a country where days
may pass without seeing a soul by the way, the custom is to seek the
infrequent wayfarer rather than to avoid him, and I began to think of
all I had been told about being followed. The driver, who had seen them
pass, said he was sure they were not police, and Piet, the _voorlooper_
of the telescopic eyes, corroborated this. Again and again we caught
sight of them, sometimes ahead, sometimes behind or on our flank,
but they never came near us, and it soon became pretty clear that we
were being “shepherded.” Once or twice we tried to signal to them by
waving a handkerchief and shouting, but they took no notice, and G.,
exasperated at their attitude, seriously suggested having a shot at
them with the rifle.
CHAPTER VI
ZWARTMODDER--THE MOLOPO--RIETFONTEIN--THE GAME RESERVE.
On the third day we reached Zwartmodder, a tiny police post and store
in the old dry bed of the Molopo, whose course we were now to follow
for some days. The two policemen (C.M.P.) stationed at this lonely
little spot told us the horsemen had gone straight through without
coming near the station, and confirmed us in our suspicion as to what
these sneaks were after. Zwartmodder is a weird and desolate little
place standing in a deep, narrow, rock-walled valley, whose sandy floor
was the bed of the ancient river that once flowed right across what is
now the Kalahari Desert from near Mafeking, westward, and then south,
for many hundreds of miles, till it joined the Orange below the great
falls of Aughrabies. In most places it is sand-choked to the level of
the surrounding desert. In others, though still dry, it is filled with
vegetation, and indeed many stretches farther north are well timbered,
with fine mimosa and other thorn-trees. But, with the exception of one
or two melancholy survivors, there are none of these trees left near
Zwartmodder, the channel being loose sand where it is not the “black
mud” from which the place is named.
Made anxious by this particular “shadowing” by men who kept ahead of
us, I consulted the driver as to whether we could leave the track and
give them the slip, and for the first time showed him the map old
Anderson had made.
Considering the time that had elapsed since it was drawn, we had found
it so far astonishingly accurate. It showed the old traveller’s road
from Griquatown along the northern bank of the Orange to “Klaas Lucas
Kraal,” a native stadt in those days, and now Upington; it gave the
route northward to the Hygap (the Hottentot name for the Molopo) and
Zwartmodder, and thence clearly to Hachschein Vley and the spot we hoped
to find a fortune in. And the driver, after perusing it, told us that,
whatever we might do when we arrived at the vley, we must follow the
present road that far. For eastward stretched the unknown, waterless,
and forbidden wastes of the Game Reserve, and westward, and nearer to
us each day of our trek, was the frontier-line and German territory, to
enter which and trek north would mean endless red tape and obstruction.
So there was no help for it but to keep on as we were going, up the
dry bed of the Molopo. The following day we struck an oasis in the
shape of a clean, comfortable, and well-furnished dwelling, the farm
“Bloemfontein,” whose then owners were an object-lesson to their
benighted neighbours as to what comfort can be obtained by a little
trouble and expense, even here on the fringe of the desert. Here I was
shown some very fine-looking “yellow ground” from an adjoining farm
near the German border which was being worked for diamonds. It looked
extremely promising, and contained plenty of “carbon,” garnets, etc.,
but the other stones shown me in conjunction with it were zircons and
not diamonds, as had been believed. This gentleman also told me of
many strange “pans” in the real desert eastward, where diamonds were
supposed to exist, but in which direction all prospecting and even
trekking was now forbidden, and his experiences so interested me that I
resolved sooner or later to explore those “pans” myself.
At Witkop the following day I had further evidence shown me of the
abundance of diamondiferous “indications” that are such a feature of
Gordonia, for here “yellow ground,” with all its usual inclusions, was
to be seen in close proximity to the road, and indeed there is proof
everywhere in this locality that pipes, fissures, or other occurrences
of Kimberlite exist, and need but a little systematic prospecting to
locate. Whether they are diamondiferous can only be proved by working
them, but the fact that at various times diamonds have been picked
up here and there in the vicinity certainly makes such a supposition
reasonable.
However, we had neither the time nor the right to prospect these places
and pushed steadily on, hearing occasionally from the far-apart farms
or an infrequent wayfarer that our friends the would-be “claim-jumpers”
kept about an hour ahead of us. Meanwhile we were getting deeper and
deeper into the dunes, and frequently these now vied with the biggest
I had ever seen in the sand-belt of German West. These, however, were
different. The sand was redder, and only the crests of them were bare,
the long “valleys” between their regular wave-like lines, and much of
their slopes, being covered with low bushes and tufts of Bushman grass.
They lay right athwart the path, and trekking over them was a most
tedious and slow operation. Their usual slope was about 45 degrees up
to within a short distance of the summit, where the sand, loose, soft,
and unbound by vegetation, was often piled up by the prevailing wind
into an apex that fell away on the leeward side almost perpendicularly.
And after laboriously straining at our light cart up the rise, the oxen
would go floundering down this declivity in a wild scramble, slipping,
falling, and dragging each other and the cart in a jumble of confusion
till they reached firmer footing below. To ride was impossible; indeed
everything on the cart had to be made fast, or it stood a great chance
of being thrown out and lost. In any case, however, we rode but
seldom, ranging out on either side of the path all day with gun and
rifle, hoping for the chance of a shot that seldom came. Game there
was, for we saw spoors in abundance, but unfortunately these do not
fill the pot, and in spite of the solitariness of the region both fur
and feather were extremely wild. _Paauw_, that most magnificent of
bustards, was abundant but almost unapproachable: _klompjes_ of four
or five together rising repeatedly a few dunes ahead of us, but always
well out of gunshot. Indeed, except at the hottest time of the day,
when they, like the steenbok, can occasionally be caught napping in
the shade of a bush, they are seldom obtainable with a gun, stalking
them and shooting them through the head or neck with a rifle, at 200
yards or more, being the sportsman’s only chance. The larger variety,
known as the _gom paauw_, often weighs from 30 to 40 lb., and has been
recorded up to 50 lb. or more. One of the largest I ever saw must have
been well over that, for it stood quite five feet in height, and I took
it to be a young ostrich when, in the grey light of morning, I one day
came silently upon it within 40 or 50 yards. I had a rifle, but never
dreamed of firing at an “ostrich,” and stood staring open-mouthed
when, after a run of a few yards, the huge creature got up and sailed
majestically away.
Most frequent and most annoying among the larger game-birds was the
_korhaan_, whose irritating croaking cackle could be heard on all
sides, and which seemed to take a mischievous delight in disturbing
other game of a less suspicious nature, whenever we were engaged in
attempting a stalk.
Occasionally a flock of wild ostriches would speed across the path
with enormous strides, covering the ground at an incredible speed;
occasionally a tiny steenbok fell to the rifle, and once or twice a
few gemsbok would be seen for a moment floundering over the crest
of a distant dune, or, with heads thrown back and long sabre-like
horns sloped in splendid attitude, would stand and gaze at us for a
moment before bounding away. Big blue hawks with bright red beaks were
plentiful, and I much regretted having one day shot one, for I found
its crop full of snakes and lizards, and farmers have told me that this
same _blaauw valk_ does infinitely more good in this respect than the
much-belauded secretary-bird.
We saw but few snakes, an occasional _geel capel_ (yellow cobra) or a
lazy and bloated puff-adder failing to get out of our way before we
saw him, but scorpions were an absolute pest. They came along with
their tails cocked up, rampant and vicious, and pining for something to
sting, walking straight at the camp fire of an evening, and stinging
at the embers till they sizzled on them, when the cheerful smell that
arose would bring others by the dozen. At least, the natives firmly
believe this, and certainly our experience confirmed it. In gathering
firewood or dry leaves one had to be especially careful of these little
pests, and it was no uncommon thing to find three or four nestling
between our blankets and the sand in the morning. Often we amused
ourselves by catching them and putting two together in a sieve on the
ground, when after a little teasing they would fight furiously till
both were stung to death.
We passed the tiny police post at Abiqwas Pits, where two forlorn camel
police are marooned in a desert of sand-dunes and have to guard (?) a
district as big as an English county and watch about forty miles of
the German frontier. The police force of this long border of ours is
grotesquely inadequate and will be referred to later.
Thence we toiled through extremely heavy dunes, alternating with broad,
flat stretches of hard shale, thickly strewn with stones that made
our progress both difficult and painful. These stony spaces are known
locally as _aars_, a name given to any feature on the surface which
is long compared to its breadth, and the variety of water-worn stones
with which they were strewn was astonishing. Fragments of igneous rock
predominated, and conspicuous amongst them were many rounded fragments
of a peculiar amygdaloid similar to that found near Pniel on the Vaal
River, but by no means identical, the tiny steam-holes being filled
with nodules of agate, chalcedony, and other forms of silica, or
occasionally with a bright green mineral that I could not classify.
Prominent also were numerous lumps of bright scarlet jasper, and the
banded ironstone, usually associated with the diamond in the gravels of
the River Diggings, was also here in abundance.
This débris, however, though it is found spread over hundreds of miles
of country, is usually a very superficial layer thinly strewn over the
shale. Where it came from is difficult to imagine, as few of the rocks
of which it is composed are to be found locally; but evidence seems to
point to its having been brought there by huge floods in the remote
past, and at a period prior to the advent of the enormous accumulation
of sand that now forms the dunes of the desert and covers up the bulk
of the “country rock” of this wide, waterless region.
In the midst of these huge dunes, we one evening met a waggon belonging
to a Boer who had for some time past been farming in German territory
over the border, and as it was near outspan time we camped that night
together. He had twenty-four sturdy oxen yoked to his buck-waggon, on
which were piled his few household belongings and his numerous family.
He had been one of the many “irreconcilables” who, having fought to
the last in the Boer War, had refused to live under British rule, and
had trekked to German West and there taken up land and settled down.
And now, after years of galling and irksome submission to the German
régime of red tape and officialism, he had been exasperated beyond all
endurance by some sample of German “justice,” and was trekking back,
extremely thankful to be once more under the once despised and hated
Union Jack, and full of the wrongs experienced at the hands of the
_Duitsers_.
I met a number of these sadder and wiser men at various times along the
border, and almost invariably their experiences of German rule had had
a most salutary effect upon them, from a British point of view.
Eventually we emerged from these giant dunes on to a fairly wide,
level plain known as Saulstraat, and here by the water-pits found
six fine shady thorn-trees that had been planted in a line by some
thoughtful old pioneer of the desert; and as we had not seen anything
bigger than a bush for some days past, it was most natural that we
should seek their shade for our midday outspan. G. smoothed away a
place from the fallen thorns and threw himself down, whilst I--much
to his surprise--climbed into the cart and prepared to take my siesta
in its very cramped space. “Why don’t you come down here?” asked G. I
told him there might be insects. “Insects!” he said, in high disdain,
“insects! Well, I always thought you were a crank, but that settles it!
Here we’ve been roasting for days till we smell like grilled steak, and
when you get the chance of a bit of comfort in the shade of nice trees,
you’re afraid of insects! Insects! Why, there aren’t any, and if there
were they wouldn’t keep me from this! Insects!”
“Be warned in time,” I said solemnly. “These are no common insects.”
“Oh, shut up,” he snorted; “you and your old yarns! I’m going to
sleep.” And he did; but not for long. By my watch it took just four
and a half minutes before he began to squirm a bit; that meant the
first sam-pan had started prospecting. Soon others evidently put their
pegs in, and in seven and a half minutes the big rush came. I had
always admired, indeed almost reverenced, G.’s ability to sleep at any
time, anywhere, and under any conditions, but the way he withstood the
combined onslaught of that army corps of sam-pans for fully another
three minutes was an eye-opener as to what he could do. At last a
big one at work on his nose must have struck it rich, for G. ceased
his snores and his squirming, and still half asleep struck himself a
violent blow right where the sam-pan was working. He let off a violent
yell, and for the next few minutes his demeanour lacked dignity and
repose. In the middle of his bad language I told him so, also that it
was a pity to forget himself for the sake of a few insects.
“Insects!” he snorted. “You call these blamed calamities insects, do
you? Right-oh, wait a bit, my son--I’ll pay you for this.”
And he did, for the next thing I heard was a splash, and there he was,
clothes and all, in the water-pit--the only water we had, mind, for
drinking purposes for the next twenty-four hours, for our cask and
bags were empty when we arrived and we had not yet refilled them. I
shall never forget those six thorn-trees at Saulstraat, nor the heat
when we left the shade there, for I think that day was the hottest I
experienced during the trip. The heat of the sand struck through our
boot-soles as though we were walking on red-hot embers, whilst the
gait of the poor oxen reminded me of the old saying, “like a cat on
hot bricks.” All round this flat plain between the dunes the mirage
glittered until it was difficult to realise that we were not walking
on the only dry spot in the midst of a wide lake. So perfect was the
illusion that on looking back to the trees we saw them faithfully
mirrored in the placid “water” beneath them, as were the high dunes
and every little prominence in sight. However, after toiling through
another barrier of high dunes we were cheered by the sight of real
water, a fairly wide, shallow vley, with a number of oxen standing in
it, showing where recent rains had fallen at Middle Pits. Here there
was a substantially built house owned by a Bastard farmer, one of the
few remaining original owners of these desert border farms. And here
the sand-dunes came to an end. Ahead stretched flat country broken by
one or two extraordinary black kopjes, the first sign of any intrusive
rock we had seen since leaving Witkop. We had now for the first time an
opportunity of giving our advance agents the slip, and turning abruptly
from the path, we trekked all night, and in the morning were close to
Rietfontein at the north-west corner of Hachschein Vley, and near our
destination.
The vley is such only in name, being a wide expanse of flat country
which has at one time been a shallow lake or marsh, and into which
several small rivers formerly ran. Except after rain these are, of
course, dry, but in the “pan” itself water can be obtained almost
anywhere at a comparatively shallow depth.
In Anderson’s time this had been a noted place for lions, but they do
not come as far south nowadays, and it was in this locality that the
old traveller met with hostile Bushmen. No such place as Rietfontein
then existed, but his map showed a native Kraal called “Quassama,” and
it appeared likely that the post at Rietfontein had been built on the
site of this old Bushman village, which indeed proved to be the case.
If only on account of its remoteness and isolation, this tiny frontier
post of ours merits description. Separated by nearly 150 miles of
sand-dunes from a doctor or a telegraph station, or any of the
conveniences of life even to be found at Upington, and almost double
that distance from the nearest railway at Prieska, it surely vies with
the police posts of the Canadian North-West border for loneliness and
inaccessibility. Its only connecting-link with the Empire it belongs to
is by this wearisome southern route that we had followed, for north of
it there is no other post along the whole 600 miles of British-German
border where the Bechuanaland Protectorate and German South-West march
together to the Caprivi belt and the Portuguese territory of Angola.
East stretches the whole breadth of the Southern Kalahari, pathless,
waterless, and a forbidden land, between them and the Kuruman district,
whilst westward they are bounded by foreign (German) territory.
The nucleus of this forlorn little settlement was the old
mission station belonging to the Rhenish Mission, and dating from the
days of the Bushman kraal old Anderson had seen. It was a substantial
stone-built dwelling, flanked with a chapel and standing by the
all-important water-hole. There was the usual tiny oasis in the
shape of a small garden with a few fig-trees, and half a dozen large
_cameel doorn_ in the sand near showed where the “river” at one time
flowed; but other than this there was no sign of vegetation and the
surroundings were barren and desolate, even for the desert. A small
thatched building that served for Court-house (for Rietfontein is the
seat of a magistracy), as well as residence for the magistrate and
officer in charge of the police, a fairly well stocked store, and the
few miserable hovels that housed the Bastard and Hottentot community
of the mission, and the equally tumble-down quarters of the police
troopers, constituted the whole of the most important police post along
our whole frontier.
[Illustration: A BEAUTIFUL GORGE OF THE ORANGE RIVER (NEAR
“AUSENKEHR”)]
Of course the Rietfontein missionary was a German; moreover, although
he was a J.P. of the district he had never taken the trouble to
learn English, and his flock of coloured ragamuffins were as nearly
Germanised as he had been able to make them. He proved to be the
possessor of a very old map of the locality which gave all the old
native names, and which I covet to this day, and upon which we were
able to verify our idea as to Rietfontein and Quassama being identical.
And cheered by this fresh proof of Anderson’s accuracy, within an hour
of our arrival we again set out on foot, thinking to be able to walk
straight to the “valley of diamonds” we had come so far to find. But
alas! the map--so correct up to now--failed lamentably upon this most
vital point of all, for certain physical features there laid down
were utterly lacking in the direction the chart pointed to, and after
spending the rest of the day in a vain search we came back considerably
discouraged. And day after day the same thing happened. Having failed
to find the spot at once, I obtained the services of one or two of
the older Bastard inhabitants, as also an old Bushman, and under
their guidance I wore out two pairs of strong boots in systematically
searching the locality, putting in eight or ten hours of walking each
day, and only giving up after ten days of this wearisome search, when
I had absolutely convinced myself that no such place existed anywhere
upon the ground I was entitled to prospect, or indeed anywhere within
many miles of the position marked so clearly upon the map. And so we
had come nearly a thousand miles, over three hundred of which had been
by trekking through a desert and difficult country, for nothing, simply
upon another wild-goose chase!
I do not wish to say that no such spot ever existed. In fact, I have
no doubt that Anderson made the discovery much as he described it; but
my opinion is that he did not make the map till many years after his
visit, and that the locality was wrongly marked by many miles.
Yet Kimberlite existed in the vicinity; indeed, a “blank” variety,
containing but few inclusions, was to be seen in many of the dry
watercourses that honeycombed the country, and I found garnets and
ilmenite in one or two places, but none of the other minerals described
and brought back by Anderson and shown me in Cape Town.
The fact having been reluctantly forced upon me that the map was wrong,
I had at length no alternative but to abandon the search, our one
consolation being that the two would-be “claim-jumpers” who had turned
up at a neighbouring farm a day or two after our arrival, and who had
laboriously followed me about the wild country ever since, had also had
their trouble for nothing, besides being considerably mystified into
the bargain. In spite of my failure, I should much have liked to put in
a few months’ systematic prospecting in the locality, for there were
quite sufficient “indications” to warrant it, and such work might well
have led to valuable discoveries.
But I had been instructed simply to verify the existence or otherwise
of the place mentioned in Anderson’s map, and there was nothing for it
but to turn back on our long trek to civilisation.
During the short time we spent at Rietfontein we were most hospitably
entertained by the officer in charge of the few camel police there, and
found that he, in common with his men, was perfectly contented with
the solitary life they were forced to lead. He said that new-comers
sometimes nearly go mad for the first month or two of their lonely and
monotonous existence, but that they almost invariably get so attached
to the place and the life that they seldom apply for a transfer, and
the few who do so are usually anxious to return to the desert within a
very short time. Yet the life is both hard and perilous, for their long
patrols take them many days’ distance into the desert, and often, in
the waterless tracks near the Oup and Nosop “rivers” to the north or
the equally thirst-stricken wastes eastward, they are faced with the
danger of a death from thirst. With a view to minimising the danger of
getting lost in these pathless dunes they usually patrol in couples,
and some of their adventures in tracking down Bushman or Hottentot
cattle-thieves in the heart of the desert would make most excellent
reading.
Most of these chaps pooh-poohed the idea of a mine near their camp.
“Pity you can’t go into the Game Reserve,” they all said; “that’s where
the diamonds are, out towards Tilrey Pan.” But beyond the assertion
and their evident belief, they had no data whatever to confirm what
they said. They had all heard vague rumours as to rich mines existing
there, tales, too, of Bushmen and Hottentots bringing out diamonds
and obtaining cattle and waggons for them; but it was impossible to
trace these stories to their source or confirm them, and beyond a
flying trip or two when water had been too scarce to allow of any
delay, they had seen but little of this forbidden ground themselves. A
few of the nearer “pans” in that region lay within their patrol, and
their description of the rocks and gravels to be seen there excited
my curiosity to an extraordinary degree, whilst they were unanimous
in saying that, from the high dunes they had visited there, numerous
unknown and unvisited pans could be seen dotting the desert eastward.
But this mysterious region, long coveted by prospectors, had for many
years been closed against all prospecting, a tract of country half the
size of England having been proclaimed a Royal Game Reserve, to the
exclusion even of travellers.
The old Bushman who had been my guide knew this district well; in the
past he had hunted ostriches there with the bow and poisoned arrow,
bringing the feathers in to the rare trading waggons to exchange for
tobacco and the like, and he asserted that Bushmen still wandered
there, independent of water and living on the _tsamma_ (or wild melon)
in lieu thereof. “Bright stones,” yes, some of the “pans” were full of
them, and he also had heard that men had obtained many head of oxen and
five waggons for these! But which “pans” they came from he could not
say; there were many, many of such places. Yes, he knew pans where the
soil was _blaauw_ (blue) and crumbled in the hand, and where the _rooi
blink klippers_ (bright red stones--garnets) lay by the shovelful, and
green stones too. Would he be able to take me to these places? Yes! and
to where there was a “fontein” of good water too, but the police would
put him in _tronk_ if he went there; no one was there but _schelm_
Bushmen, cattle thieves.
All of which made me more anxious than ever to explore this forbidden
stretch of country, and on our way back I took every opportunity that
offered to question both natives and farmers as to whether diamonds had
ever been found there, and found that the belief that mines existed
there was universal.
Few of the farmers cared to acknowledge that they had ever been more
than a mile or two into the Reserve (and then always after “strayed
cattle”); but as a matter of fact a great deal of poaching is carried
on by these dwellers on the border, and many a waggon of gemsbok
biltong finds a way to dodge the rare patrols of the few police.
As we again approached the dry bed of the Molopo (which practically
forms the boundary-line between the Reserve and the line of surveyed
farms fringing the German border), I took several opportunities of
penetrating for a few miles into the prohibited area, to where, from a
high dune, it is possible to scan the huge expanse of pathless desert
stretching eastward, whilst from the rocky kopjes that here and there
rise near the ancient river I was once or twice able to overlook it
to even better advantage. And as far as the eye could reach, to where
sand and sky met in the mirage and shimmer of the horizon, there was
nothing but serried lines of enormous dunes, except where, here and
there, flat open spaces, glimmering like lakes with the sheen of the
mirage, showed the position of some of the larger “pans.” Near many of
these, I noted that the sand, reddish or dun-coloured in general, was
snow-white; a feature that also struck me was that the position of each
of these sand-encircled spaces was invariably marked by the proximity
of an exceptionally high dune, towering well above its neighbours. Seen
at sunrise this vast expanse presented a most extraordinary appearance,
the position of each “pan” being marked by a dense low-lying cloud of
mist, which of course dispersed as the sun gained in power. Altogether
it was a most fascinating stretch of country, made doubly so by its
being forbidden ground, and by repute a region of great mineral wealth.
And abundant evidence was forthcoming that these stories of diamonds
in the desert were not without foundation, for in many places along
our more leisurely route homewards we came across carbon, garnets,
oblivine, and all the usual accompaniments of the precious stones,
whilst in more than one instance well-defined “pipes” were pointed out
in which “yellow” and “blue” ground--practically identical with that of
the Premier Mine--was disclosed in dry watercourses; and there can be
no doubt that a very large number of these Kimberlite occurrences await
systematic prospecting.
But as we approached Upington again, the few inhabitants we questioned
no longer referred to the “Game Reserve” as being the whereabouts of
diamonds; instead, they universally spoke of a spot in quite another
direction.
As their tale ran, in substance, an enormously rich mine was discovered
many years ago in the wild tangle of almost unknown mountains known
as the Noup Hills, which lie on the northern bank of the Orange River
below the Great Falls and the Molopo, and which few white men have
ever penetrated. In the early days of Kimberley, a Hottentot had told
his master there that he knew of a place where the diamonds lay thick,
and eventually this digger had undertaken the long trek, and after
incredible hardships had found the spot and made himself a rich man in
an hour or two. But he barely escaped with the diamonds and his life,
and so terrible had been his experiences that nothing would induce him
to return.
The tale, though differing in detail, was always substantially the
same, and whether true or not it is certainly believed in by the bulk
of the inhabitants of the southern part of Gordonia, and indeed I have
since had abundant reason myself for believing that it has a foundation
of fact. Now, some years ago, Brydone, the well-known writer of South
African stories, wrote a most thrilling one around this incident, which
he published under the title of _A Secret of the Orange River_, and
which gives a most accurate description of the little-known region in
question; so accurate, indeed, that the author had certainly either
visited the spot himself or taken the description first-hand from one
who had.
It has been maintained that the story had no foundation of truth and
originated solely in the fertile brain of the writer; but this I can in
no wise credit, for there are men in the district who had heard it long
before Brydone wrote his book, and indeed who had never heard of the
latter.
And in Upington, when we arrived there, an enthusiastic friend of mine
declared that he could produce a man who knew the actual spot, and who
had long expressed a wish to lead a properly equipped expedition to it.
Unfortunately, this man was not to be found at the time of my return;
but even during the few days that I remained in Upington I was able to
gather a lot of data that seemed to confirm the story, and my desire to
visit the Noup Hills now equalled my longing to enter the Game Reserve.
However, nothing could be done till certain guides were forthcoming and
other matters satisfactorily arranged, so, leaving my local friend to
hunt up all the information he could about diamonds in either locality,
I left Upington for Prieska on New Year’s Day, 1910, consoling myself
with the reflection that, though Anderson had led me still another
wild-goose chase, it might not have been absolutely in vain.
CHAPTER VII
KLEIN NAMAQUALAND--RICHTERSFELDT--PORT NOLLOTH AND THE
“C.C.C.”--STEINKOPF--WONDERFUL NAMAQUALAND FLOWERS--TREKKING TO
RICHTERSFELDT--FLEAS!--MONOTONY OF THE COUNTRY--MOUNTAINS IN SIGHT.
Whilst discussing ways and means for investigating the fascinating
regions I have just described, something occurred to set my thoughts
entirely in another direction. This was nothing less than an
opportunity of exploring the lower reaches of the Orange River, and the
miniature Switzerland of untraversed mountains bordering them, known
as the Richtersfeldt Mountains. Over the vast mission-lands in that
region a syndicate had obtained certain rights, and as the country was
reported to be richly mineralised I was sent up to examine it, and thus
given the chance I had so long desired.
For here, as I have already mentioned, Stuurmann, whom we had met at
Luderitzbucht, had seen such wonderful gravels, full of “crystals”
that might well have been diamonds. Apart from its diamondiferous
possibilities, the northern position of Klein Namaqualand immediately
adjoining the Orange River has long enjoyed the reputation of being
very highly mineralised; but owing to difficulty of transport and
various other reasons, its mineral wealth has remained practically
unexploited, and the region only known to the very few.
As far back as 1838 Sir James Edward Alexander, F.R.G.S., published an
account of an _Expedition of Discovery into the Interior of Africa_,
which he had carried out under the auspices of the British Government
and the Royal Geographical Society during the previous year, and during
which he had explored the lands adjoining the southern bank of the
Orange River for some 200 miles from the mouth. He was shown many rich
deposits of copper by the natives, and so struck was he by what he saw
that a year or two later, in London, he formed a company having for
its object the exploitation of this new source of mineral wealth. Sir
James’s scheme included the utilisation of the Orange River during the
flood season for the floating down of ore, in flat-bottomed barges, to
a wharf near the mouth of the river, and thence by waggon transport to
one of the small bays near for shipment oversea; or the alternative of
smelting furnaces near the river, fuel being obtainable from the thick,
luxuriant belt of timber on either bank.
Definite information as to operations carried out some seventy-odd
years ago are hard to obtain, but some attempt was certainly made to
carry out this scheme, ore being actually floated down the river and
shipped from Alexander Bay, Peacock Bay, and Homewood Harbour; all
within a few miles of the Orange River mouth, and at all of which the
ruins of substantial buildings, boatslips, etc., standing deserted
to-day on the lonely shores, bear eloquent testimony of this period of
activity of a bygone day. But the venture was premature. It was before
the days of steam; the ore had to be towed out by ship’s boats; the
prevailing wind, which blows with extraordinary force all along this
coast, must have been a great obstacle to the rapid handling of ore,
and the consequent delay was probably one of the principal reasons for
the abandonment of the scheme.
However, the prospecting carried out had proved many of the deposits to
be extremely rich, and some years later development work was started in
several places by different syndicates, with excellent results, and a
certain amount of ore was again shipped from Alexander Bay; but by this
time a formidable rival had appeared upon the scene in the shape of the
Cape Copper Company, who, with their own line of railway connecting
their own copper-mine at O’okiep with their own port at Port Nolloth,
had already begun to exercise that influence upon the affairs of
Namaqualand that has lasted up to the present day.
Adverse circumstances thus again proving too strong for these budding
copper ventures, the country once more became deserted, the actual
locality of many of the abandoned workings remaining known only to a
few among the Hottentots who form the scanty inhabitants.
It was with a view to locating and examining as many of these mineral
deposits as possible, as well as keeping an eye on the prospects of the
diamonds that Alexander and his followers had never dreamed of, and
also to finding a route between them and the bays near the Orange River
mouth, that I landed at Port Nolloth in August 1910, having made the
voyage in the S.S. _Hellopes_, and having arrived in a thick fog the
very twin brother of the one that hid everything on my previous visit
there. However, by midday the sun had got the best of it, and we were
slung overside in a big basket, dumped into a waiting lighter and towed
ashore.
I was a bit curious to see Port Nolloth, for I had heard a good deal
about it, and the mournful sound of the bell-buoy had engendered a
somewhat mournful anticipation, which I may say fell far short of the
reality.
A long row of low shanties, mostly of corrugated iron, almost level
with and facing the sea, on a narrow path won from the desert of
white powdery sand stretching behind it; not a tree, bush, or sign of
vegetation except the bright hues of the cherished pot plants adorning
the tiny stoeps of some of the dwellings on the “front,” whose owners
doubtless like to remind themselves that there are other things on
earth beside sand and sea and the Cape Copper Company.
[Illustration: GRANITE RANGE BEHIND KUBOOS, RICHTERSFELDT.]
[Illustration: ENTRANCE TO A BAD PASS, RICHTERSFELDT.
Ransson in foreground.]
A fog almost every morning, chilly, damp, and all-pervading, mournful
surroundings made more mournful by the incessant tolling of the
bell-buoy rocking on the dangerous bar, the muffled crash of surf
on a sandy shore and the periodical boom of the detonator from the
signal-station. Then, when Father Sol has vanquished mist and fog,
an hour or two of intense heat, and the glare from white sand and
burnished sea and sky sufficient to blind one; this again followed by
the uprising of the prevailing wind, which, if kind, may for a time
make life tolerable, but which usually means a change infinitely for
the worse, a change to sand, whirling and driving in all directions,
penetrating every house, every room, every orifice, choking and
blinding one and making the bathless “hotel” absolutely unendurable.
The daily event the departure of the miniature train carrying coke to
O’okiep for the smelting out of the copper ore, which the return train
brings back in the shape of opulent “regulus” which, in pigs, bars,
trucks, and stacks, lies near the landing-stage in hundreds of tons,
ready for shipment to Europe to help swell the profits of that great
_quasi_ monopoly, the Cape Copper Company.
It is not my province to unduly criticise this important corporation,
from whose officials, moreover, I have always received the greatest
courtesy; at the same time one cannot but deplore the fact that the
many millions profit it has made since its inception some forty years
ago have done so little towards the general development of Namaqualand,
and that their railway-line of nearly 100 miles should have tended so
little to open up the surrounding country. Indeed, but for the wharves,
tugs, and primitive facilities for shipping copper at Port Nolloth, the
mine at O’okiep, and the railway, Namaqualand generally is little the
richer for the “C.C.C.”[1]
[Footnote 1: This was written in 1910, when the mines were in full
swing. To-day they are closed, the C.C.C. having ceased operations in
June 1919. This closing down of the only industry in Namaqualand caused
endless suffering to the wretchedly poor inhabitants, and was followed
by a general exodus of the population.]
In order to obtain the necessary Hottentot guides for the expedition
I had first to proceed to Steinkopf, a tiny mission station some
seventy-odd miles up the C.C.C. line from Port Nolloth, and the
headquarters of the Steinkopf and Richtersfeldt Mission-lands, upon
which most of the copper deposits I wished to locate were situated; and
as soon as I possibly could I finished my business in Port Nolloth and
proceeded thither. Leaving at 8.30 one morning when the combination
of fog, surf, and bell-buoy were more unbearable than usual, the
tiny little engine laboriously hauled its long load of coke-laden
trucks, together with a few antiquated coupé carriages of fearful and
wonderful design and dilapidation, and dignified locally by the name of
“specials,” inland across a monotonous and level belt of sand which,
arid and destitute of vegetation near the coast, becomes eventually
covered with low bush, scanty at first, but after a few miles thick
and luxuriant, and apparently excellent for stock-raising purposes. At
“Five Miles,” where there is the Namaqualand equivalent for a station,
some iron tanks of goodly dimensions show from whence Port Nolloth
draws its supply of fresh water, which is taken in in “water cabins”
by train, and distributed about the town by a primitive system of
water-barrels drawn by mules.
The mountains dimly visible from Port Nolloth are first reached at
Oograbies, where abrupt sandstone kopjes of considerable height extend
north and south from either side of the line. These, however, are but
outliers of the formidable mountain range farther inland, which forms
an abrupt barrier at Anenous, some thirty-five miles farther on. This
place was for many years the terminus of the railway, the copper having
in those days been brought down to it in waggons through difficult
passes in the mountain. Here, as at several other spots along the line,
there is a good supply of water; indeed, it appears that practically
wherever water has been bored for in this so-called “waterless desert”
it has been found at a very moderate depth below the surface.
Thence the mountains rise abruptly, the track ascending by tortuous
curves and gradients far exceeding in steepness those of the famous
Hex River Pass, and climbing some 2,000 feet within the next few
miles. The scenery is magnificent: mountain after mountain on either
side, peak after peak, and range after range; near at hand the vivid
splashes of bright-coloured rocks showing up in brilliant contrast to
the green of the _melk bosch_ (euphorbia) clothing the less precipitous
slopes, everything startlingly clear and distinct in the brilliant
sunshine and clear air of the mountains, the tawny hues of the peaks
in the middle distance gradually changing to a blue, which in the more
remote ranges became ethereal to a degree, till mountain and sky became
merged in the bright shimmer of the horizon. Around Klipfontein are the
corn-lands of the natives, and on the occasion of my first visit these
“lands” presented a most beautiful and wonderful appearance. For field
after field of cleared plateau and mountain slopes were ablaze with
gorgeous colour, being absolutely covered with the most brilliant-hued
flowers, not mingled in blurred and confused masses, but in broad and
clearly defined stretches of different vivid colourings. Here, morgen
after morgen of glorious crimson; there, half a mountain-side of
mustard yellow, in startling contrast to the other half of azure blue.
Parterres of lovely heliotrope, red-hot patches of scarlet and orange
of every shade, of pink, of mauve, salmon, a hundred tints, and all so
thickly clustered and luxuriant, so well-defined and separated, that
the general impression was that of an enormous garden of wonderful
carpet bedding. The veldt flowers of South Africa are justly celebrated
for their wonderful beauty, but I doubt if at any other part of the
sub-continent they can be seen in such gorgeous perfection as at
Klipfontein on the Port Nolloth-O’okiep line.
The season for them is, however, but a transient one, and two months
later, when I again passed the spot, not a blossom was to be seen.
A few miles farther and Steinkopf is reached; from thence the track
winds on a down-grade across a wide, barren, desolate plain, broken by
queer-looking granite kopje, to where a high, humped mountain marks
the position of the copper-mine at O’okiep.
Steinkopf consists of a mission church and buildings substantially
built of stone by the natives themselves, a post and telegraph office,
a store or two, and a scattered collection of miserable shanties and
the circular mat huts of the natives. Flimsy as these latter are, they
are infinitely preferable to the paraffin-tin built abominations usual
to the locations, for they are not only more sightly, but they can
easily be moved when sickness or a prolonged stay upon one spot has
produced the usual awful state of sanitary affairs.
The Hottentots are miserably poor; they depend upon a few poor flocks
and herds for a living, together with a precarious harvest which want
of rain cheats them of. Year after year their scanty corn-lands on the
slopes of the mountain, where rain is most likely to fall, have been
ploughed and sown, and a promising crop has again and again sprung up,
only to wither and die for want of rain long before reaching maturity.
This had happened time after time at the period when I first visited
the place, until no corn remained for the people to sow, the seed
having been eaten to keep them from starving. There was no work in
the district, the supply being greatly in excess of the only demand,
namely that of the C.C.C., and present conditions rendering it almost
impossible for “outside” mining ventures to work the many known mineral
deposits in the vicinity at a profit.
The rain had evidently been widespread, and its fall relieved me of
the anxiety I had felt about the scarcity of water on my coming trip,
for which I was now able to make final arrangements. My visit had been
timed to coincide with the missionary’s periodical trip to the remote
mission station of Kuboos, in Richtersfeldt, where once a year the
nomad Hottentots forming that community gather for _nachtmaal_, and
this would be the most favourable opportunity for meeting the guides
I needed. All being arranged, I returned to Port Nolloth, where I met
S. Ransson, my companion for the trip, a tough and seasoned prospector
whose recent two years on the diamond-fields of German South-West had
turned him into a sort of salamander, with a hide like biltong, and
a positive liking for a diet largely consisting of sand and “brak”
water. With him came the whole cargo of stores necessary for such a
long trip, for we had been warned that the country we were going into
was practically a land of famine. The few inhabitants--Hottentots and
Bastards of the Richtersfeldt Mission-lands--are wretchedly poor,
practically existing upon the milk of their few cows and goats; they
very rarely slaughter an animal, and are very reluctant even to sell
one; they grow nothing whatsoever except a few patches of corn on the
mountain-tops near Kuboos, the harvest of which, when they are lucky
enough to reap one, is only sufficient to last them a few months; and
when milk fails and grain is finished they exist upon a few edible
roots and the gum of the thorn-trees growing on the banks of the Orange
River. And as we expected to employ a fair number of these natives,
and would have to feed them, it came about that, roomy as the waggon
proved, its capacity was taxed to the utmost, and its team of sixteen
sturdy oxen had plenty of collar-work before they got through the belt
of heavy sand that stretches for miles inland from the sea.
The team, with its Hottentot driver and _voorlooper_, had come three
days’ long trek from Kuboos to Port Nolloth to fetch us, and to our
dismay we learnt from them the grave fact that, contrary to our
expectation, the heavy rains that had recently fallen in the Steinkopf
district had not extended to Richtersfeldt, whither we were bound, that
the water-holes were dry, and that the oxen had not tasted water during
the three days of intense heat that the journey had lasted. Not that
they appeared inconvenienced; indeed, these Namaqualand cattle run the
camel close in their ability to go for long periods without water, and
their nomad owners are thus able to “run” them over tracts of veldt
far distant from the precious fluid, caring little so long as they can
get them to water every third or fourth day. To a minor degree this
faculty is also shared by the few ponies bred in the country and called
locally _boschje kops_, wiry little animals with a good deal of Basuto
blood in them, and perfect marvels for endurance. I have on more than
one occasion ridden one of these ponies three days without being able
to give it a drop of water, and have seen it, when grass failed, and
every bush was burnt dry with the awful sun, contentedly chewing the
sapless twigs from the bushes that an ordinary goat would disdain, or
apparently thriving upon the dry fallen leaves beneath the trees in the
scorched-up river-beds.
The waggon track to Richtersfeldt leads north-east from Port Nolloth,
and after a few hours’ trek the sand veldt becomes thickly bushed,
_melk bosch_, _zout bosch_, and many other fleshy-leaved aromatic and
resinous shrubs densely covering the long, undulating slopes of heavy
sand, the sad monotony of dark grey-green being unbroken except by an
occasional lily-like flower of a brilliant scarlet; no sign of life
anywhere, the silence unbroken except for the crack of the whip or the
yell of the driver, the sand effectually deadening the sound of the
wheels and the tread of the oxen. As we wished to see the whole of
the country we were travelling through, we trekked only by day, quite
contrary to the general custom of the country in the hot season; and as
the intense heat made it impossible to move during a considerable part
of the day, our progress was of necessity slow. The country was quite
uninhabited and we saw not a soul during the first day; but towards
evening we were overtaken by some five or six Hottentot women with a
perfect mob of children, who, it appeared, were also bound for Kuboos.
[Illustration: FEEDING THE HUNGRY AT THE STEINKOPF NATIVE MISSION
STATION, LITTLE NAMAQUALAND.]
[Illustration: HARD PULLING IN THE HALGHAT RIVER KLEIN, NAMAQUALAND.]
They were frowsy and filthy and poverty-stricken to a degree, and in
a weak moment, having pity on one poor old bundle of rags who was
carrying a baby and seemed hardly able to get along, I motioned her
to get up on the waggon box, and later, when two or three pot-bellied
little imps clambered up beside her, I hadn’t the heart to turn them
off. Then--it being late afternoon of a terrifically hot day, and the
waggon going smoothly through the soft sand--I stretched out and fell
asleep for a bit.
My dreams were interrupted by a terrific blow on the nose, and I
awoke with a yell to find a small but extremely odoriferous youngster
sprawling across my face, having fallen from a perch which he had
evidently taken up on our piled-up belongings behind us; each box
or bag or sieve was occupied by others: one of them had on my new
pith helmet and nothing else--the whole waggon, in fact, was filled
and festooned and overflowing with them. On the box-seat now sat
four frowsy old hags smoking, spitting, and clucking like a barnyard
full of hens, whilst the atmosphere...! A sudden jolt of the waggon
threw another youngster across Ransson’s _embonpoint_--much to my
gratification--but he merely snored a bit louder. I, however, felt
myself quite unequal to the occasion or the odour, and scrambling out
of the waggon, I gave them best and walked. We outspanned in the middle
of the track, the native drivers on these lonely treks seldom troubling
to draw aside from the beaten path. Glorious are these Namaqualand
nights, the soft, velvety blackness of the seemingly limitless veldt,
above the great solemn blinking stars, looking double the size they
appear through the denser atmosphere of the South, and making one feel
very small and wormlike.
There is an abundance of fuel in the shape of dry bush almost
everywhere in Namaqualand, and that first night of our trek our fire
blazed brightly nearly the whole night, the natives huddling near it
and clucking and cackling in their extraordinary “click” language,
men, women, and quite small children passing from mouth to mouth the
native-made soapstone pipes, filled with their loved _tabaki_. These
pipes are peculiarly shaped, being a straight tube like a very large
cigar-holder, and often the more primitive natives simply use the
hollow shin-bone of buck or sheep.
We slept in the waggon, or rather tried to, and as we turned in
Ransson commented on the extraordinary monotony and lifelessness of
the country so far. “No life,” said he, “no game, nothing to shoot
at, neither buck nor bird, no snakes, no insects even!” He was still
grumbling when I fell asleep--but he was wrong! I have a sleeping-bag,
and usually, when I am once inside it, it needs a cyclone to wake me
before daybreak; but that night the paucity of insect life in the
surrounding country was accounted for by the fact that they had all got
inside my bed, and appeared, moreover, to resent my presence. For a few
minutes I dreamed that I was being used as a garden roller over a bed
of stinging-nettles, then I woke to find myself squirming and writhing
in an absolute bagful of fleas; not the decent educated variety, mind,
but Namaqualand fleas, belonging to a land of famine and bent on making
up for it while the chance lasted. I was out of that bag in quick time,
but the whole waggon was phosphorescent with fleas, and through it all
the other chap snored. He afterwards said that I was the best man he’d
ever been out with; whilst I was around every flea in the vicinity left
their homes to follow me, and he could sleep in peace, but personally I
think they knew what they were up to when they left him alone....
I finished the night outside, my only idea in sleeping in the waggon
having been to avoid the dew, which on the coast-belt is often
extremely heavy, and which accounts for the dense belt of low bush. A
tramp through it in the early morning on the lookout for a shot means
being saturated, every bush and plant being soaked with brilliant
dew-drops. Doubtless this helps the animals that feed there to exist
so long without water, sheep in particular; indeed, I have been assured
that in certain parts of the veldt thereabouts lambs often go for the
first six months of their lives without ever seeing water, and have no
notion as to how to drink it when first brought to a pool.
The end of the second day’s wearisome trek brought us to Daberass,
where, in a wild, rocky ravine amongst rugged kopjes, we hoped to find
water for the oxen; but the deep hole scooped in the sand was scarcely
damp at the bottom, and we thanked our lucky stars that our own
water-barrels were holding out well.
The hills bordering the ravine (which is the dry bed of the Halghat
River) were soon passed, and another wide expanse of bush-covered plain
came in sight, on the far side of which, as far as the eye could reach,
extended a range of bold and fantastic peaks.
There was no sign of the herds of springbok which are at times found on
Richtersfeldt, a few _paauw_--very wild and quite unapproachable--being
the only signs of life; there was nothing to prospect but sand, or an
occasional outcrop of white, barren and “hungry”-looking quartz, barely
worth turning aside to look at; and I sat on the waggon box and looked
at that distant line of blue peaks and wanted those mountains bad! That
was before I got to them, mind....
CHAPTER VIII
RICHTERSFELDT--ALEXANDER BAY--MOUTH OF THE ORANGE RIVER--“HADJE
AIBEEP”--HELL’S KLOOF--A DESERTED COPPER-MINE--ROUGH GOING--A
MAGNIFICENT VISTA OF PEAKS--AN OLD GOLD PROSPECT.
The fourth day found us at Springklip, a solitary hill near the
mountain range, where, between two outlying granite peaks, a few
waggons, and here and there a mat hut, marked the spot on which the
Hottentots were to assemble for their annual _nachtmaal_ (communion).
There was no sign of a permanent settlement; indeed, with the exception
of Kuboos, a day’s trek farther on, where there is a tiny stone-built
mission church, these nomads have no fixed village, trekking from place
to place as water and grazing dictate.
During the whole of our four days’ slow trekking we had not seen a
solitary human being, but now the natives could be seen coming in from
all directions: parties of two or three men mounted on wiry little
ponies, and followed by their women and children on foot; others
mounted on powerful-looking riding oxen, saddled with horse-saddles of
obviously German make, and significant of the loot brought from the
farther side of the Orange River by the many refugees who had followed
those doughty Hottentot fighters, Witbooi and Marengo, in the Hottentot
rebellion; rickety waggons and weird-looking carts tied together
with bits of riem and kept together by a miracle; others driving
ponies laden with bloated and repellent-looking water-skins from the
nearest water-hole at Doornpoort, some ten miles farther on among the
mountains, to which spot our poor oxen had to be driven before they
could quench their four days’ thirst. The natives soon came flocking
round our waggon. They seemed a dejected, harmless, invertebrate lot
of beings, with very little character except an inveterate habit of
cadging. Tobacco was their great desideratum, but it was noteworthy
that, greedy as they were for it, they invariably shared anything given
to them. They were all cleanly-looking, and though their clothing was
in many cases a miracle of patchwork, no rags were to be seen.
Mr. Kling, the missionary, arrived that night, and the following
morning Ransson and I set out to visit his waggon, about half a mile
from our own. Although waggons, carts, and huts had considerably
increased in numbers since our arrival, not a soul was to be seen, and
the missionary’s waggon was likewise deserted; but from a huge erection
of fresh bushes that I took to be a sort of cattle kraal I could hear
voices. There appeared to be only two people speaking; first would come
a brief emphatic sentence in Dutch, then a reply in clicking Hottentot.
To my limited intelligence it sounded as though Mr. Kling was sharply
interrogating a native on some point, but, on strolling round the
large and high enclosure to look for an entrance, we came suddenly
upon line after line of kneeling Hottentots, silently and attentively
listening. The “kraal,” in fact, was a temporary chapel hastily built
of bushes and filled to overflowing with devout natives, men on one
side and women on the other, whilst at the far end, by an extempore
altar, stood the missionary and a native in clerical attire, who was
rapidly translating Mr. Kling’s address into the vernacular, sentence
by sentence, and apparently with force and effect.
I’ll own we tried to bolt, but Mr. Kling called us, and we had perforce
to walk up and sit by his side in our shirt-sleeves, facing four or
five hundred pairs of curious eyes.
White men are a rarity in the Richtersfeldt, but surely not
sufficiently so to account for the intense fixity with which these
people regarded me?
Ransson, whom I consider much more of a natural curiosity than I am
myself, they appeared to ignore; every pair of eyes seemed to be
riveted on me! For a moment I felt flattered, then I tumbled! They had
never seen a _bald_ white man before. Ransson told me afterwards that a
ray of sunlight, filtering through the bush roof, struck right on the
top of my cranium, and was reflected as though from a mirror; he also
said they probably thought it was a halo I was wearing. But as he also
spread the quite unfounded yarn as to his having found a hen ostrich
sitting on my head one morning when we were sleeping in the desert, and
evidently taking it for a long-lost egg, I think his statement can be
ignored.
Meanwhile, the sonorous sentences went on, then came hymns sung
with enormous fervour in the extraordinary “click,” prayers and
exhortations, whilst the birds fluttered in the bush roof above us, and
the sun, now high in the heavens, flung broad blotches of gold through
the open spaces on to the motley assembly facing us. And motley it
was to a degree: tall, thin, spare yellow men with rudimentary noses,
high cheek-bones, oblique eyes, and the Tartar appearance of the true
Hottentot, sardonic-looking Bastards with aquiline noses and faces
of a pronounced Jewish type, here a blubber-lipped, grinning Christy
Minstrel, black as ebony, and all rolling eyeballs and gleaming teeth;
there a big nondescript with red hair and a skin all piebald with huge
freckles; by his side, and equally devout, the puckered physiognomy,
all tattoo marks and wrinkles, of a pigmy Bushman.
This extraordinary race-mixture to be found amongst the so-called
“Hottentots” of Richtersfeldt is to be accounted for by the fact
that the lower reaches of the Orange River bordering their territory
was at one time, and to a minor degree is still to-day, a sanctuary
for refugees from every tribe in South Africa. Flying from justice
or persecution, they sought this remote spot, intermarried with
the Hottentots, and have helped produce a tribe, or community, as
heterogeneous as it is possible to conceive.
The following day Mr. Kling sorted out from among his motley flock
the guides who were to take us to the many old prospects among the
mountains, and after consideration we decided to send these men with
the waggon and our heavy stores to Annisfontein, a spot affording the
best starting-place from which to penetrate the tangle of mountains.
Meanwhile, with a light cart drawn by six oxen, we proposed to visit
the little-known bays on the coast near the mouth of the Orange River,
thence working our way up the river-bank till we rejoined the waggon;
and as the pace of the latter with its heavy load would be of necessity
slow, we hoped by this arrangement to save a lot of time.
We started that night. Meanwhile the Hottentot encampment had broken up
and the natives had dispersed in all directions, leaving the empty and
deserted bush chapel alone marking the spot of their meeting-place.
The cart was a featherweight to the sturdy team, and trekking well
into the night and again before dawn, we were in sight of the sea when
the fog lifted in the morning; however, it was still far distant, and
it was then possible to realise to what a height above sea-level the
gently undulating plain had brought us. All day long, with but brief
spells of rest, we trekked on, and the long glistening line of sea
seemed as far off as ever. Two strangely shaped mountains, known as
the “Buchu Bergen,” were our objective, as we knew them to mark the
locality of the bays. That night we again trekked late, and midnight
found us under the black shadow of “Buchu Berg,” with the thunder of
the surf in our ears and the sweet perfume of the _buchu_ bush making
fragrant the cold night air. And cold it was--one of the coldest nights
I ever remember. We had a bucksail with us, but the wind was so strong
that we spent most of the night trying to hold it down over the cart
we were “sleeping” under, and I was very glad when morning came.
Directly below the steep face of Buchu Mountain we came upon the most
perfect little boat bay imaginable, surrounded by high rocks and almost
circular, but with room only for a few lighters and small craft; here
the ruins of a substantial stone house still stand, and little piles of
copper ore scattered here and there tell their tale of the past. South
of the cove runs a long, shallow depression known as Homewood Harbour,
little better, however, than an open roadstead. The whole coast is
indescribably lonely and desolate, and, to add to its dreariness,
scattered along the beach far above high-water mark lie piles of
driftwood, the accumulation of centuries, tree-trunk piled upon
tree-trunk to a height of 4 or 5 feet, and a belt of 10 to 15 yards
extending for many miles. Many of them are the remains of big trunks 2
or 3 feet in diameter, and all of them are bone-dry and like tinder.
Turning northward, we tramped, hot and thirsty, around the long
crescent-shaped indentation known as “Peacock Roadstead,” the northern
extremity of which is Cape Voltas, so named by hardy old Bartholomew
Diaz, who landed there in 1486 and erected a _padrão_--a stone pillar
surmounted by a cross such as these devout old adventurers usually
hanked round with them, tokens of a pledge to the Pope that the
salvation of the infidel was the principal object of their quest.
The headland is low and insignificant, and, as at Cape Cross, no
vestige of the pillar remains, not even the hole it stood in. It is
highly probable that Diaz landed at a small cove some distance from the
point, where there are more ruins of a much more recent date, with a
rude boatslip and many fragments of copper ore.
Following a coastline is tedious work, especially when one is extremely
thirsty and when one feels compelled to examine the gravel for possible
diamonds every few yards; and it was sunset when we reached Alexander
Bay, a nice little harbour with a good beach, sheltered by high rocks
on either side, the entrance partly protected by a bar, and apparently
easily convertible into a very snug little anchorage for the tugs,
lighters and small craft necessary for the shipment of ore on a large
scale. The numerous shell middens to be found on this uninhabited
coast probably mark the site of Bushman or Strandlooper settlements
of long ago, and it is likely that where these huge mounds of shells,
fragments of pottery, etc., are to be found, water was at one time not
far distant, though to-day there is not a drop to be found between the
Orange River and the _brak_ water-holes at Rietfontein, some twenty
miles south.
Just beyond Alexander Bay we found our cart, the oxen outspanned and
the natives as anxious for mutton and coffee as we were ourselves, and
two hours’ trekking with a bitterly cold wind in our teeth brought us
to the ruined farm near the mouth of the Orange, where we were thankful
indeed to get a drink again.
The mouth of the Orange River is simply a wide expanse of mud flats,
interspersed with low islands, and here and there long, lagoon-like
stretches of water. Most of these latter are stagnant and isolated,
and it is only after tedious wading knee-deep in mud and water that a
channel is reached which still moves almost imperceptibly towards the
long sand-bar closing the actual mouth from bank to bank, and through
(or under) which the river, in the dry season, percolates into the sea.
Upon this bar the white Atlantic rollers were breaking, at high tide
sending the salt water surging up the river several miles.
There was wild fowl in abundance. The mud flats were dotted with
flamingoes standing in lines and companies and looking absurdly like
soldiers; wild duck quacked till the whole place sounded like a huge
poultry farm, and the “honk-honk” of beautifully plumaged wild geese
made me regret that, with a laudable anxiety to do nothing unlawful,
I had read up the list of protected game before starting and knew I
must not shoot them. Luckily, however, Ransson had not read that list.
Apart from the wild fowl the spot is absolutely uninhabited, though I
believe the German bank was at that time frequently patrolled. About
two miles from the mouth stands an old ruined farm, with a stone-built
kraal, whose walls of enormous thickness and great height speak
eloquently of the turbulent times, less than seventy years back, when
these lower reaches of the Orange were infested with native outlaws,
who from their fastnesses on the many islands used to sally forth to
pillage and ravage the neighbouring tribes in good old Border fashion.
Both pillagers and pillaged have long since vanished--unless, indeed,
my mutton-loving rascals from Kuboos were lineal descendants of those
bolder robbers of the old days.
A few miles farther upstream we noticed a large number of horses
running on the low islands and the river-bank; they were fine-looking
animals, and appeared to be quite wild and untended. I afterwards found
that they belonged to a Boer farmer living at a solitary farm called
“Groot Derm” some distance from the river mouth, and who breeds them
extensively, finding a ready sale for them among the Germans on the
other side of the river.
For some distance upstream we found the river-bank flat, barren, and
uninteresting, whilst bordering it extended a long flat stretch of
coarse sand and grit much resembling the diamondiferous sands of the
German South-West fields. Here, in common with many a spot along the
coast we had left, were standing numerous old prospecting pegs, showing
where a few enterprising spirits had “rushed” from Port Nolloth just
after the discovery of diamonds at Luderitzbucht, and had pegged
anything remotely resembling a “wash.” They were disappointed in
that they found no diamonds, but it is doubtful if anything like a
systematic search was ever made by these “prospectors” except in one or
two chosen spots.
Before reaching Groot Derm the banks became lined with a thick belt of
vegetation, beautiful willows of vivid green, graceful mimosa thorn,
many of them of great height, bastard ebony, and many other varieties
of trees and shrubs, forming in places an almost impenetrable barrier
to the water. Inland the country was becoming more broken and hilly,
and from an abrupt bluff overhanging the water we were able to obtain a
fine view of the river in both directions.
Westward stretched the long, flat lower reaches to where the
ribbon-like channel lost itself in the numerous lagoons of the mouth;
before us lay a broad, placid sheet of calm, unruffled water with
a typical _zee-coe-gat_ (hippo hole) mirroring the abrupt cliff on
which we were standing; upstream the silver gleam of long lake-like
stretches, broken here and there by the darker water of the rapids,
and the whole extent in that direction fringed with a thick belt of
luxuriant vegetation on either bank; bush doves fluttering and cooing
in every tree, small birds of brilliant plumage darting from branch to
branch and glistening like living sunbeams, beautiful trees, beautiful
water--in fact, a strip of Paradise running through a desert.
For the land behind us and through which we had passed, though
bush-covered and capable of supporting stock, could scarcely be called
by any other name, whilst on the other bank the enormous sand-dunes
of German South-West stretch back from the belt of willows as far as
the eye can reach, dune piled upon dune, into veritable mountains of
glaring yellow, with not a vestige of vegetation to relieve their awful
desolation.
It is a peculiar fact that there are no dunes of this description on
the British side of the river; sand of course there is, but it is
covered in vegetation of a sort, and is good land compared to the
fearful barren waste on the northern bank. A little higher up we came
to the tiny farm of Groot Derm, surely one of the loneliest places in
this land of loneliness! For to reach a habitation upstream the farmer
would have to traverse at least 150 miles of desolation bordering the
tortuous winding of the river: west of him lay the desolate beaches
we had just left, and the broad Atlantic; north spread the fearful
thirst-dunes of German South-West; and south, his “next-door neighbour”
at Port Nolloth was a good four days’ waggon trek away.
The lonely little house was empty, its owner being away on his
periodical trip for stores, and we therefore did not even outspan at
this tiny frontier homestead.
A mile or so above the farm the rough cart-track left the river and we
struck across sandy hills to Aries Drift, which we found deserted even
of the few miserable Hottentots occasionally to be found there, living
in miserable _pondhoeks_ of leaves and branches, and existing on the
milk of their goats, the gum of the thorn-trees, the few small fish to
be found in the river, and the various weird odds and ends that figure
in their cuisine.
This drift, mentioned by Alexander as a permanent Hottentot _werf_,
we found to be a most deserted and dreary expanse of flat, barren
land, composed of the extremely fine silt brought down by constantly
recurring floods; and this deep deposit of alluvial soil has been worn
into a labyrinth of channels in all directions, with thousands of
little “islands” between them, which are covered with and partly held
together by the intertwined roots of dreary-looking tamarisks. Each
time I have been to the drift it has been blowing hard, and on this
first visit the hurricane was carrying the powdery silt in swirling
clouds in all directions. There was no shelter anywhere, for the
Hottentots in the past have denuded the spot of all the big trees, and
our outspan that night was a most miserable one. A temporary lull led
to our attempting to make a fire, which had hardly got fairly going
when a most fiendish blast scattered it in all directions, taking with
it our pots and pans and half-burying us in clouds of silt. We had
to stick it somehow, however, as we had let the cattle away in search
of food; it was bitterly cold, and what with being half buried in dust,
as well as being half frozen, I was extremely glad when morning broke
after a sleepless night and we could trek again. This time we turned
south-east, away from the river and across a wide, undulating plain
consisting principally of granite débris from the mountains we could
now see, and where our waggon waited. Although to all appearances this
plain, stretching gently upwards to the mountains, was unbroken, our
attempt to cross it soon proved it to be cut into many places by deep,
dry watercourses, the banks of which were often so abrupt as to make
them worthy of being called cañons, and crossing them meant wide and
difficult detours. These watercourses, sand-choked and dry, full of
water-worn boulders of rocks foreign to the surrounding country, and
all showing the enormous erosion by water that has taken place in the
past, go to strengthen the general impression of the traveller that in
the very remote past Namaqualand enjoyed a rainfall vastly in excess of
that of to-day.
[Illustration: “KOKER BOOMEN” (_ALOE DICHOTOMA_), RICHTERSFELDT
MOUNTAINS]
[Illustration: A MOUNTAIN OF LACMATITI NEAR ZENDLING’S DRIFT,
RICHTERSFELDT.]
At length and after many tedious detours we reached some foothills of
the huge granite mountains of Kuboos which formed a barrier in front
of us, and here, by a tiny trickle of water beneath two huge outcrops
of white quartz, we found the waggon awaiting us, and with it the
full complement of “boys,” guides, and oxen to take us into that same
barrier. Formidable these mountains looked now we were close to them,
so formidable that a careful inspection of them from this “kicking-off”
spot made us wonder whether, instead of a waggon, we ought not to have
brought an aeroplane!
We spent a day in rest and preparation, during which we visited the
so-called “Cave of Hadje Aibeep,” a natural wonder of which I had often
heard, and which was situated about half a mile from our waggon at
Annisfontein. By the few white men who have visited it this queer hole
is sometimes called the “Bottomless Pit,” and the natives certainly
have some strange belief about it, and avoid it as much as possible. It
is a strange place, this Hadje Aibeep, a deep shaft going down abruptly
into the bowels of the earth, about 15 feet in diameter, almost
circular and nearly vertical. I had expected to find traces of volcanic
origin, but there is nothing of the kind near the spot, though in the
valley below there is a large amount of a sort of solidified mud, which
may have come from some such blow-hole, which may probably have been
the vent of a geyser. The most intelligent Hottentot among our guides,
a man who spoke English well, told me that the literal translation
of the name “Hadje Aibeep” was “The Unknown Place,” but whether he
meant the “unfathomable” place or the “mysterious” place I could not
determine. He said it was believed that, long, long ago, men went down
the hole and came out on the bank of the Gariep (Orange) River many
miles away, and that, in one cavern they passed through, they found
many “bright stones.” Students of the Hottentot language, however,
give another translation of the term “Hadje Aibeep,” which, they say,
relates to a form of ancestor-worship formerly practised among the
natives. When any notable died, and was buried, each passer-by was
obliged to add to a heap of stones piled upon his resting-place, and
such tumuli certainly exist in many parts of the country, but there is
nothing of the kind near this deep hole! Of course it may be that the
ancestors were thrown down the hole, and the stones on top of them; in
fact, this would be rather an obvious thing to do; but in that case
there is still plenty of room for a lot more ancestors--and stones.
Others believe the shaft is the work of man, and that at some remote
period treasure was brought up from it, whilst still another legend
connects it with the fabulous dragon-like monster, which the Hottentots
still firmly believe emerges from its underground lair at night to
ravage the land between the Gariep and Buffels rivers.
We sat round the rim of it and heard all these yarns, and, of course,
Ransson wanted to go down it at once. He appeared to have had a
lifelong pining to interview a dragon; ancestors, again, had always
been his pet hobby. I told him he would probably become an ancestor
without undue loss of time, if he insisted on being let down by the
clothes-line we had with us; and whilst he was pondering over this
dark saying, I quickly sent one of the men back to the waggon, with
instructions to hide it.
Returning to the waggon, we found that the horses had arrived; they
proved to be three dejected-looking native mares, _bosje kops_, and
were accompanied by a foal and young colt. The whole cavalcade looked
more fitted for the knacker’s yard than for hard work, and, knowing
we should have to rely upon them solely as a means of transport when
once we got among the mountains, I felt extremely dubious about them.
However, nothing else was available, and we had to make the best of it;
moreover, as events proved, they turned out wonderful little animals
for the purpose we required.
Meanwhile the waggon was entirely repacked, for we were now preparing
to enter a very different country from the one already traversed. Every
available water-barrel and utensil was filled, for henceforth we should
have nothing to rely upon but a few precarious rain-water pools for
our further supply until the maze of mountains before us was traversed
and the Orange River again reached; whilst everything that could fall
off, or out, was lashed, strapped, or otherwise secured to the waggon,
in view of the awful boulder-strewn stream-beds and rocky tracks that
would be our only roads. We trekked next day at noon, straight up the
dry boulder bed of the Annis River, the sixteen mountain-bred oxen
pulling as one beast and keeping the trek-tow taut in spite of the
huge boulders that threatened to overturn it every moment. Then a
ravine opened in the mountain flank, and we gladly turned up an incline
deep in sand. Up this gradient we trekked for hours between high bare
walls of sandstone, shale, and other sedimentary rocks, with numerous
outcrops of barren-looking quartz. Winding steadily upwards, we
outspanned about sunset on an open plateau covered with vegetation and
studded with many of the queer-looking aloes known as _koker boomen_
or “quiver-trees,” and so named from the fact that the Hottentots and
Bushmen at one time used the hollow bark of the branches as quivers.
There were many kinds of euphorbia and fleshy-leaved plants of
varieties new to me. In fact, these plateaux are in every way distinct
from the plains from which we had climbed.
Our driver was certainly bent on getting as much as possible out of
his oxen, for that night late we trekked again across the plateau to
where a gap in the peaks pointed to a pass up a steep climb where loose
stones and boulders hurled the waggon from side to side, till every
loose article in it was jumbled up in hopeless confusion, and it seemed
that no wheels ever made could stand the terrific jolting; then over a
_nek_, to plunge down a slope so steep that the tightly screwed brake
scarcely kept the vehicle from taking charge and running over the oxen
in front of it.
Having been riding all day in an antiquated saddle which was patched
and cobbled past all belief, and to enjoy sitting in which was a
taste difficult to acquire, I had thought to rest a bit by riding in
the waggon, and in spite of the jolting must have dozed a bit just
about the time we began on the down-grade. Half dreaming, I heard
the shouting and jabbering of the “boys” as they screwed down the
brake, then I felt the waggon skidding and the back part tilting up,
then we struck a rock, and the whole of the gear that the up-grade
had collected astern came “forrard” with a run. A prospecting-pan
ricochetted from my head with a bang, a rifle slipped from its slings
and smote me amidships, a kitbag came lengthwise over my anatomy
and pinned my legs down, and before I could struggle free a perfect
avalanche of various other belongings overwhelmed me.
I tried to get free, I tried to yell loud enough for the driver to
hear, but he, and every other blamed Hottentot, was yelling at the top
of his voice, the big whip was cracking like a lively rifle-fire, and
the skidding wheels were screeching and grinding and banging against
obstructions with such a din that my feeble bleat stood no chance of
being heard.
At last a lucky lurch threw me clear and I struggled up beside the
driver. It was pitch dark, but we appeared to be going down a precipice
full of loose rocks that threatened destruction at every yard.
“Solomon,” I yelled in his ear, “you must be off the path.”
“Nie, baas,” he jerked out between his yells to the oxen.
“Then,” said I, as the front wheels rose over a big boulder, and came
down with a terrific crash on the rock below it, “get off it!”
I’m not sure if he did, in fact I’m not sure of anything that happened
during that mad toboggan except trying to hold in the avalanche of
fallen gear inside the waggon; but after an interminable but by no
means dull time, we hit bottom somewhere, and outspanned in a dark
gully, but on fairly level ground. I wanted coffee badly, and, groping
round, I soon had plenty of dry bush for a fire. Then I couldn’t find
the matches, and I remembered that, as usual, I had lent them to
Ransson, who used to principally live on them. But I couldn’t find him,
and call as I could there was no answer. The “boys” had outspanned and
gone off with the oxen; and though we had matches by the gross, all my
groping in the darkness and devastation inside the waggon failed to
find one. After a while I got mad and commenced pulling everything out
and dumping it in the gully; it would have to come out and be repacked,
anyhow! And at length I found the overturned “scoff-box” and in it
matches and a candle.
After that I found Ransson; he was quite at the bottom of the pile, a
tin of golden syrup had oozed out of the scoff-box all over him, but he
still slept tranquilly and was considerably annoyed when I woke him
up. I wish I could sleep like Ransson!
We repacked that waggon at dawn, this time double-lashing everything,
for the driver warned us we should soon be at the end of the good path!
Although we had passed over a formidable range of mountains, and an
open valley widening to a plain lay to the left of us, we soon found
that our mountaineering was just beginning. For, emerging into open
ground, we turned abruptly to the right and headed straight towards a
precipitous range that made the mountains we had lately crossed look
like excavations.
Northward the ranges opened out, and across open country we could see
through the shimmering heat the long dark line of dense vegetation
bordering the Orange at Zendling’s Drift, and again, beyond, many a
lofty peak of faint, exquisite blue. And now, rough as it was, we
could see that the track we were following had been worn by many a
waggon-wheel, and our guides explained that the copper ore from the
“Numees” mine in the mountains ahead of us had been brought to the sea
over this very road.
As our way led close to the deserted mine, we resolved to visit it,
knowing, however, that it was still held under lease and could not
be pegged. We hoped to find water there too, but in this we were
disappointed, a few reeds growing in a hollow of hard-baked mud being
all that remained of the water-hole from which the miners had once
drawn their supply. This was by no means encouraging, as it might well
be that the water-hole at the spot we were first bound for would also
prove a failure; and as we had before us a particularly difficult pass
known as “Hell’s Kloof” before we reached that spot, it was obvious
that we had better push on without delay. So the waggon was hurried
forward and, keeping the ponies back in charge of a “boy,” Ransson and
I explored the mine. A considerable amount of development work has
been carried out at Numees, adits having been driven into an abrupt
mountain of quartzite in and around the dry ravine at its base. The
ore is principally bornite and “peacock ore,” beautiful in its bright
iridescent colouring, and gorgeous samples were easily chipped off
the walls of the dark, cool drives. A great deal of rough ore lies at
the mouth of the principal drive. Numees appears to be rich, and will
probably add its quota to the world’s copper-supply in the not far
distant future. Here I saw for the first time the strange and extremely
rare succulent _Pachypodium namaquanum_, known to the Hottentots as
_half mense_ (half men), which is peculiar to the country, and is
only found in a few of the more inaccessible parts of the mountains.
It attains a height of from 6 to 8 feet, its fleshy, branchless trunk
being covered with sharp thorns and surmounted by a crown of green
leaves about 9 inches in diameter. The native maintains that this head
always inclines to the east, but the plant appears to be something of
a _girasole_, inclining to the sun as the sunflower does. The trunk
is often the girth of a man, and the effect of these solitary, erect
figures against the bare background of rock is such as to render their
Hottentot name of “half men” very appropriate. The plant was first
discovered by Paterson, and described by him in his _Voyage into
the Country of the Hottentots_ about a century ago. I brought back
two of these rare plants on each of my trips. Two were given to Dr.
Marloth, the famous botanist, one of which, I believe, he presented to
Kew Gardens, and the other to Professor Pearson of the South African
Museum. These were, I believe, the first live specimens ever brought to
Cape Town.
Having explored the mine, we started after the waggon, and soon found
ourselves in the formidable ravine known as “Hell’s Kloof.” Our unshod
little native ponies made light of the rugged track, hemmed in on
either side by precipitous peaks, and until we overtook the waggon we
were inclined to think that the difficulties of this particular part
of the trek had been much overrated. But when we came in sight of the
waggon we realised that what was fairly easy going to lightly laden
ponies which could climb like goats was very heavy work for a long and
weighty waggon. In the distance at times the oxen looked like flies
crawling up a wall, then they disappeared over a ridge, and shouts,
yells, and a fusillade of whips showed the kind of toboggan they had
struck on the other side.
In many places the rise was so steep that it had to be taken literally
at the run, for once having lost momentum the whole outfit must have
gone over and over till it hit the bottom. Still, by great effort and
even more luck we managed to get to the top of the Kloof, and I think
the oxen and “boys” were nearly as pleased as we were--not quite,
perhaps, for they did not know, as we did, that over a hundred pounds
of dynamite and box after box of detonators were among the stores in
that waggon!
Even at the summit the sun had sunk, but beyond the pass we had just
climbed the western sky was still ablaze, and silhouetted against it
were innumerable peaks of every shade of mauve and violet grading
into deepest purple. It was magnificent, and I sat down on a rock and
gazed and gazed, and was still gazing when Ransson, who has no soul,
came along and asked me what I was mooning at. I waved my hand to the
celestial pageant: “Drinking it in,” I said shortly--I don’t like being
talked to when I feel like that. He said, “Yes, I’m thirsty too; but
you ought to be kicked for talking about drinking when we’re 200 miles
from any beer!” As I said before, Ransson has no soul.
That night we put in three hours’ more hard trekking, starting at
moonrise, winding in and out peaks and always keeping at a great
height, skirting deep gullies and precipices, floundering over stony
slopes where the wheels dislodged big boulders and sent them bounding
and leaping hundreds of feet down into the black depths of the Krantzes
below. The need for haste was imperative, for the oxen were thirsty,
and should we find no water at our destination they would barely get
back. A cold outspan in a cloud of driving mist, and we were glad to
move on again before sun-up. By eight o’clock we were bumping and
skidding down a mountain-slope to where, far below, wound a tortuous
silver ribbon of dry sand that once had been a river. On every hand
rose mountains, and beyond these more mountains.
I don’t know how the waggon got down, for I took the rifle and cleared
on ahead on foot, and I was hard put to it in places to keep my footing.
But get down it did, in a very short space of time, and wonderfully
little the worse for wear, considering the battering it had had on
Namaqualand “roads.” An hour’s trek beside the sand and we came to
our destination, a few brilliantly green willows, rising from the dry
river-bed, marking a natural camping-place, and the spot where gold had
been found many years before.
CHAPTER IX
GOLD CAMP--THROUGH THE MOUNTAINS TO ARIEP--TATAS BERG AND COPPER
PROSPECTS--A “MOUNTAIN” OF COPPER--THE GREAT FISH RIVER--THE “GROOT
SLANG”--ZENDLING’S DRIFT.
Here, if water allowed, we intended making a permanent central
camp from which to start our real business of prospecting, but the
question--and the question above all others in these mountains--was
water. Anxiously we followed the guide as he scrambled up over a
ridge and into a ravine about 200 feet above our halting-place. To
our consternation we found the much-desired water-hole to consist
of nothing but a small pool of stagnant rain-water, teeming with
animalcules, and barely sufficient to last ourselves and the “boys”
a week, over and above the scanty supply in our casks. Our guide had
described the place as a sort of lake(!) with _banja water_, and he
appeared hurt to think that this little hip-bath full of alleged liquid
did not come up to the glowing description he had given us--so there
was no more to be said!
The position was serious. Our oxen and horses had had no water since
leaving Annisfontein, two days before; they had worked terrifically,
and their flanks were hollow with thirst--for though they can go
for four days without great discomfort over an easy trek, it is a
different thing when they have been called upon to achieve the wellnigh
impossible. And certainly they could not slake their thirst here. So we
hurried back to camp and decided at once that they must be sent back
to where they had last drunk, though probably some of them would never
reach there.
But after a long and excited palaver among the “boys,” one of them
intimated that he knew of a water-hole only a few hours away, and that
it was a _fontein_ where there was plenty of water and grass for the
oxen. And so we sent him off with the poor thirsty brutes, hoping he
would prove less of a romancer than the other chap, which luckily he
did.
Evidently spurred by this good example, Klaas Zwartbooi, the wildest
of the lot, and almost a pure Bushman, came clucking around us like a
broody hen, and led us to understand that he also knew of water quite
near us! We followed him, and sure enough, in another rocky catchment
amongst the wilderness of peaks, we found a second tiny pool. Ransson
was pleased, and gave Klaas a plug of tobacco he had no further use
for, and this stimulated him to further efforts; for after another
severe scramble, and in the most unlikely-looking spot imaginable, he
brought us to still another apology for a water-hole.
Klaas was not a witch-doctor for nothing, and I feel sure that, if we
had only had a pound of strong plug tobacco to tempt him with, he would
have found us a nice little private bar and some iced lager-beer in the
next gully.
Anyway, there was clearly enough liquid in the vicinity to keep us
going for some time, and so we scrambled back to camp, pitched our
tent, unpacked our waggon, had the first square meal for days, set our
roust-about to make bread, and got ready for real prospecting.
Many years ago, in one of the gullies close to this spot, a number of
gold nuggets had been found. These had been brought into Port Nolloth
by a Hottentot, and white men proceeded to the spot. Still more nuggets
were found, and eventually the magistrate of the district, Mr. W.
C. Scully, the well-known writer, is said to have proceeded to the
spot and verified the discovery. But owing to its inaccessibility and
want of water it was never proclaimed a gold-diggings; and though an
occasional white man had made an attempt to find gold there since, no
one had succeeded. Still, it was obvious to us that nothing but the
veriest fossicking had been done there, and we had hopes.
So day after day we cleaned and scraped hole and hole of the water-worn
gully; carefully panning the stuff in a bathful of our precious water,
using the latter over and over again, and losing not a drop; and
still we could not find even a “colour” of the precious metal. In the
mountain slopes above there were outcrops of quartz in all directions;
most of these, however, were of white, glassy-looking stuff, and showed
no signs of being mineralised; but day after day, after our failure
in the gullies, we tested these systematically, separating, going off
in different directions with a little food and a prospect-hammer, and
a boy carrying a bag, and bringing back heavy loads of samples, to
be laboriously pounded down to a fine powder with pestle and mortar,
and as laboriously tested--and still no trace of gold. Minerals there
were in abundance--copper especially. In all directions the rocks
were discoloured blue or green with it; here and there the quartz was
speckled bright with the silvery-looking crystal of molybdenite, in
more than one place we found rich galena; yet, though these diverse
minerals were to be seen almost everywhere, in no case were they in
sufficient bulk to warrant extensive work being done on them. Samples,
samples, everywhere--though one or two huge cappings of hæmatite were
well worth going through to see what kind of a pie their thick crust
covered! It was wearying work after a while, when the hope of finding
gold became less and less, hard work that tore hands to pieces with the
sharp razor-like splinters of the quartz, the scorching sun turning
the rocks so hot that they blistered one, and all around a glare of
sun, sand, and barren mountain-sides that made one’s eyeballs burn as
though they were being slowly roasted. And except for our few “boys”
in the gullies near the camp, an absolute silence, unbroken except
for the occasional scream of a _dassie vanger_, as the big eagles are
called that sweep round the slopes of the peaks in search of an unwary
rock-rabbit. Bird life and animal life were very scarce; though on the
higher peaks the chamois-like _klip bok_ was plentiful, and would have
afforded good sport had we been there for that purpose; but we were
after gold, and contented ourselves with “cookies” and the tinned food
from our stores. Of human beings we saw none; indeed, we had not seen a
soul except a solitary native at the little farm at Groot Derm since we
had left the _nachtmaal_ meeting at Springklip.
At length, having failed utterly to find a single trace of “pay dirt,”
we decided to lay bare the whole bed of the sand-choked “river,” below
which the reputedly rich gully emptied itself, by doing which, if gold
existed there in a free state, we should find a trace of it. But the
labour entailed would be considerable, and as the water was none too
plentiful, we decided to leave the “boys” to do the rough part of the
work whilst we made a rapid trip to locate and peg certain important
copper deposits two days’ ride away towards the Orange. We took two
guides with us, and this time carried everything we required on our
horses--food, water, sleeping kit, tools, dynamite, gun, rifle, etc.,
being festooned about the little nags in a most extraordinary manner.
Ransson looked exactly like the “White Knight” in _Alice_, and the
clatter of the frying-pan at his saddle-bow was martial to a degree. I
had just complimented him on this when the tea-kettle at my crupper got
loose and went one better; then the prospecting-pan on the pack-horse
joined in, and for a time we sounded like a whole troop of travelling
tinkers. The baboons came out on the rocky peaks and hooted us, and
Ransson, with fine repartee, hooted back.
The track led up and across bare rocky ridges and along precipitous
slopes where a goat could scarcely have found foothold, and at times I
felt much like climbing off and leaving the ironmongery to the pony’s
mercy; but the little beasts were so careful, so surefooted, that I
soon realised I was safer in the saddle than I should be on foot. They
seemed quite tireless too, and when, after four hours’ climbing and
clambering, we halted on a high grassy plateau, they appeared as fresh
as ever.
The wide open space was beautiful with flowers, and there was plenty
of food for the horses; but we made only a very brief halt, as we had
planned to reach the Orange River that evening, and had only brought
the barest ration of water from our limited supply at camp.
All the morning the heat had been great, and it was now terrific; the
bush on the plateau was too stunted to afford any shade, and we were
glad to get going again. This plateau was really a divide--a small
tableland--about 3,000 feet high, and from it a veritable Switzerland
of mountains could be seen stretching in all directions. We were
accustomed to mountains by this time, but those ahead of us were so
weird-looking as to appear absolutely unreal! We had passed range after
range already, but in most cases the gullies, and even some of the
slopes, had been covered with vegetation of a sort--queer, fantastic
plants and cacti--but still vegetation! But these queer peaks were
stark and bare and of the most startling colours. In serrated lines
they stretched out like the teeth of a saw, and their crumbling slopes
of rotten schist were of every shade of red, of brick-red, of flaring
vermilion, of bright orange-red, in fact of every red-hot gradation
of colour. And across their flaming flanks, in startling contrast,
were drawn long broad bands of intense black, sharply defined in huge
zigzags, and looking as though they had been scrawled across the
scorching landscape by an enormous pencil.
Between these strange peaks “ran” rivers of glaring white and yellow
sand, and riding through this uncanny goblin-land the weird stories of
huge snakes and monsters told us by the Hottentots seemed no longer
impossible. The whole land seemed dead, burnt up, absolutely devoid
of life; not a bird or other living creature was to be seen anywhere,
though the spoors of _wilde paarde_ here and there in the sand showed
where mountain zebra occasionally roamed. For hours we rode down and
down the slopes till at length we entered a wide stretch of bare sand
flanked by mountains; this also gradually sloped and narrowed till it
became a tortuous defile, on either hand of which towered abrupt and
red-hot looking cliffs. The heat was appalling; it struck back from
glaring sand and rocks as from a furnace, and I was soon parched with
thirst. We knew there was plenty of water a few hours ahead of us,
and I for one was thankful for the knowledge. For nothing accentuates
thirst like anxiety as to when it can be quenched, and luckily we felt
none.
There was not a sound, for the soft sand deadened the footfalls of the
horses as with drooping ears they trudged dejectedly along, hour after
hour, winding and turning through narrow _poorts_ where two could not
pass abreast, flanking mountains only to find others barring our path,
always descending and always getting hotter and hotter. In places,
scrambling over huge masses of iron ore fallen from the black zigzags
above, or tempted to clamber up to some bright deceiving outcrop of
adamantine iron-glance, or to where the numerous green stains on the
red rock showed the existence of copper; walking as much as possible
to save the poor nags’ unshod hoofs, and only climbing to the saddle
when our own feet became unbearable, we plodded and shuffled for five
solid hours down that infernal ravine. I asked Klaas if it had a name.
He said, “No,” that it was not a regular “path,” and that he had only
been through it once--many years ago, when he was a boy. Time went
on, and the course became so tortuous that at times we appeared to be
doubling on our tracks; each of the peaks we passed looked exactly
like the others we had already passed, and I began to think that Klaas
was leading us in a vain circle! By-and-by we came to a big rock of
crushed-strawberry colour with vermilion trimmings, and Ransson called
Klaas back. He said, “Look here, Klaas; we’ve passed this blamed klip
six times already! Now, you may think this funny, but we don’t, and
I’m going to mark this pebble with my hatchet, and if we pass it
again--there’ll be trouble.”
Klaas must have seen that we were not to be trifled with, for we didn’t
pass the rock again after that, and in about a week--Ransson says it
was the same evening, but I know better--we suddenly emerged from a
narrow gap in the rock ... and there, within a hundred yards, lay a
glorious shining stretch of beautiful water bordered by a broad belt of
luxuriant trees; and a vivid lawn of velvet turf extended almost to our
very feet!
No transformation scene could have been more dramatically sudden ... we
had been riding through an inferno and suddenly here was Paradise!
The poor nags spurted at the welcome sight, and within a couple of
minutes our scanty clothing was off, and we were up to our necks in the
water and letting the whole of the Orange River run down our thirsty
throttles.
The place is called “!!Ariep!!” the notes of exclamation representing
the Hottentot “clicks” that Klaas put into the alleged word. I told him
I was glad to hear it, and would take his word for it sooner than go
back. It really is a most beautiful spot; the river is about a quarter
of a mile wide, and upstream takes a majestic bend. In that direction
it is dotted with islands covered with trees and dense undergrowth, and
is a favourite spot for the few hippo still to be found in the Orange.
Downstream there are rapids which, though they look very innocent,
are not to be trifled with, as I found later. Opposite, on the German
bank, the mountains are as bare and highly coloured as those we had
passed through. Indeed, “Red-hot Valley,” as we called it, is but one
of scores in this region, where, strangely enough, the peaks near the
river are all devoid of vegetation. The schistose rock of which they
are principally composed seems to be suffering from dry-rot, for it
crumbles at the slightest touch, and in climbing a whole avalanche is
eternally clattering down from underfoot.
Here and there a few ghostly-looking _koker boomen_, or huge twisted
_Candelabra euphorbia_, looking like huge spiders, cling to a
precarious footing, and that is all.
The night of our arrival was a night of absolute luxury, with soft
green sward for a bed, the twinkling stars above reflected in the long
mirror-like stretches of the river, and the murmur of the rapids for a
lullaby which we didn’t need.
Next morning we started upstream, for the best part of the day skirting
the narrow belt of vegetation, clambering over huge piles of débris at
the base of abrupt cliffs, where the belt narrowed to a few clinging
bushes, and the river swirled directly below us; at other times, when
the bed widened, losing sight of the river for miles and miles, and
finding it next to impossible to burst our way through the tangled
virgin growth. There was no vestige of a path, though here and there
we came across a fallen and rotten trunk, or a lopped branch, showing
that an axe had once cut a way there. That day we were shown three
different spots where shafts had been sunk on prospects many years ago:
all within a short distance of the river; indeed, it was obvious that
copper was to be found almost everywhere, the blue and green stains
showing up in all directions on the rocks bordering the scorching
sand-rivers.
A few days in the defiles of the “Tatas Bergen,” and without going
far from the water, satisfied us as to the copper prospects, and we
returned to!!Ariep!! to locate a further spot which Klaas knew of,
and of which we had great expectations. The samples he had shown us
were of beautiful bornite, and if the spot only came up to the sample,
it would mean something exceptionally good. Alas I we did not then
fully realise what a queer mixture of intelligence and stupidity
the average Hottentot or Bushman is! For, leading us downstream for
half a day’s hard trek, Klaas ultimately landed us at a spot where
the mountains receded from the river-bed, and the latter widened out
into a boulder-strewn stretch of water-worn débris a mile or more in
width. And here, in a patch of alluvial gravel, sand, and pebbles, he
triumphantly pointed out two or three small fragments of bornite, the
remnant of a water-borne fragment that he had found there, and smashed
up on the spot! This was his copper-mine, and he seemed quite satisfied
with it. There was nothing to show where it had come from: some bygone
flood had brought it down--the veriest bit of jetsam. Words failed, for
we had come all the way from Tatas Berg for this! Indeed, it had been
one of our principal reasons for leaving the waggon. Meanwhile Klaas
sat on his haunches and grinned and clucked, and held his old pipe out
for _tabaki_, and was evidently quite pleased with himself. I started
to tell him a little of what I thought of him, but realised that it
was a bit beyond me. Then I saw Ransson picking up the rest of the
“mine,” and I turned to him. “Oh, don’t be an ass!” I said. “Throw the
... stuff away--throw him away too! What are you going to do with it,
anyhow?”
“Make him eat it!” grunted Ransson--and judging by Klaas’s appearance a
little later, I believe he did.
“Ou Ezaak,” the other Hottentot with us, now came forward with the
information that he knew of another spot where there was an abundance
of copper. It would mean a long day’s trek to the south, but we could
return to the waggon that way. He assured us that it was a “mine”
where, as a boy, he had worked with white men.
With the awful example of what had happened to Klaas well before him,
he still persisted in his assurance of what we should find if we
followed him, and we therefore turned back upstream without further
loss of time, for our stores were wellnigh exhausted. There was a
moon, and we trekked late, leaving the river by a side-ravine, winding
and twisting between abrupt peaks, and always rising. By midnight
we were almost clear of the mountains, and off-saddled for a few
hours. There was not a vestige of food for the horses, nor a twig or
bush to make a fire with. We were bitterly cold, and after vainly
endeavouring to sleep, were glad to be moving again. Crossing a low
rocky ridge, we emerged upon an almost level sandy plateau, with a
few isolated peaks here and there, and made our way for some hours
towards a peculiar-looking kopje, jet black, and looking as though
made of shining anthracite coal. Around it lay thousands of tons of
titaniferous iron-sand, and, turning its base, we found an entirely
new panorama. A wide sand-river stretched away to the south, and the
peaks beyond it were quite different in appearance from those we had
traversed. They appeared to be tilted quartzite; in places the bedding
was clearly defined, in others tossed and contorted in a most fantastic
manner. Striking across the plateau, we almost immediately came upon a
small herd of springbok, the first we had seen. We needed fresh meat
badly, and after about three hours of the chase, in which the buck
displayed considerably more knowledge of the locality than we did, we
still needed it.
It was terrifically hot, we were dog-tired and thirsty, and the mirage
was so strong all around that we could not always tell whether there
was one buck or twenty, or whether they were a hundred yards away or
five hundred. But that was not our reason for abandoning the chase.
Ransson sat down on a red-hot rock and mopped his brow. “Look here,” he
said; “after all, these poor little things have done us no harm--why
should we shoot them?”
I agreed, and explained that I had been merely shooting near them, just
to see their antics when the bullet struck, and had not dreamed of
hitting them; also that we’d better leave off in case we did.
“Yes,” agreed Ransson, “we’ll chuck it--anyhow we’ve no more
cartridges!”
So we trudged on for three hours after the horses, which were already
miles ahead.
This country was almost as weird as that which we had passed through
on our way to the river. We were apparently skirting the base of a
mountain of coal, jet black and glistening; the sands surrounding it
were also black, but they were not coal, but titaniferous iron-sand,
which I tried in vain for gold. This queer-looking peak was principally
composed of hornblende, and here I also noticed huge crystals of black
tourmaline, as thick as one’s wrist. At length, tired and footsore,
we reached an ancient river-bed actually rejoicing in a name. “Gauna
Gulip” old Ezaak called it, when we found him waiting for us with the
horses under the poor shade of a few tamarisks--the first vegetation
we had seen all day. Here also there were a few clumps of rushes, and
the “boys” were busy scooping a hole in the sand with their hands. At
about three feet, the bottom became moist, water began to ooze in, and
we soon had enough for a kettle of tea. Meanwhile the horses had gone
down the bed to a small open pool. I went and looked at it, but it was
a squirming mass of animalcules, not fit even to boil; though, a month
later, I was glad to drink the little that was left of it. We stayed at
the sand-scooped hole, not to rest, for it was too hot to sleep, but
patiently collecting enough water as it oozed in by the spoonful to
fill our water-bottles, for Ezaak told us we should get no more till we
reached the waggon, and we had two formidable ranges to cross before
then. As a matter of fact, we could have drunk the whole supply as
fast as it became available, for the heat that day was phenomenal--it
seemed to be drying the very blood up in our veins, and converting
us into biltong. Not far from this water-hole we came upon the first
trace of man we had seen for many days, a faint old waggon-spoor in the
sand. It led towards the fantastic peaks to the south, and Klaas told
us that the vehicle had passed through some six months previously, on
its way to a mass of native copper which had been discovered among the
mountains there. We followed it for a short distance only, and, turning
up a branch-ravine, came to the old prospect Ezaak had told us of, and
which, luckily for him, was far too big to eat!
[Illustration: THE DEEP GORGE, 500 FEET OR MORE IN DEPTH, IN WHICH
THE ORANGE RIVER IS PENNED BELOW THE GREAT FALLS.]
By the time we had pegged the spot it was sunset, and a debatable point
whether we should camp there and ride early next day, or try to cross
the mountains by moonlight. We had eaten our last scrap of food at
midday, and there was no vegetation for the horses to nibble, so we
decided on the latter, though we knew we were taking risks, for Ezaak
seemed none too sure of the path, and crossing pathless mountains by
moonlight is scarcely a picnic. Rummaging in our depleted saddle-bags,
we found a last pinch of tea, plentifully mixed with tobacco dust,
and with it we brewed a kettleful of the most obnoxious fluid I have
ever tasted. The water was brak (alkaline) and thick and slimy, and
we had no sugar, but we got down a hot beakerful each, and started
on one of the coldest rides I have ever experienced. For on the
bare, sun-blistered uplands of Namaqualand there is practically no
intermediate stage between intense heat and intense cold, and less than
an hour after sunset my teeth were chattering and my hands so numbed
I could scarcely hold the reins. Naturally, the higher we climbed,
the colder it became, and I soon regretted that I had not decided to
wait hungry, and do that ride in the warm sunshine. I had nothing on
but a khaki shirt and pants, of the thinnest--just enough to keep the
sun from flaming me--and though I had a blanket strapped on the horse,
it was useless trying to wrap that about me in such a scramble as we
were in for. It soon became evident that Ezaak was relying on his
sense of direction to bring us to the waggon, and occasionally he was
absolutely at fault. In and out among the solemn peaks we scrambled,
here plunging into dark ravines, where it was impossible to do more
than grope one’s way, then emerging into a blaze of white moonlight
that showed every pebble in the path as clear as noonday. Once or
twice, in the darker places, we had to retrace our steps, as we found
the way barred by rock or precipice, and often the only warning that
we were on dangerous heights was the crash of a dislodged stone or
boulder falling into the depths below. But “Ou Ezaak” still scrambled
on, till, after passing over two distinct ranges, we found ourselves
again amongst thick vegetation, and here our experiences became even
more variegated. For most of the bush was of the _wachteen-beitje_
variety, full of hooked thorns, and as the little nags wriggled through
it, it ripped and tore skin and clothing from us in the most impartial
manner. It blew great guns too, and but for sheer shame I would have
called a halt, lighted a fire, and waited for morning. However, Ezaak
was now fairly in his stride, and after an interminable time, and when
I had resigned myself to being utterly lost, we suddenly plunged down
a dark ravine, and saw a fire twinkling below us. It was the waggon,
right enough. We had been scrambling for seven hours. In the morning we
found that a dozen or more Hottentots had pitched their mat _pondhoeks_
close to the waggon. They had a flock of goats with them, and appeared
to live entirely on the milk. We bought a little of it later, giving
tobacco and tea in return. They had a great idea of the value of their
commodity, and doled it out very sparingly. Their fondness for tobacco
is extraordinary, the women and young girls smoking quite as much as
the men, and passing the hollow leg-bone of a buck, which serves them
as a pipe, from lip to lip, as they squatted by the fire.
They had two riding-oxen with them, fine-looking beasts with a rein
passed through the nostril to guide them by, and saddled with ordinary
horse-saddles of German military pattern. We used them on several of
our excursions later, finding them excellent, both for pace, endurance
and climbing powers, which they possess to a remarkable degree.
With all this addition to the population, it was clear that the water
would last only a few days; in fact, we were hard put to it to enable
us to “pan” the cleaning up on the section of river-bed which the
“boys” had bared for us. Still, we managed somehow, the remains of the
water in which we had “panned” for gold all day serving us for making
coffee at night; but in spite of all our efforts, we found no particle
of gold, and reluctantly decided to abandon the spot, coming to the
conclusion, at the time, that we had been shown the wrong spot, and
that the gold had never been found there.
Before leaving, however, we finished our exploration of the surrounding
peaks, finding numerous traces of other metals, but no gold. As an
instance of the variety of minerals scattered through this region,
I may state that a single stick of dynamite in a faint splash of
carbonate of copper disclosed more than a hundredweight of bornite,
with galena, an essay of which, in Cape Town, gave 38 per cent. of
copper and 24 oz. of silver to the ton, whilst within a fifty yards
radius, fine samples of molybdenum, hæmatite, and copper-glance
were found, and the sand-rivers were black with hundreds of tons of
titaniferous iron-sand. Many of the rarer and lesser-known metals are
undoubtedly present also in this region, tantallite being frequently
met with in the sands and amongst the hæmatite débris, and the very
large crystals occasionally met with point to the probability of large
deposits of this valuable mineral awaiting systematic search. The
ravines of this wild and remote spot were full of a beauty peculiarly
their own, being luxuriant with vegetation of strange form and colour:
_Varias euphorbia_, huge fleshy-trunked succulents, with brilliant
scarlet flowers, aloes of different shapes and colours, and above all,
a most glorious copper-coloured bush, known locally as the “Pride
of Namaqualand,” all contrasting vividly with the milk-white of the
quartz, and the brick-red of the red-hot-looking schist. Here of all
places, the strange _Pachypodium namaquanum_ is abundant, and reaches a
size I saw nowhere else: moreover, many of these giant succulents, of
10 feet or more in height, were many-branched instead of consisting of
a single trunk, and may possibly be a different variety. Of animal life
there was but little. On the higher peaks, the chamois-like klipbok
could occasionally be seen standing on an isolated point and tempting
a long shot, but in the valleys a few leopards and wild-cat, a slinking
hyæna or jackal, were all that were ever seen.
Just before leaving, a Hottentot came in riding an ox, and claimed
through an interpreter that he knew of the whereabouts of a “mountain”
of copper, rumours of which I had heard from various sources before. A
certain German prospector named Preuss--a man whose word I absolutely
believe--had told me that some years back he had endeavoured to
trek through these mountains from the vicinity of the Great Fish
River--which runs through German South-West--into the Orange. Some
natives had guided him; it had been an exceptionally dry season, and
they had nearly died of thirst, but in a remote spot he had come upon
a whole mountain of copper ore. He wanted water more than copper, and
had no licence anyway, so he made no attempt to peg it, but he told me
of it in Cape Town, and gave me the names of the Richtersfeldt natives
who had brought him through. I had made inquiries from the Mission,
and this chap was the first result. He gave us his name, but I cannot
reproduce it--it sounded like a hungry man swallowing oysters. Anyway,
he said he could guide us to that mountain, and that it was three
days’ trek away, so we rationed him, and made him happy with tobacco,
and prepared to trek. A man was sent away to bring in the oxen, which
were grazing some days away; the waggon was left in charge of Peter,
with instructions to meet us at Zendling’s Drift fourteen days later;
and with scant rations in our saddle-bags, we started off again, under
the guidance of the ox-rider. His route led us back to the Orange--a
few miles above where we had struck it before, but through quite a
different series of ravines, in which we again came upon numerous
copper indications, all of which we ignored, in view of the “whole
mountain” of it to which we were being guided.
But alas! our guide turned out to be a bigger romancer than Klaas
Zwartbooi, for after two days of hard trekking, he landed us at a
little patch of green carbonate the size of a tea-tray, and solemnly
pronounced this to be the spot we were looking for!
We had passed at least a dozen better prospects _en route_
without taking the trouble to turn aside from the path! This was
heart-breaking, and I never felt more homicidal in my life. We could
get nothing out of the brute: he spoke no word of any language but the
“click,” and old Ezaak’s (our other guide) few words of English and
Dutch were quite unequal to the occasion.
So we retraced our steps to the river, with the intention of following
its tortuous course to Zendling’s Drift, where we had been told
Preuss’s guide was living--for this man was plainly an impostor. That
night we spent by the solemn, lonely Orange, bathing and revelling
in the cool water to our hearts’ content. We had brought but very
little food with us, hoping for game; but we came across nothing, and
regretfully resorted to the unsportsmanlike practice of putting a stick
of dynamite in one of the deep pools, in the hope of getting some fish.
About half a dozen little chaps the size of small herrings (a variety
of _springer_) was the only result, and they were so absolutely full of
bones as to be quite uneatable. We grilled them, and tried to imagine
they were trout, but the only thing good about them was the smell!
A moonlit river is always beautiful; the Orange (possibly because of
its contrast with the wilderness of barren and forbidding mountains
through which it has burst a way) seems incomparably so.
Before turning in, I walked up the bank to a beautiful grassy spot,
where I could see for some distance, and sat down, and looked at the
majestic sweep of the water upstream. There was not a sound, for
the nearest rapids were miles away, and not a ripple disturbed the
mirror-like surface of the water, as the big volume of it swept slowly
by, from the black, towering portals of the Tatas Berg mountains in the
far distance. Above that gorge for at least a hundred miles its course
is almost unknown, as for miles it is penned into a cañon between
precipitous cliffs.
It was all very tranquil and lonely, and I lay on the sweet turf and
smoked, and pondered on the fact that, with the exception of Ransson
and the guides, there was probably not a soul within many days’
journey. It made me feel quite sentimental, and I thought of the
crowded towns I had known, and the crowded bars ... and the beer....
Then I heard a concertina ...! and I wondered if the sun had been too
much for me. A concertina! here, in the most solitary spot imaginable!
It appeared sheer lunacy, but there was no doubt about it, and I got
up and cleared back to camp, prepared for any old thing. Ransson was
sitting by the fire, smoking, and before him were capering two little
stark naked Hottentot “boys,” imitating the antics of monkeys--in fact,
dancing the so-called “baboon dance” of the Bushmen.
But the musician! He was away ahead of the gaudiest buck-nigger I had
ever seen! On his head was a German uniform “smasher” hat, about three
sizes too large for him, and covered with sweeping ostrich plumes, a
tight-waisted, wide-skirted uniform coat was left open to show what
had once been a very _décolleté_ white waistcoat, which in turn was
finished off with a broad athlete’s belt of red, white, and black.
Then his costume ended till you came to his feet, on which he wore
a brand-new pair of glaring yellow elastic-sided boots, with spurs!
Oh! he was a peach, and he knew it. His concertina was also German,
spangled beyond belief, and quite new. He only used about three notes
of the considerable number there appeared to be on it, but the Guards’
Drum Major, Sarasate, Paderewski, and several other virtuosi rolled
into one could not have approached that buck-nigger for style. After
a while we got him to stop his music and talk. He spoke a little
alleged English and Dutch, and several German cuss-words, and led
us to understand that he had been working in German South-West some
months, and had now decided to retire and get married. We wondered
where the lady was, and gave him some _tabaki_ and wished him luck,
and he cleared off. But we had scarcely got to sleep when that infernal
concertina started again, and there was “His Nibs” back again, with the
two “coryphées” capering away for all they were worth, and evidently
prepared to keep it up all night. The more _tabaki_ I gave them, the
more energetic they became; the more I swore, the more they seemed to
think I appreciated their efforts; and at last I had to turn out of my
blankets and go for them with a sjambok. Then only did they quit, and
I turned in again. But I had got a big thorn in my foot, and when I
had got that out a scorpion got into my bed, and objected to my being
there. Altogether, a nice, quiet, idyllic night by the river.
In the morning, the musician turned up with a tin full of goat’s milk,
and informed me that he knew a magnificent copper-mine close at hand,
and wanted us to pay him for showing it. As he pointed in the direction
we were going, we took him along, and, as I expected, he led us to an
outcrop that we had pegged on our previous visit.
He then danced about six steps, played a pæan of joy on his infernal
concertina, grinned from ear to ear, and held out his hand. “’Undred
pounds,” said he. “_Duizand pond, Zwanzig mark!_” He got it.
We gave him a plug of tobacco, and a little tea for his bride, and he
stood on a peak and played us out of sight. He was certainly the most
cheerful and original Christy Minstrel I ever met in a wild state, and
I remember him with gratitude.
We now made our way down the river towards Zendling’s Drift, finding
but little difficulty for the first day or two. The banks were mostly
densely wooded; at places this belt of virgin vegetation was half a
mile or so in width, in others the abrupt flanking peaks crowded in
upon the stream, leaving but a narrow belt of vegetation clinging to
their base. There was plenty of grass for the horses, pigeons for the
pot, and dassies (rock rabbits) for the “boys.” Skinned, they looked
like rabbits, and smelt very nice when cooking, but I could not bring
myself to taste them. Though small birds were plentiful, and there
were wild duck and geese in abundance, and monkeys and baboons galore,
we saw no trace of larger game here by these solitary reaches of the
Orange; if we except the splashes of some large animals in the pools
between some of the numerous islands, which the “boys” assured me were
hippo.
These latter, of which there are but a very few left in the Orange,
are usually found on the islands near where the Great Fish River joins
the larger stream, after running for hundreds of miles through German
South-West.
We passed this spot on the second day, and here saw the first sign of
former habitation, two or three abandoned _pondhoeks_ made of branches,
long since dry and leafless. And here we came upon stretches of fine
sand and gravels which showed signs, here and there, that they had
been worked superficially, doubtless for diamonds, for there were the
gravels that Stuurmann had told me of in Luderitzbucht, and, as he had
described them, they were sparkling with “bright stones”--pretty but
worthless crystals.
We found no diamonds, but we had not the means for systematic sieving,
and some of the old river terraces near this spot looked very promising
indeed.
The mouth of the Great Fish River, where it debouches into the Orange,
is choked with a huge accumulation of sand, through which, after
rain, the water finds its way in various small channels to swell the
larger stream. There are numerous small, well-wooded islands in the
vicinity--these were the haunts of the hippo already alluded to. The
spot is one of the wildest and most remote and difficult of access of
all spots in this deserted region; even on the German bank there is
neither settlement nor habitation within many days’ trek in either
direction.
Our leisurely and easy trek downstream now came to an end, for just
after passing the Great Fish, we came to a bend where the mountain
converged upon the river, the course of which became tortuous in the
extreme; and at length an apparently impenetrable barrier of peaks
stretched before us, through which it appeared impossible that the
river could penetrate. And then trouble began. In places we scrambled
for hours along precipitous slopes, cumbered with fallen rocks, and
with swirling rapids below us; a mile or so of easier going where the
country was more open, and again a mountain spur would shoulder the
river aside. This time the abrupt slope would be dense with high and
tangled thorn-bush through which we had to cut a way, whilst here and
there a huge fallen rock or a whole landslide from the cliffs above
would bar further progress, till we had crawled round, over, or under
them, at imminent risk of breaking our ponies’ necks or legs, as
well as our own. At times we were obliged to descend into the actual
river-bed, and had the water not been low, these traverses would, of
course, have been impracticable, and a sudden freshet upstream would
certainly have accounted for the lot of us, had the flood caught us in
one of these spots.
The worst going for the ponies was over these places, for the huge
rocks and boulders were rounded, slimy, and slippery with mud, exactly
like boulders on a sea-beach at low tide.
But, to me, the biggest nightmare of a spot was where, on the steep
slopes of a mountain rising abruptly from the water, a big drift of
sand rested. I do not know at what angle sand will rest, but certainly
it was steeper than 45 degrees, and dry and loose. We could not get
above it, for there the cliff was vertical, and the men warned us
that we must keep going as fast as possible, as to stand still a
minute meant being half-buried, and slipping down with the sand to
the swirling water below. The ponies would scarcely face it, and were
plainly scared out of their wits, and I did not like it myself.
But there was no alternative, and no time to stay and think about it,
for it was nearly dark, and we could not stay where we were, whilst
about a mile ahead we could see open ground and grass. I don’t know
how we managed that mile; it was one wild flounder and scramble, a case
of plunging through loose, shifting sand up to one’s knees almost,
dragging a frightened pony behind, and always climbing upwards as well
as forward, to compensate for the slipping-down of the whole bank of
sand.
I was heartily glad when it was over, and though I have crossed that
sand-slide twice since, I have always funked it.
It was dark when we floundered out of it, and we steered straight for
a wide thicket of willows, made a big fire, and were only too glad to
turn in. It seemed an excellent camp, with wood, water, and shelter
from the cold wind, but it was plain that the “boys” were uneasy, and
they crouched close to our fire instead of building one apart as they
usually did. After some food Ezaak suggested that we might perhaps
trek on a little farther, and this, coming after a most arduous day,
was decidedly strange. We asked him why, and after beating about the
bush for a bit he told me that in the middle of the river, and exactly
opposite where we were camped, was a big rock in which the huge snake
(the “Groot Slang,” in which every Richtersfeldt Hottentot firmly
believes) had his home, and that it was not safe for us or for our
horses.
We had long heard of this snake; many reputable Hottentots and a few
white men claim to have seen it, many more have seen its huge spoor
in the sand or mud--a foot and a half wide. It is believed to take
cattle from the banks, and the natives fear it mightily. There are no
crocodiles in the Orange, and, besides, there are never any traces of
feet with the spoor, but it is a remarkable fact that the Hottentot
name for this huge python--or whatever it may be--is “Ki-man,” which is
very like the Eastern name for an alligator.
Anyhow, we were far too tired to care for snakes, and of course stayed
where we were, the only thing to annoy us being the huge long-legged
tarantulas that kept running with incredible swiftness into the fire,
where they sizzled, squirmed, and smelt unpleasantly.
In the morning we found that the river here was a long, wide, still,
and apparently very deep stretch of water, and that a big rock rose
from the centre, as the guides had said. It appeared to be of granite,
and was riven in half by a big cleft. The steep mud banks of the river
should have shown a trace of anything coming from the water, but we
found no spoor. So we made up some dynamite cartridges with fuse and
detonator, and flung them out as far as we could, and stood by with the
“arsenal” handy in case the “Groot Slang” was at home and objected. The
dynamite made a big upheaval, but no snake materialised; only a few
small springers and barbel flapped round in the muddy water.
Then I saw something moving in the crack in the rock, and let drive
with my rifle. I was in a hurry, and I heard my bullet hit the
landscape somewhere in German territory; but Ransson had seen that
movement too, and was emptying his magazine into the crack without
undue loss of time. When we’d finished a very flustered and indignant
old wild duck squatted out of that crack and went away unhurt and
quacking most derisively. No luck again with our “big game” shooting.
A hard day’s trek again and we left the river, climbed up a sandy
incline between hills of black hornblende schist where faint
wheel-marks showed that we were on an old beaten track, and cutting
across country, at about ten at night we again came to the river at
Zendling’s Drift. And the crowing of a cock, and the barking of a dog
from the other bank, were as music in our ears, for the loneliness of
this deserted land was beginning to tell upon us.
Scarce was our camp fire blazing when we heard a great shouting and
splashing in the river below, and three or four Hottentots came across
to find out who we were. They were working for the German police, who
had a post on the further bank. The splashing and shouting is always
done by these Hottentots when crossing the river at night--for fear
of the “Groot Slang.” They have no boats, but at various places along
the banks long dry logs may be seen lying with a peg driven in on one
side. These poles they use to help them in crossing, holding the peg
and pushing this primitive raft before them.
CHAPTER X
ZENDLING’S DRIFT--JACKAL’S BERG--THE RESULT OF TOO MUCH WHYMPER--HUGE
NUGGET OF NATIVE COPPER--A DIFFICULT PASS--KUBOOS--DEGENERATE
NATIVES--BACK TO PORT NOLLOTH.
Zendling’s (Missionary’s) Drift received its name from the fact that
the first missionaries to enter Damaraland crossed the Orange at this
spot. There is no kind of settlement on the English side, and at the
time of this first visit of mine the Germans had not commenced building
the substantial police post that now commands the drift, their few
police being encamped among the trees some distance from the river.
The whole river, by the by, has always belonged to the British, whose
territory extends 100 yards above high-water mark on the northern bank.
Having seen no other white men since we left Port Nolloth, and feeling
sociable, Ransson and I swam the river with an idea of paying the
Germans a visit, but I felt shy when I got out of the water, and sat
down well within British territory. Ransson, however, had brought over
clean pyjamas in a bundle on his head, and clad in these he coolly
sauntered off to the camp, where, I believe, they turned out the guard
and signalled to Warmbad for reinforcements. He turned up later with
some nice biltong, and for the rest of the day did nothing but brag
about the beer and schnapps he had been regaled with. He also most
considerately breathed upon me now and then, and altogether I did not
come off so badly.
The country near Zendling’s Drift is open and sandy. Upstream and
some distance away from the river there are some extraordinary
river-terraces of great height, on the flat surfaces of which sun,
wind, and sand have combined to polish the beautifully coloured
pebbles of ironstone, jasper, agate, chalcedony, and other stones in
the most wonderful manner.
These ancient gravels gave great promise of being diamondiferous, and
here and there among the pebbles a huge water-worn crystal would bring
our hearts into our mouths with its perfect resemblance to a rough
Koh-i-noor; but we had no means of working the gravels with us and
found no diamonds. We questioned our “boys” about diamonds--they had
heard vague rumours of those at Luderitzbucht, and they spoke of a big
one that had been sold at Steinkopf years ago for many cattle.
Just above the drift on the German side there is a remarkable and
beautiful mountain called by the Germans the “Lorelei.” It is
triple-peaked, like a Bishop’s mitre, and affords a striking background
to the placid stretches of tree-fringed river below it. Behind it,
northward, the ranges are exceptionally high and rugged. Southward, on
our bank, there is a tract of several miles of country covered with
an absolute maze of quartz outcrops, literally thousands of them, but
mostly hungry and barren; and in the mountains behind them there are
many old copper workings, mostly dating from the time of Alexander’s
venture, but some, far more ancient, the work of Hottentots, who used
copper hammers and gads for their work. But by far the most striking of
all the mineral outcrops that this sterile and desolate region affords
is to be seen about a mile below the drift, where the river twists
abruptly round a hog-backed, precipitous hill some 800 feet high.
This hill is known as Jackal’s Berg, and from the southern spur of it
there outcrops a most wonderful reef of hæmatite. Huge black blocks
of it, each of many tons in weight, have rolled down the slope into a
valley of pure white quartz adjoining it, and the effect of the glaring
contrast of colour in the strong sunshine is remarkable. The reef
extends for many miles, the ore is extremely high-grade and with a very
low percentage of sulphur, and will some day be of great value. Near
this reef, and a few miles lower downstream, there spreads a region
of comparatively recent volcanic activity, a gruesome wilderness of
scorched scoriæ, calcined shale, and schist, with innumerable outcrops
of iron ore, all absolutely barren of any trace of verdure, dead and
desolate as one imagines the craters of the moon. And below this the
tangle of trees and bush bordering the river was an absolute jungle
that we tried in vain to break through, and here in a patch of bare
sand I saw more leopard spoors than I had ever seen before.
Thus, riding out each day in a different direction, we spent some time
at the drift waiting for our waggon, living on the few things that fell
to our guns--bush doves, a hare or two, and a still rarer klipbok,
grilling the flesh on the ashes and eating it without bread, salt, or
any other sauce but hunger to make it palatable, for the few stores we
had brought in our saddle-bags were long since exhausted. Each evening
Hottentots came over from the German camp, but we could get neither
stores nor news from them of the native we had hoped to find there--the
guide to the lost copper mountain.
Apart from our shortness of stores, our anxiety for the arrival of the
waggon was accentuated by the fact that we were literally in rags,
for we had nothing but the clothes we stood in, and thorns and sharp
rocks had torn them to ribbons; moreover, the fierce heat had played
havoc with our _veldtschoens_, which had to be cobbled every day with
fragments of rimpi, and which had assumed such dimensions that they
would no longer go through the stirrups. But at length the waggon
turned up, having had a terrific time in Hell’s Kloof, and having been
patched and cobbled till it matched our boots.
I now learnt from Peter that the guide we were looking for had gone to
stay at Kuboos, and I therefore sent a message in, with a spare horse
to bring him back.
Four days later he turned up; a tall, elderly Hottentot of grave and
important aspect, who announced himself as being the one and only
veritable guide to my copper mountain. His manner was so impressive
that again I had great hopes that he might be telling the truth. He
kept aloof from the other “boys,” expected--and obtained--better
rations than they did, and altogether appeared to be a pillar of
strength. But all our questioning was unavailing; he would take us to
the spot, but would tell us nothing as to its whereabouts except that
we should have to return upstream.
We had been bitten badly before, and as he understood Dutch we
painstakingly explained to him that it was our custom to make our
guides eat all copper mines or mountains that did not come up to
expectations. He smiled so superciliously, and was so dignified withal,
that we decided to turn back once more under his guidance. So, changing
our tatters, and filling our saddle-bags anew, we sent the waggon back
to Kuboos, and, guided by the egregious Jacob and with a diminutive
little Namaqua as a fourth, we retraced our steps along the river-bank,
upstream.
We rested again at the “Ki-man Klip” and tried to lure the big snake
out by means of dynamite, but without avail. We again negotiated
without mishap the various bad places, though my state of blue funk
whilst crossing the sand-slide was not lessened by the fact that a
big crowd of baboons kept pace with us on the rocks above, hooting,
barking, and occasionally sending big stones down at us. But,
scratched, torn, ragged, and sun-flayed, but otherwise sound, we at
length found ourselves back in the Tatas Bergen--where several of
our pegs were already standing. Soon we were on our old tracks, as
our guide stalked up a well-known ravine, and I could see murder in
Ransson’s eye as he chewed at his old brier. But one by one we passed
the ravines leading to our other pegs, and when at length we had to
leave our horses and climb, it was up an entirely new peak, and our
hopes ran high.
At length, on a high ridge, Jacob halted and pointed dramatically
to an outcrop--and copper it was, and a good deal of it. But under
no stretch of the imagination could it be called a “mountain” of
copper--in fact, in no single particular did it answer to the place
described by Preuss.
No! we had been fooled again--though this time I felt our cicerone had
been innocent of intent to deceive, and therefore could not be shot
out of hand--indeed, he had shown us a very nice prospect! So after
we had pegged the spot we sat down and gave him some _tabaki_, and I
questioned him.
“Now, Jacob,” I said, “what sort of a man was this Herr Preuss?”
“Wit man,” he said, promptly.
“Yes, I know he was white, but what was he like? Tall? Short? Fair?
Dark?--what?”
“Ja, Herr Kaptein.” (He always called me “Kaptein” when I gave him
_tabaki_.)
“Was he a big, tall, fair man--like Baas Ransson?”
“Ja, Herr Kaptein.” (Ransson’s about 5 feet, and has the complexion of
a sunburnt Zulu.)
“Lot of hair--big beard like me, eh?”
“Ja, Herr Kaptein.” (I’m bald--no beard.)
“Sure his name was Preuss?”
“Ja, Herr Kaptein.”
“Wasn’t it Smith?”
“Ja, Herr Kaptein.”
“Or Jones--or Brown--or Robinson?”
“Ja, ja, Herr Kaptein.”
“Right,” I said; “this must be the spot. This Court acquits you. Any
man who has been guide to the white man you describe has my sincere
sympathy.”
We spent a few days in the vicinity, finding numerous copper prospects,
and eventually decided to try to reach Kuboos through the mountains
instead of going back by the Orange to Zendling’s Drift. _En route_ we
hoped to be able to look at the “native” copper we had heard so much
about, the road to which was known to both our guides. So we planned to
cross to our previous water-hole in the Gauna Gulip River.
When we arrived at this conclusion we were at a spot some miles from
the Orange, up an unnamed dry river that by compass bearings appeared
to trend in the direction of the Gauna Gulip, from which low, but
rugged and difficult, mountain ridges separated us. So to avoid a
detour of at least two days, we decided to follow up this unknown
ravine instead of retracing our steps, hoping that it would ultimately
converge into the right river-bed, where we should be near water, of
which we had very little.
All the long afternoon we toiled up the defile, the winding sand-bed
rising until the encompassing rocky walls were only a couple of
hundred feet high, but still too steep for horses. At length, just
about sunset, we came to the end of the crumbling schist and a granite
intrusion rose on either hand--huge rounded boulders the size of
cottages piled one upon another and without a vestige of earth or sand
in the network of cavities between them. And after a few hundred yards
of these we were faced by a low connecting granite _nek_, barring our
progress, and abruptly ending the ravine. Over this we were confident
of finding the Tatas River, from which we could easily reach our
destination. I was riding ahead, and found the _nek_ quite easy of
ascent and scarce a hundred feet high. Up this I rode, crossed a few
yards of ridge and looked down--and nearly fell from the pony in sheer
funk!
For I was at the edge of a sheer precipice of 600 or 700 feet in depth,
its face of horrible, smooth, slippery-looking granite, with scarce a
crack or crevice in it to offer foothold for a cat, and with but a few
huge rounded boulders clinging to its face as by a miracle.
It was almost dark, but in the depths below I could see the sand-river
we were bound for, and could have almost dropped a stone into it--but
to attempt to get down to it--even without the horses--looked sheer
madness!
Ransson and the two guides came up, and the latter shook their heads
and clucked and said we must go back--and go round--which would mean
two days to reach the spot below us! Ransson merely grunted and,
getting off his horse, he rummaged in his saddle-bags and produced a
small book.
Now, I had seen this volume before, and its title was _Rambles among
the Alps_, by Whymper, the great Alpine and Himalayan climber. This
pernicious volume had had a most demoralising effect upon Ransson. I
had frequently noticed that whenever we came to a particularly bad
place, where there was a choice of climbing or going round, he would
climb for preference; whilst I meandered round the base of the peak, he
would carefully pick out the most precipitous part of it, where I would
look up at him and see him apparently hanging on by one eyebrow and
flourishing that infernal book. He talked of “crevasses” and “couloirs”
and “glaciers” and other weird things in his sleep, and once, when
I caught him tobogganing down a sand-slope on his only pants, and
reproached him, he had said disdainfully, “My dear chap, I’m simply
practising ‘glissading.’”
So when he now got out that book, and got under a rock and lit a bit of
candle and began to peruse it, I knew what to expect.
I said, “Look here, Ransson, I’m going back.”
He said, “I’m going down.”
I said, “Right! I’ll bury you when I get there in three days’ time.”
“Rot,” he said; “you’ll never make a mountaineer. Why, look what
Whymper says----”
“Damn Whymper!” I said. “We don’t want Whymper, we want Paulham and
Santos Dumont, and aeroplanes and a balloon or two, and a thousand
yards of rope. I’m going back!”
He said, “You’re not. I’m going to take you down--and the horses.”...
And he did.
We tried in either direction for about an hour; but my way it only
got worse, and I could only hold on, and look over and feel giddy. At
times Ransson whooped at me from some awful perch, and I bleated back;
then he remembered Whymper again and tried to “yodel.” Luckily, about
then, little Samuel shouted to me, and getting back to the horses I
found that he had discovered a place where a descent for a man might be
practicable, though for horses it looked madness.
Samuel said we must wait for the _nacht zon_ (night sun), as he called
the moon, and so in the dark we sat and waited for it to rise, whilst
the “boys” clucked and muttered and Ransson sucked his empty pipe and
took intermittent counsel from Whymper by matchlight, and I funked and
worried and wondered why I hadn’t the moral courage to take the whole
crowd back! At long last came the moon, and we started, Sam in advance,
then Ransson and his horse, then Jacob and the pack-mule, whilst I
led my horse, and the expedition, strategically from the rear. For
two hours we clung and stumbled and slid diagonally across and down
that almost perpendicular face, clinging to shrubs, following cracks
where we actually had to place the horses’ hoofs for them, urging them
to scramble over horrible little water-worn places where, once they
lost momentum or hesitated, they must have gone to the bottom, and
eventually striking a very narrow ledge where there was sand and a
firmer footing. I hugged myself, for we surely must be half-way down;
in fact, I had just begun to whistle from sheer relief when Sam--who
had gone on ahead--came back.
We must go back, he said; it was impossible to get through that way; we
must try back above the sand.
Then Ransson went and had a look, and at last I did myself. The
sand-gully ended in a fairly level patch flanked by titanic granite
boulders, and, creeping between, we again looked down a sheer
precipice--in fact, this particular spot overhung the sand about three
hundred feet below. We were dog-tired, and I refused flatly to go a
step farther in the treacherous moonlight. So we off-saddled and turned
in, the last straw being our discovery that the water-bags on the
pack-mule were empty, bone dry. The “boys” had been helping themselves;
and that night we thirsted.
In the morning, parched and anxious, we started back and tried another
route, and after four hours of nightmare, during which Ransson, who
was now ahead, absolutely built a path for the horses over hundreds of
feet, we came safely to the bottom.
A couple of hours’ hurried trek and we reached Gauna Gulip, passing
plenty of springbok on the way and not even troubling to shoot at
them--we were too thirsty.
We found the water in the sand-hole practically finished, and the
trickle quite insufficient to satisfy us, and had to be content with
a kettleful of the horrible stagnant liquid from the open pool,
foul, stinking, and full of animalcules. We strained it through a
handkerchief and made some coffee, and after a brief rest again trekked
up the river-bed, coming at sunset to the base of an abrupt range of
fantastic peaks which appeared impassable. Here we found a tiny pool
of fairly good water, and as our guides told us the huge nugget of
native copper we had come to see lay in the slope above us, we cried
a halt and slept there. In the morning, to my dismay, I found that
Ransson had fever, and though he climbed up to look at the copper, he
was manifestly ill. Close by the tiny pool of water there stood an old
deserted hut of dry branches which offered some little shade from the
terrific heat, and into this he crawled, having taken the last of our
quinine, whilst I took hammer and cold chisel and made my way once more
up to the big nugget. It is an enormous mass of absolutely pure copper,
4 or 5 feet in length, with a girth of 7 or 8 feet--and weighing
several tons.
I endeavoured to cut off a projecting point with hammer and chisel,
the big mass of metal giving forth a most sonorous, bell-like sound at
every stroke I struck, and the effect of the loud ringing clang echoing
from peak to peak in this wild and desolate spot was startling in the
extreme. The mass has been rolled down from the spot, some 40 feet
above, where it once formed an outcrop, and here a shaft of about 8
feet has been sunk, disclosing a thin vein of native copper leading
down from it.
This big “nugget,” which is by far the largest discovered in South
Africa, and is only equalled in size by the huge masses of Lake
Superior, belongs to Mr. Giffen, a Port Nolloth prospector.
I found Ransson still asleep, but when he awoke he said that though
he felt better he had been light-headed a lot, imagining he’d heard a
big church bell ringing all the time! I told him about what I had been
doing with the copper, and he seemed much relieved to find that the
noise had been real instead of imaginary, and would not hear of resting
any longer, though he was obviously unfit to ride.
The guide’s idea had been to cross from this spot to the Gold Camp, and
thence through Hell’s Kloof to Kuboos, where we had sent the waggon;
but this was old ground to us, and we wished to try a new route.
At length Jacob said that he had once been through a pass which would
make a much shorter journey for us, but it was very difficult on foot,
and he doubted if horses could be got through. But after our experience
of the day before anything might be possible, and we decided to try it.
As it would be moonlight we did not start till the cool of evening.
Our track led across difficult foothills of granite débris, broken by
innumerable ravines, to where a gap in the mountain barrier marked
the entrance to the pass. Long before reaching it we struck a dry
river-bed, pleasant with _cameel-doorn_, mimosa, and other greenery,
whilst here and there thick beds of reeds showed that moisture was
still in the soil. Altogether a very pleasant valley, but gradually
the encircling peaks of tilted quartzite narrowed in, and at dusk we
entered a gloomy ravine that led us to a narrow point. Through this,
and we were in an absolute cañon. On either hand the river cliffs
towered up hundreds of feet, in places absolutely overhanging, whilst
the narrow stream-bed up which we struggled was a chaos of fallen
rocks, débris, and huge boulders.
Through this cramped Krantz the wind, concentrated as though driven
through the nozzle of a huge bellows, tore with such force that we
could scarcely make headway even where the going was fair. But hour
after hour we blundered and stumbled and fought our way through this
hideous gorge, in almost Cimmerian darkness, for we had been wrong in
depending upon the moon; her light could scarcely reach us for hours
after the open country had been made almost as light as day. Ransson
was delirious and talking all sorts of rot, and yelling and singing
defiance to the wind, and I was thankful indeed when at length the
moon did appear overhead, and light up our difficult path. Then,
suddenly, the profound gully ended, and we had to negotiate a slope
of quite 45 degrees with scarce foothold for a cat, scrambling up,
and up, breathlessly to a great height. A brief rest on a saddle-back
ridge, a downward plunge into darkness again, through rocks, thorn,
and other impedimenta, and again we were in the gorge. At length we
emerged into a deep crater-like valley surrounded by high peaks,
where we off-saddled and slept beside a tiny pool of water. Morning
showed us most surprising surroundings. We were, in truth, in an
actual crater, the huge encircling walls of which were of a new and
extremely interesting formation. A huge upheaval had taken place at
some remote period, and the riven rocks now reared aloft in abrupt
peaks were of alternate layers of quartzite and of a conglomerate of a
similar nature to the so-called _banket_ of the Rand. Enormous masses
of this “pudding stone,” fallen from the peaks above, now cumbered
the slopes on every side, and the beds of the ravines were full of
it. The peaks showed over a thousand feet of alternate beds of this
ferruginous conglomerate, and its resemblance to the gold-bearing reef
of Johannesburg was so great that we thought we had stumbled on a new
El Dorado.
However, our first few eager pannings were disappointing, for they
showed no free gold; but we had neither tools nor time for a proper
test, for our stores were exhausted, Ransson was still full of fever,
and the fact that a leopard had taken old Ezaak’s dog, quite close to
us, as we had lain sleeping the sleep of exhaustion by the pool, and
without a fire, warned us that we should have dangerous neighbours if
we stayed.
Still, we should certainly return, so with the few samples we could
carry at our saddle-bows we climbed by dangerous paths out of this
strange abyss, passing over ridge after ridge of the same sort of
rock, till late in the afternoon we could see, through a gap in the
mountains westward, yet another range whose characteristic shape showed
them to be granite, and beyond the spur of them a wide, dim expanse
of plain. “Kuboos,” said Jacob, pointing to where mountain and plain
met, and late that night we rode into a dry river-bed where, close to a
beautiful trickle of actually clean water, our waggon was waiting.
Kuboos is really the only “permanent” centre for the Richtersfeldt
Hottentots, for here they have a tiny stone-built mission church,
round which cluster a variable number of mat _pondhoeks_. Practically
the whole of the population called on us the following morning,
bringing goat’s milk in various weird receptacles, amongst them a
number of women and girls of all sizes, all chattering and laughing
gaily, in absolute contrast to the taciturnity of the men. Many of
the younger women were quite good-looking, though their faces were
mostly adorned with the hideous smears of soot and ochre with which
they delight to paint themselves. Each woman carried at her waist
a small tortoise-shell as a “beauty box,” in which was kept these
“beautifiers,” together with a hare’s tail, some sweet-smelling buchu
leaves, and other weird toilet essentials.
Kuboos itself is absolutely without interest. The church, huts, etc.,
stand upon bare foothills of decomposed granite without a sign of
vegetation, for the only “lands” the natives cultivate lie high up
on the top of the magnificent granite range that towers above the
settlement, the path to them being so steep that the corn is brought
down in sleds.
Prominent amongst the soaring peaks of this bold granite barrier is a
striking castellated cluster known as “Kuboos Tower,” the pillars and
buttresses of which might well have been piled aloft by some titanic
builder.
These Hottentots of Kuboos are wretchedly poor, for though nominally a
tiny commonwealth sharing equally their belongings, the fine herds of
cattle and flocks of sheep occasionally met with in the locality do not
belong to them, but to old Jasper Cloete, their nominal chief, a fat,
wily old chap, who could never be cajoled into embracing Christianity
when once he had grasped the fact that to do so he should give up all
his goods and chattels to the common weal. He could hardly be blamed!
Indolent, shiftless, and hopelessly degenerate, these Richtersfeldt
Hottentots, nominally Christians, have all the failings of their
savage forefathers, and of the white man whose “faith” they have
adopted, without the good qualities of either. They have been taught
to chant a few hymns, parrot-fashion, and some of the outward forms of
“Christianity” as disseminated by the Berlin Mission; but witchcraft,
demonology, and all the beliefs of their ancient and more robust
savagery still dominate them when once they are outside their little
stone church at Kuboos. Avowedly, they believe in a resurrection--and
they are devout enough to forgather from far and wide to partake of
_nachtmaal_ once a year. Really, they believe that the soul of the
newly departed takes possession of a jackal--known to them as the
_K’nas Jackhals_, and many a time have I seen the _ouderlings_ (elders)
of this Christian Mission crouching round a camp fire in abject fear
because an unusual-looking jackal had been seen sniffing round the
camp, and they imagined one of the party was about to die and that
the uncanny animal was prowling round waiting for his soul. A mass of
superstition, a race of cadging, whining beggars, the only qualities
they ever possessed--hardihood, courage, endurance--have been
emasculated by their newly acquired “religion,” and they are the least
likeable of any natives I have ever had to suffer.
A few days of interesting prospecting in the vicinity, and I received
a mail with instructions to return temporarily to Cape Town; so,
paying off the “boys,” we sent the waggon direct to Port Nolloth,
whilst Ransson and myself, with our horses and a pack-mule in charge
of little Samuel, took the circuitous route down to the Orange, near
Aries Drift, to look at certain supposed nitrate deposits there, thence
striking across open country to the coast near Buchu Bay, from whence
we followed the coast down to Port Nolloth.
And those last few days were crammed with more discomfort than all the
rest of the trip put together!
For a howling sand-storm battered and choked and half blinded us by
the river, and when, our work finished there, we struck across to the
coast late at night, we were enveloped in a dense sea-fog that drenched
us to the skin. It was intensely cold, too, and when we off-saddled
and tried to sleep we were soon half frozen. Then the sam-pans tackled
us, and I got up with both eyes swollen so that I could not see out of
them, and in a state of intolerable irritation. The sand was very heavy
going, and for two days we rode along the coast against a wind that
the ponies could hardly stand up against, the sand blowing into us at
such a rate that I felt grateful to the sam-pans for bunging my eyes
up. Nothing but monotonous scrub and sand the whole way made the ride
seem interminable, but at length the wind bore the tolling of a bell
to us--the bell-buoy of Port Nolloth--and soon after we rode into that
fag-end of creation itself.
We were in rags, and so frayed and blistered by exposure that we were
not recognised by people who knew us well in the little dorp.
CHAPTER XI
SECOND TRIP TO RICHTERSFELDT--SMASH-UP IN HELL’S KLOOF--CHRISTMAS
AT KUBOOS--TESTING THE “BANKET”--A NEAR THING IN THE RAPIDS--AFTER
A LEOPARD--NEW TRAILS--HOTTENTOT SUPERSTITION--STEWED FLAMINGO AND
OTHER WEIRD DISHES--END OF THE TRIP.
A month later I was again back in Port Nolloth, accompanied by Ransson
and L. Poulley, a Rhodesian to whose imagination the huge beds of
conglomerate we had seen appealed very strongly. We came prepared to
test them thoroughly, and, if possible, to explore the Tatas Berg and
the eastern portion of the district.
The wiseacres of Port Nolloth shook their heads sagely and prophesied
all sorts of dangers and difficulties.
“Prospect the Richtersfeldt in December! Madness ... no water ... heat
like H---- with the lid off,” etc. etc.
But, as events proved, our troubles came from neither of these sources,
for though the heat really merited the description given it, we were
all used to it, and though we suffered a bit from thirst at times, we
had rather too much water before the trip was over.
We had difficulty over the transport, for it was harvest-time and the
natives were busy getting in their corn, and it was only after several
days’ delay that we received an urgent message to the effect that our
waggon was waiting us at “15 miles” and that there was no water for the
oxen. They called them “oxen,” but we found a most nondescript team of
cows, heifers, oxen, and young bulls had been got together to take us
part of the way; still, poor as the team was, it served, and we were
thankful for small mercies. We did not follow our previous route, this
time skirting the mountains running almost due north to Lekkersing and
Brakfontein, at both of which places there was water. At the latter
spot our troubles began. The waggon could take us no farther, and its
native owner had arranged for a conveyance from Kuboos to meet us
there and take us on. So at a most dreary spot, not far from the pool
of brak water that gives the place its name, we were dumped with all
our belongings, and the rickety waggon with its scratch team turned
back hurriedly to the harvesting. Later, our ponies turned up from
Kuboos, and with them, to our dismay, a small cart for our belongings,
which had taxed the capacity of the departed waggon. It was obviously
not half big enough for the load, but to send for another meant
several days’ more delay, and so we turned to and packed and loaded
and overloaded that cart till it looked a veritable work of art. It
was piled aloft like a haystack, and the load projected well over the
quarters of the oxen, overlapped the wheels on either side, and stuck
out behind like the stern of a ship. And always we found something more
to pile--or tie--on, but at length, festooned like a tinker’s waggon,
we had it securely roped and were ready to start.
The oxen were inspanned, the driver gave a yell and a crack of his
whip, and it moved in a swaying, staggering manner across the veldt.
Ransson and Poulley mounted and followed hopefully, and even I began to
think it might possibly pull through, and was climbing into my saddle
when I heard a shout, and turned to see the axle buckle as though made
of lead, the wheels spread till they could spread no farther, and the
whole caboodle collapse--crushed flat by its load.... There was nothing
to be done, and all we said didn’t seem to help! It was hopeless to
attempt to mend it, and so we mounted a “boy” on the fastest horse,
gave him food and water, and sent him off at a gallop to bring another
vehicle from Kuboos.
Meanwhile we pitched our tent and made ourselves comfortable, and
waited four long days. There was literally nothing to do, no game to be
found except a few Namaquas partridges and a solitary hare, which it
seemed a shame to shoot.
At the pool known as “Brakfontein” there were traces of an ancient
settlement, with many of the circular graves made by the Hottentots
before they became Christianised, and in the sandstone cliffs were many
small caves which showed signs of having been inhabited; but I searched
in vain for any trace of Bushman paintings. These sandstones resembled
those of the Zwartmodder series; in places they are interbedded with
shales and quartzite, showing many signs of earth movement and lateral
pressure.
On the morning of the fifth day a light waggon arrived and we lost no
time in trekking. Three days later we were at Kuboos, where we stored
our heavy gear with the native teacher, and began making arrangements
for our next move. Whilst delayed at Port Nolloth we had gathered much
more information as to the old discovery of gold in “Dabee River,”
at which we had worked successfully on our previous trip, and had
arrived at the conclusion that we had been taken to the wrong spot. Our
informants told us that at the right place nuggets could be picked up
in abundance, and it was obvious that they thought little of us for not
coming back with a load of gold!
More, there was forthcoming an intelligent coloured man who had
accompanied the first expedition, and seen and helped pick up the first
nuggets, and who for a substantial consideration would come with us and
show us the real spot.
And as we did not like the idea that possibly an El Dorado was all the
time waiting near where we had tried in vain, we decided to let this
chap take us there, and altered our plans accordingly.
We had no intention, however, of taking a waggon through Hell’s Kloof
again, and tried to obtain a Scotch cart, but in vain. There were
several waggons at Kuboos, but the only cart available was the one we
had placed _hors de combat_. However, it had been dragged in behind
the waggon, and a close examination showed that, although the axle
had buckled to a V-shape, the wheels and body were fairly sound, and
Poulley said we could mend it ourselves. There was plenty of wood in
the river-bed, and, turning to, we soon had a big fire, and the axle
was heated red-hot and hammered straight, and the cart ready to start
again before the group of open-mouthed Hottentots watching us knew what
we were doing.
With a light load drawn by six oxen, our horses, and a few “boys,” we
started the following morning down the long dry Annis River towards
Hell’s Kloof. To the right rose the formidable range through which we
must eventually find a way, on our left, towards the sea, the rolling
plain, covered with dark scrub, stretched as far as the eye could
reach, dreary, solitary, uninhabited.
Far ahead, through the already shimmering heat, lay the dark winding
belt of trees bordering the Orange, and faint against the glaring sky
showed the high, fantastic peaks in German territory.
We were accompanied by two of the Namaqualand District Police, whose
unenviable task it was to search for the body of a Hottentot supposed
to be dead of thirst somewhere in the mountains beyond Hell’s Kloof.
He had been missing for some time, and a relative--a guide who knew
the mountains well--had found his spoor in the Dabee River--close to
where we were returning to try for gold. They are wonderful trackers,
these Hottentots, and this guide could tell that the missing man had
been staggering and in an exhausted condition when he had left our old
water-hole--which was long since dry--and as he (the guide) knew of no
water for a full day’s trek in any direction, he concluded the man was
dead.
Neither of the police had been through Hell’s Kloof before, and they
did not care how soon their unpleasant task was over. A long day’s
ride brought us to near the Numees mine, and early the following day
we started through Hell’s Kloof. The six sturdy oxen were either of
them individually capable of dragging the light cart and its contents
over the greater part of the track--bad as it was--but unfortunately
they were not used to being yoked to anything smaller than a waggon
with a span of about sixteen beasts, and the task of driving them was
an extremely difficult one, as often they were pulling in different
directions. But we successfully negotiated bad spot after bad spot,
and had arrived within sight of the formidable ascent out of the Kloof
which had hung us up before, when, on going down a short but very steep
slope, the leaders jibbed and stopped, the wheelers kept on and ran
into them, and the cart took charge. It side-skidded a yard or two, and
then went down with a run. Smash went the disselboom, into a steep face
of rock went the cart, and bags, boxes, tools, dynamite, bottles of
acid, pestles and mortars went flying in all directions. The detonators
were in my pocket, but still the little hair I have remaining rose as
I saw the case of dynamite describe the arc of a circle in the air a
few feet from me, and come down with a bang on a rock, splitting it
open and scattering the cartridges in all directions. A large glass jar
containing “aqua regia” (a potent mixture of hydrochloric and nitric
acids) also came down on the stones, and, remarkably enough, although
the stopper was broken sheer off, the jar was otherwise uninjured. And
among the débris of our belongings the six oxen plunged and cavorted,
and by the time we had cut them clear everything was stamped flat....
But the cart! It was a mass of splinters, the disselboom in fragments,
and the whole of the forepart wrecked, the ironwork twisted and broken,
and practically nothing intact but the wheels. At first sight it
appeared impossible to ever make a cart of it again, even if we had a
whole waggon-builder’s staff and tools at our disposal; as for doing it
in Hell’s Kloof, the idea was preposterous.
So we called philosophy to our aid, and sat down and had some grub by
the ruins, our police friends bidding us good-bye and riding on ahead
to look for the dead man. And looking at the melancholy wreckage, we
got vicious--that blessed cart had let us down badly at Brakfontein,
and again it had chosen a remote spot to turn and rend us! And Poulley,
after some unpublishable remarks, said, “I’m not going to be beat by
that blamed one-horse shay. I’m going to mend it, or bust!”
Ransson filled his pipe and grunted and waded in to put the pieces
together, and seeing that they would not be disheartened, I got my
pony and rode back to the old deserted mine at Numees, where I had
noticed several old crowbars lying about at the mouth of the adit.
They were about 5 feet long, and heavy and strong, and might serve to
lash together the splintered disselboom, for there was not a stick
of straight wood big enough to cut a new one within days of us. And
by dint of lashing, screwing, nailing, and patching for hours, we at
length got the ruins to look something like a cart again, and could
chance trekking. The oxen rested all these hours, and as the moon would
be high and bright we decided to trek all night, and being utterly
reckless now, we did the rest of the journey at top speed. We took
risk after risk, but our luck held, and also the lashings, and towards
morning we found ourselves again in the sands of Dabee River. We were
dog-tired, but full of curiosity as to where our new guide would take
us. Would it be under the big white reef in the ravine to the left,
where I had always wished to try, or in the gully a mile eastward,
where Ransson had always believed it to be?
On we went by the light of the now sinking moon, over the white sand,
where the waggon spoor of our last trip lay distinct and fresh, between
the dark and solemn mountains, passing unexplored and mysterious
ravines we had never penetrated, on and on over the old spoor, till at
last our guide, who was leading, held up his hand for us to stop.
It was the spot--the same spot we had worked at before, after all!...
We were too tired even to swear, but flung off our saddles and slept
like logs, where we fell.
When we woke we found that Poulley’s head was within a foot of a tiny
bush in which lay coiled the biggest puff-adder I have ever seen, so
big indeed, and so strangely marked, that I believe it to have been a
new variety.
Our guide smiled superiorly when we showed him the work we had done on
our previous visit, and said he would find us nuggets in less than no
time! So we gave him all the “boys” and told him to go to work and find
them; but though we ourselves again searched, washed, and prospected
most thoroughly for several days, neither he nor we could find the
slightest trace of gold! The day after our arrival, the two police with
their guide passed our camp on their way back, having failed to find
the body they were searching for. They were surprised to see us, as
they had believed it impossible to mend the cart and bring it over such
a track. They were glad to replenish their water-bottles, for they had
found no water and had anticipated a thirsty ride back. The body of the
unfortunate Hottentot was eventually found within half a mile of where
we were camped, and the fact that he died of thirst brought home to us
very vividly the dangers of these terrible mountains. Once lost in them
without water, and death is almost certain ... yet water exists here
and there, and, terribly enough, this poor native was within half an
hour of plenty of it when he died of thirst--had he only known the spot.
We had been very short of water on our previous visit here, and as the
summer was now in full swing and most of the water-holes dry, we had
been anxious on this point, but our guide to the gold (?) had also
assured us that he knew of a fine fountain of water near the spot--and
in this respect he was right. For after the first day’s failure in
gold-seeking we thought we had better make sure of the far more
important question of water, and asked him to take us to it. Riding
up one of the tortuous ravines, he led us higher and higher up the
mountains, and I confess that I became more sceptical at every yard.
But at length he brought us to a most curious and beautiful spot. The
gully leading to it gradually narrowed and became more thickly bushed,
and we were now near the mountain-top. Suddenly, after an abrupt turn,
the ravine widened out into a brilliant patch of luscious green grass
surrounded by tall mimosa-thorns full of fragrant yellow blossom, and
hemmed in by almost vertical rocks. At the far end some disruption of
nature had thrown a huge bed of conglomerate across the gap; this mass
was partly overhanging, and from its under-part dripped beautiful clear
water, into a long dark pool below.
The whole of the rock face was a mass of beautiful maidenhair ferns,
from the fronds of which dripped the water, ice-cool and as clear
as crystals. The spot would be wonderful and beautiful even in a
well-watered country; but here, amongst scorching sands and blistering
mountains, where men died of thirst, it seemed little short of
miraculous. So well hidden is it that, unless shown the spot, one might
pass within a few yards of it and never dream that water was near.
Except our guide, none of the other natives knew of the place. He
called it _Ki-Ka-Kam_--“Great Water” in Bushman.
A week of hard work having proved without a doubt that there were no
more nuggets left in Dabee River, we put some more lashings on the
cart, shod our horses--which had been footsore from the blistering heat
of rock and sand--and started back towards Kuboos a few days before
Christmas.
The heat was very great, and as we had doubts as to the cart’s safe
passage back through Hell’s Kloof, Ransson and I divided the dynamite,
each carrying about ten pounds on our saddles.
By noonday the sun beat down with such power that it was impossible to
bear one’s hand on the rifle-barrel; and as the bag of dynamite hanging
at the saddle banged and flopped about in a very alarming manner, I
could not help remembering the instructions on each cartridge--“Not to
be exposed to the rays of a tropical sun.”
Ransson and Poulley were miles ahead, and once or twice, as the bag
seemed to smoke, I felt inclined to untie it and “forget” to bring it
along, but I knew Ransson wouldn’t do so, and so I decided to wait and
see if he blew up first. By the time we got into Hell’s Kloof the air
was simply sizzling, and I rode with shut eyes, trying to keep myself
cool by thinking of the snow in England at Christmas, and wishing
I were sitting deep in it instead of in a red-hot saddle there in
Namaqualand. Just then there came a terrific bang from ahead of me.
“Great Scott!” I thought, as my old nag shied and nearly bucked me off,
“that’s poor old Ransson gone--and he’s got my pipe.”
My rifle-butt hit the dynamite an awful whack as the pony pawed round
trying to get rid of me; and altogether I was by no means dull for a
minute or two. Then Poulley came running up the path towards me.
“Ransson?” I gasped. “Has he bust?”
“Bust be hanged!” he snorted. “Wish he had! Fired at a buck, a fine,
fat, juicy klipbok, and missed it clean, at twenty yards! It’s gone up
this gully. Get off, you fathead, and come on! We must get him for our
Christmas dinner!”
Behold me, then, forgetting snow, forgetting heat, forgetting both
dynamite and Fahrenheit--for we did want buck-meat badly--and leaving
the old nag to wander at will and get itself blown to smithereens if
need be, I climbed down and chased after Poulley, already panting
his perspiring way up the steep side-gully. What idiots we were, to
be sure--that buck simply laughed at us! We must have chased him for
fully two hours, but at length we had to give him best. No roast buck
for that Christmas, and, sadder and thirstier men, we had to scramble
our way back into the alleged path where we had left our horses. When
we got down into the oven-like gully again Ransson stood holding the
two nags and smoking ruminatingly. “It hasn’t gone off yet,” he
said--which was pretty obvious.
We got through the kloof at length and off-saddled, gingerly removing
the dynamite to some distance, and covering it with _melkbosch_, for
the only shade within about twenty miles at that time was given by a
solitary _Aloe dichotoma_ that stands at the entrance to the pass, and
under whose square yard of shadow we all three had to squat.
The heat was so great that the oxen, when outspanned, made no effort to
move, but simply stood in their tracks, lifting one foot after another
from the burning sand.
We arrived at Kuboos on Christmas Eve, and decided to at least rest on
Christmas Day before starting again.
We wanted meat badly, but the natives would not kill a sheep on
Christmas Eve, and it began to look like a Christmas dinner of sardines
and bully beef.
But Christmas morning brought us luck, for the granite rocks were
covered with pigeons, and the twenty-odd that Poulley shot saved
the situation. Of them, with a scrap of bacon and some tinned peas,
we made a gorgeous stew: we had raisins and currants in the waggon,
saved for this very occasion, and made a very creditable pudding in
a prospecting-pan; we baked fresh _roster-kook_ and later we feasted
right royally.
We had even a tot of brandy each from our “medical stores,” and as
we had what is much more precious in Namaqualand--plenty of good
water--and a shady tree to lie under, we had a splendid time, and
altogether spent a far saner Christmas than we should have done in
civilisation. The dissipation of Christmas over, we started for the
conglomerates. To reach there a cart was out of the question; indeed,
we were not at all sure that horses would be able to get through with
anything like a pack. So we travelled light, walking most of the way,
and striking south-east into the valley between the T’Houms Mountains.
Huge granite boulders the size of suburban villas choked the valley
as we penetrated farther, making progress extremely difficult and
tedious, and nightfall found us still struggling in this unnamed ravine.
[Illustration: LAUNCH OF THE “OUTRIGGER.”]
[Illustration: “OUTRIGGER” ON WHICH WE CROSSED TO THE GERMAN POST AT
ZENDLING’S DRIFT.]
Only well on to midday the next day did we leave it to clamber up a
mountain slope as steep as a roof. Then came half a day of incessant
effort, without a vestige of a path, to heights where a vast panorama
of peaks lay spread beneath us, all of them nameless, untrodden,
unknown. At length a game path was struck which led us to a lovely
little pool of water surrounded by thick grass, and it would be hard
to say which of the two our ponies enjoyed the more. Late in the day,
and after severe clambering, we reached a peak and looked down into
a basin below, completely surrounded by almost precipitous walls of
conglomerate. It was our “plum,” the place we believed would make our
fortunes; and plunging down the precipitous slope at imminent risk of
breaking our necks, we found ourselves at the tiny pool of water known
as “Quagga,” where we intended making our camp. There was a sufficiency
of water, though it was getting black and smelt bad, and by it we
rigged up a few bushes as a bivouac--for we brought no tent.
Our hopes were high, for, as I have before mentioned superficially, the
conglomerates were identical with the Rand _banket_; but again we were
doomed to disappointment, many days of most laborious work, crushing
and panning bed after bed, utterly failing to find even a “colour.”
At length a nugget the size of a pin’s head rewarded us, and we
decided that Ransson should remain at the spot and further test its
possibilities, whilst Poulley and I would take a rapid trip round our
former peggings.
As our stores were principally at Kuboos, from whence we occasionally
got a mule-load over the extremely difficult mountain path, we
travelled on the scantiest of rations, each man carrying a little tea,
sugar, coffee, and meal on his saddle, and depending on our guns for
anything more substantial. The difficult ravine which we had previously
traversed by moonlight was safely negotiated, though daylight showed
us that it was every whit as formidable as we had imagined. We passed
the night at the tiny pool of water below the big copper nugget, and
as we had seen no sign of game, our supper was not a heavy one. Next
day we were off well before sun-up, anxious to shoot something for the
pot, but it was not till late in the afternoon that Poulley spotted a
_klomp_ of springbok on the sandy, kopje-studded plains over which we
were now travelling. The wavering mirage made shooting difficult, but
at length he bagged one, and we slung it over the saddle and hurried
on, for we were belated, and wished to reach the Orange before dark.
We cut into a sand-river that looked like bringing us out by the Tatas
Berg, but it turned out to be more than usually tortuous, and it was
late at night when we reached the welcome river. Too tired to eat,
we did not take the precaution to clean the buck, with the result
that, getting up ravenous the next morning, and longing for a good
buck steak, we found our hard-earned quarry green, putrid, and quite
uneatable. Even Sam, the “boy” with us, could not face it, and as we
were extremely sharp-set, and longing for something other than heavy
_roster-kook_, I suggested dynamiting a pool for fish.
So we stripped, and I threw a charge with a short fuse and detonator
into a deep-looking pool near by. As usual, however, there was
little to show for such a splash--nothing, in fact, but half a dozen
springers, the size of herrings.
I was busily swimming about, catching these and throwing them to
Poulley on the bank. Suddenly he crouched down.
“Hush!” he said. “Bob your head under, or pretend to be a rock or
something--there’s a wild goose!” And he hopped off to the trees where
the guns lay, doing good time, considering he was Adam-naked and the
ground was covered in thorns.
Meanwhile I tried to look as much like a rock as possible, for wild
geese are the most wary of birds, and I floated round with little but
my nose above the water, mentally cooking that goose, and eating him
without sage and onions. Then Poulley came creeping back with the gun,
and started out on a spit of rock towards the rapids. Then I heard the
goose “get up and get,” and saw it going down beyond a small island the
wrong side of the rapids--within easy range, if we could only get to
the island.
Poulley beckoned me and said, “You swim better’n I do--wade across and
get it.” And, like an ass, I thought I could. The rapids looked little
more than fifty yards of waist-deep water, though lower down the whole
width of the river was a mass of broken foam, and I thought that, with
a long pole to steady me, I could get over easily. So I got a stick and
my hat, and started. I put the pole in, and one leg up to the knee,
and immediately found the current much stronger than I expected; a
second step, and I was thigh-deep on a slippery rock, and trying to
lean upstream to counteract the force of the water; a third--and I was
engulfed in a whirling torrent, and well on my way to the Atlantic. I
kept the gun above water instinctively, and spinning like a top, my
head also came above water, giving me a glimpse of Poulley staring
open-mouthed at me from the bank, which was already well behind, whilst
the water dragged and buffeted me, striking me against rock after
rock. I was handicapped by the gun, which I did not wish to lose; but
realising that in a few more seconds I should be in the main rapids,
and that it was better to lose the gun than my life, I was just about
to let it go, when I brought up violently against a rock well out of
water and was able to grab a projecting point. I hung on and got the
gun out, and eventually dragged myself out of the swift current on to
the rock, whence I was able to make my way to a point near enough the
bank for Poulley to throw me a rope and help me out again.
I was cut, scratched, and bruised very badly, but thankful to be alive
at all, for had I been swept but a few inches farther from the rock,
I must have lost my life; as it was I lost my hat--no light loss in
the middle of summer in Namaqualand. It taught me a lesson--never to
attempt wading even the most innocent-looking rapid in the Orange.
Meanwhile we also lost the goose, and for the next few days our rations
were extremely scanty, an occasional dassie or small turtle-dove--as
tough as leather--being all we were able to shoot.
A week spent in the grand gorges and on the precipitous peaks of the
little-known Tatas Berg found us an abundance of copper indications,
but never a buck, and we started our return journey to Zendling’s
Drift, by this time almost rationless, our coffee and sugar gone, our
tobacco likewise, and a few handfuls of meal and a little tea our only
standby. And still the game fought shy of us. There were numerous small
birds in every tree, brilliant of plumage and of infinite variety,
but absolutely nothing to warrant a charge of “No. 6.” Occasionally a
majestic fish-eagle would sail away from the top of a dead tree to a
similar perch across the river, and dozens of grey monkeys chattered
at us from the topmost branches of _cameel-doorn_ and willow; here and
there a huge leguaan (that monster of lizards, 6 or 7 feet in length),
belonging to the monitor species, would plunge from the bank into the
water, and baboons hooted at us the live-long day from the rocks above;
but none of these appealed to us--as food.
One incandescent day, when we had bathed and were lolling for a midday
spell on a patch of emerald sward near!!Ariep!!, we were lucky enough
to witness a scene I am never likely to forget, and would not have
missed for anything. Here the river is particularly beautiful; there
are numerous small islands, covered with dense thickets of reeds,
that are a favourite feeding-place for the few hippo still left in
the Orange. Some of them are well wooded with high willows of a
particularly vivid green, and on the overhanging branch of one of these
I saw a baboon appear, clamber out to the extremity, stand up at full
height, and dive into the deep pool beneath just as a man would do. He
was followed by another and another, until there were at least a score
of them climbing, diving, swimming to the bank, and up the tree again,
in an endless chain, splashing each other, and enjoying themselves
exactly like a crowd of schoolboys.
On the third day the sky became overcast, but we had been so long
without seeing rain that we disregarded the signs of its coming. Late
that evening we arrived at our old camp beneath the willows, opposite
the “Ki-man” rock, the long stretch of still water a pool of liquid
fire from the reflection of a most lurid and threatening sunset.
The finely powdered silt made a soft bed, and I slept well, but I awoke
to find the rain coming down in sheets, and everything we had soaking
wet. The willows were useless as shelter, and the silt soon became a
peculiarly slimy and tenacious mud. Daylight came and still it poured;
our saddles were like wet brown paper, and we decided to wait where we
were till the weather changed. To pass the time, we again exploded a
big charge of dynamite as near to the “Ki-man” rock as we could throw
it, but no “Groot Slang” appeared. Utterly bored, and already longing
for the sun we had grumbled at for months, we sent the “boy” for the
horses, resolving to trek, rain or no rain, when suddenly a big troop
of baboons appeared on the top of a precipitous kopje above us, and
commenced turning the stones over for the scorpions on which they
often feed. Almost immediately came a terrific outburst of grunts,
barks, yells, and screams, and we saw them flying in all directions,
leaving one of the younger ones in the clutch of a fine big leopard. It
shook its prey for a moment like a cat shakes a rat, and with a bound
disappeared behind a rock near the summit of the peak.
Poulley grabbed the gun. “I’m going up to get him,” he said, jamming in
the cartridges.
“He’s more likely to get you,” I warned him, but he was too wet and
wild to take any notice of me, and of course I could not let him go
alone. So in the pouring rain we two abject idiots started climbing up
an almost vertical precipice, the rocks slippery and treacherous with
the wet, and giving the most precarious foothold in the best of places.
Poulley was ahead with the combination gun; I followed with my heavy
Webley revolver. How we got up I hardly know; every time my leader
dislodged a stone it had to come my way, and once or twice big ones
weighing a hundredweight missed me by inches. I would have given a good
deal to turn back, but on he kept till he reached the spot where the
leopard had taken his prey. What would have happened had it still been
there I am at a loss to say, for we could not have used our weapons
without imminent risk of shooting each other, to say nothing of falling
several hundred feet. Luckily, however, he had gone, and I, at any
rate, was profoundly thankful.
So we came down and saddled up and started again, and all that
miserable day it rained, and all that night and all the next day,
making the difficulties of the track double, for the rocks were so
slippery with the slimy silt that it was almost impossible to stand on
them, and the horses floundered as though shod with roller-skates. We
had nothing to eat but mealie pap, for our meal was too sodden to make
the more comforting _roster-kook_, even when we succeeded in making
a fire. On the morning when we arrived in sight of Zendling’s Drift
there was a gleam or two of sunshine, but the banking-up of enormous
thunder-clouds showed that we were in for something worse than we had
had, and we hurried on to try, if possible, to get where the trees were
thick and we might rig up some kind of shelter.
I was ahead with the gun to try and get something for the pot, and was
within a mile of the drift when the first big drops began to fall. Then
came a flash of lightning, and, though I galloped, by the time I got
to the drift I was in the midst of the most terrific thunderstorm I
have ever experienced. The rain fell in sheets and the crash of the
thunder was continuous, whilst all around the forked lightning stabbed
and flickered and lit the murk with an incessant play of flame. The
trees were worse than useless, and the water ran in at my shirt-collar
and out of my boots, as for two hours I stood by my frightened horse
and waited for the storm to abate, and hoped that we should not get
struck--but doubted!
Then Poulley came up half drowned, and with the “boy” in a state of
the most abject terror. As soon as they reached me he threw himself on
the ground and hid his face, cringing and muttering at every peal and
flinching at every flash. Below, the river was rising fast, and between
the peals of thunder the rush of the rapids could be heard joining
with the howling of the wind and the swish of the rain in a monstrous
symphony.
At length there was a slight abatement, the clouds lifted somewhat and
we could see Jackal’s Berg, a mile or so away, and the play of the
lightning on the enormous iron reef that forms its “backbone” was a
sight never to be forgotten. The lull was but temporary, and again the
storm burst upon us with awful force, and it was nearly sunset when
the heavy batteries moved slowly away towards the distant mountains,
leaving us like drowned rats, but unhurt.
Our mealie meal was a mass of sodden pap, our little remaining tea
spoiled, and our sole ration a solitary tin of sardines, not much
amongst three hungry men. Our matches, too, were sodden, and but for
the “boy’s” flint and steel we should have been in a bad plight; but he
soon recovered from his scare and made us a roaring fire, for wood was
plentiful.
With the lifting of the clouds we at once saw that since my last visit
the Germans had built quite an imposing-looking station, with a good
many rooms in it, over which the German flag was trying to fly in spite
of its drenched condition. We slept as near the huge fire as possible,
but in the night it rained again, and our discomfort was added to by
the fact that we were still hungry and had little hope of food for the
morrow.
In the morning we found a few miserable Hottentots crouching in wet
_pondhoeks_ near the drift, and tried to buy a goat from them, but they
would not sell; and we were just debating whether we should not take
one by force when a flock of pigeons saved the situation--and the goat.
Then a brace of “pheasants” (the lesser bustard) came Poulley’s way,
and we were in clover.
Here Poulley left me to ride to Port Nolloth and Cape Town, whilst I
returned alone over the mountain to Ransson. He had been unable to
locate a single speck of gold further than the one we had found before
leaving, and we reluctantly decided to abandon the conglomerate--though
I am still of the opinion that some of the innumerable beds or reefs
there will eventually be found to be auriferous.
The water at “Quagga” was by this time almost putrid, and as some
Hottentots had now appeared on the scene with a large flock of sheep
and some cattle which fouled and further diminished the supply every
day, we spent several days in exploring the many deep ravines and
kloofs in the hope of finding other water-holes. One day, whilst thus
engaged, Ransson had an adventure which might have proved very serious.
He had descended a deep and narrow defile leading down from an old
watercourse in the mountains. As he got deeper the gorge narrowed until
it became a veritable cañon, gloomy, dark, and profound. The walls
were in places barely 6 feet apart, and towered up on either hand
perpendicularly for many hundreds of feet, and the whole of this deep
rent or crack in the earth--for it was little more--was worn ice-smooth
by the action of water. It was towards evening, and only a little light
filtered into the place. Here and there came a straight drop of 8 or
10 feet, and it was after negotiating several of these that Ransson,
peering down, caught sight of the tops of some rushes in a wider space
below, and knew he was near water. He swung himself down another abrupt
narrow place, and suddenly became aware of a strong bestial smell. He
cocked his rifle, and peered into the gloom, and his eyes, gradually
becoming accustomed to it, showed him that he was in the midst of a big
troop of huge baboons. They were absolutely motionless, watching him;
they were on every hand, on every projection of rock, above him, below
him, before him, and behind him, for he had passed some of them without
seeing them, and so near were several that he could have touched them
with his rifle. And there they sat, as still as statues, and glared at
him; and Ransson said that it was one of his most uncanny experiences
to see all those pairs of eyes glowering on him in the gloom. To shoot
would probably have meant being torn limb from limb; to turn his back
on them and climb the slippery rock would have left him at their mercy;
to go on was impossible, as there was a sheer drop of 20 feet into
the water. In this dilemma he did quite mechanically what he could
not have bettered by hours of thinking, for he pulled out his matches
and lit his pipe. And as the little flame flickered up one of the big
baboons--they are huge fellows in these mountains--gave a hoarse,
grunting call, and away the whole troop fled, actually brushing against
Ransson as they did so, clambering up the almost vertical rocks, and
disappearing almost instantly.
I went to the spot the following day, taking a rope with me and a
“boy,” whilst Ransson tried to reach the other end of the gorge by
a circuitous route. Making fast the rope, I easily got down to the
rushes, and found an abundance of water in this hollow place, which was
circular and wider than the ravine, and the walls of which overhung.
At the far extremity the ravine continued downward in a cleft of about
8 feet wide, and I burst through the reeds and looked down. Below was
another basin, nearly full of black water; it looked very deep, and its
overhanging sides were so smooth that had a man fallen in he could
never have got out. Altogether it was a gruesome-looking spot, for the
sun at noonday only sent a few flickering rays into the ravine above,
and never reached the black, dead water. Beyond the smooth lip of this
big basin the ravine fell sheer for two or three hundred feet, and
further progress was out of the question.
A day’s ride due east from Quagga, in country quite unknown to any of
our “boys,” we located another fine water-hole. We wished to attempt to
reach the Orange in that direction, but the “boys” said we should never
get through the mountains. There was the usual tale of no water, though
one of them said his father had told him of a spot in that direction
where there was a big _fontein_, but no one had been there for years,
and that it was _verloren_ (lost). It was useless taking the “boys,” so
Ransson and I set out with our ponies and two days’ water, to attempt
to find a way through.
Late in the afternoon we climbed the last rise that hid our view to
the east, and saw below us a long valley widening in the distance and
flanked by abrupt and lofty peaks. The range to the left was continuous
and almost vertical, leading to the serried peaks directly ahead that
hid the Orange. We got down a breakneck slope into this valley, and
found the usual sand-river that made fairly easy going. As usual there
was no vestige of a trail, the whole land being apparently devoid
even of animal life, silent, deserted, melancholy. We followed the
sand-river till nightfall, and slept on its clean soft bed; and we
hoped by following it patiently we should surely come to the Orange,
but just after our start in the morning it branched in several
directions. Whilst uncertain which to follow, we came upon the spoor of
a naked foot, old, but showing up clear and fresh in the sand, and so
unusual a find, in this deserted country, that we gazed upon it with
something like the feelings of Robinson Crusoe on a like occasion. As
in all probability it would lead us to the river or to other water,
we decided to follow it. It led us on for hours, up branch-ravines
we should never have thought of entering, and at length into a narrow
gap in the abrupt wall of mountains. At the mouth of this gap we found
the “Lost Water” that Klaas had heard of, a beautiful little pool of
clear spring-water surrounded by reeds and a tree or two, an ideal
little oasis in the desert. But, with the exception of the solitary and
obviously old spoor that led us to it, there was no sign that the place
had been visited for many years. The only indication that man had ever
been there before were a few bleached and gnawed human bones under the
biggest tree--possibly those of him who had made the spoor!
The valley was full of good grass, there was sufficient water for a
good herd of cattle, but the whole land lay deserted. Probably the
fact that the valley is hemmed in by mountains on all sides keeps the
Hottentots from visiting it, and there are many such spots in this
little-known region. Having found the water, we pushed on for the
Orange, though as we approached the mountains that hemmed it in I
began to despair of ever getting through, so rugged and precipitous
were they. Our only hope was to follow the principal dry river-bed,
though these often end in a _cul-de-sac_. But our luck held, and after
interminable twisting and turning in what was surely the most tortuous
ravine of all this labyrinth, getting gradually into the heart of the
mountains, and being confronted, time after time, with a seemingly
impassable barrier, we suddenly found the narrow passage blocked by a
bank of dry silt 15 or more feet in height. Over this a sheer precipice
faced us, seemingly but a few yards distant, and it appeared that the
Orange must be beyond it, and that we must seek another path. But,
scrambling up the silt, we saw dense trees immediately below us and
heard the song of birds again, and within a few yards had burst through
the undergrowth and were on the bank of the river. The precipice was
on the farther side, in German territory, a sheer mountain face rising
abruptly from the water, which at this spot was scarce a hundred yards
from bank to bank. The narrow belt of vegetation on either bank had
scarce clinging room, and above rose the wall of mountains. Much of the
rock was crystalline limestone, beautiful marble, white and pink, whole
mountains of it. The narrow belt of trees was extremely hard to break
through, though old blaze marks on certain big trees showed we were not
the first to visit the spot, as we well might have been. There were
leopard spoors everywhere, and whole troops of baboons on the rocks
above. We made our horses fast on a patch of grass and worked our way
along the bank for a mile or so, but as far as we could see no other
outlet pierced the cliffs on our side of the river, and upstream our
way was soon blocked by a place where vegetation ended and the vertical
cliff overhung the black water. The spot, though beautiful, had
something awe-inspiring about it: the sight of this big body of water,
silent, lonely, and mysterious, flowing from unknown reaches, pent in
between these gigantic walls, and so hidden in this land of thirst
through which it flows that the wayfarer might well die of thirst
within a few hundred yards of it, appealed strongly to the imagination
of men who, like ourselves, had the fear of thirst and the anxiety of
constantly searching for water always before them.
We swam over to the German bank, where a bare 10 feet of soil clung
to the base of the cliff. High up on the latter the marks of ancient
floods showed that a rise of fully 40 feet above the present level
had more than once occurred; and, remembering that heavy rainfall
up-country might at any time bring a repetition, we resolved to get
out into the open again as soon as possible. So we stayed but the one
night, in the middle of which Ransson’s horse was cruelly mauled by
a leopard, which meant that we had to walk most of the way back to
“Quagga,” where we found the “boys” just organising a search-party
to look for us. A jackal had haunted the camp every night we had
been away, and they had no doubt whatever that it was the _K’nas_,
or spirit jackal, and that one of the party was doomed. To their
horror Ransson said that for his part he believed the jackal was the
doomed party, and, sure enough, that evening he shot the poor animal.
Unfortunately, he did not bring it into camp, but left it lying about
a hundred yards away, where he shot it, and in the morning it was
gone. Probably a hyena had taken it, for both the _stronte wolf_ and
the _tijger wolf_ are common in these mountains; but we could see no
spoor, and of course this circumstance was a triumphal vindication of
our “boys’” belief in the supernatural character of the visitor. They
clucked and jabbered more than ever they had done, and were obviously
scared out of their wits and likely to desert.
Old Klaas told us that in addition to the “Ghost Jackal,” these hills
were the haunt of a big snake with the head of a goat, which devoured
men. Many men had seen this snake, men he had known had been taken
by it, and every Richtersfeldt Hottentot believed in it. According
to Klaas, it had a playful little peculiarity of being able to emit
a blast of air so strong that it would knock down a man whilst still
many yards distant from it. It is in no way to be confounded with the
_Ki-man_ of the “Groot Rivier,” which, as I have described, we had
already sought the acquaintance of unsuccessfully. I asked Klaas if any
trace of this goat-headed monstrosity had been seen around our camp,
and he said, “No,” but they had heard it repeatedly for the last two
days.
“Hark!” he said, a moment later; “there it is,” and the other “boys”
stood in strained, listening attitudes, with fear written upon their
faces. We listened too ... all we could hear being the deep cooing of
the large speckled-breasted rock-pigeon. At least so it seemed to us.
But Klaas would have none of our laughter; he said, in effect, that
we were deaf as all white men were, and could not tell one sound from
another; and truly deaf we were in contrast to these Hottentots, whose
sight and hearing were marvellously acute. Anyhow, we got our guns
and tried to locate the sound, but could not; not a “boy” would follow
us and we saw no pigeons, and the sound was so baffling that, though
it never seemed far away, we had to give up without discovering what
really made it. It is quite conceivable that very large rock-pythons
still exist in these mountains, but we saw none, though some of the
puff-adders were so huge as to almost point to their belonging to
another species to the ordinary “puff.”
These and a large number of the small horned adder (Cerastus) and an
occasional cobra were the only snakes, and all of these were greatly
feared by our “boys.” They all carried an antidote to snake-bite in the
shape of a few dried chips, twigs, and bark of a small shrub they call
_gif houd_ (poison-wood). On being bitten by snake or stung by spider
or scorpion, they chew some of this, immediately applying some of the
pulp to the wound, and swallowing the remainder. Peculiarly enough,
they dread in particular the small sand-gecko, which is so numerous
that at sunset its cricket-like chirrup is heard everywhere, and which
all scientists assert to be harmless. But the Hottentots believe it
to be deadly, and quote numerous cases of men being found dead with a
sand-gecko in their clothes or blankets.
But to return to our gold-seeking, which we did day after day, whilst
the water dwindled, as did our hopes. Not another speck of gold did we
find, nor did any test that my small field laboratory allowed me to
carry out give me any encouragement. The likeness to Rand _banket_ was
remarkable, the important difference being that the gold was wanting.
And convinced of this at last, and with an additional reason in the
fact that we had lived for days on klipbok flesh alone, without bread,
and short rations of nearly putrid water, we despondently packed up our
gear and returned over the mountains to Kuboos.
Here I got letters, including certain instructions which sent me
bucketing off again to Zendling’s Drift, accompanied only by Klaas,
whilst Ransson and his henchman proceeded to a spot about twenty
miles lower downstream. My work at Zendling’s concluded, I tried to
rejoin him by following the river-bank; but after two days of cutting
and hewing through densely tangled thorn scrub and fallen trees, I
found that, with a horse at any rate, it was impossible to make a
way through, and had reluctantly to make a long detour through the
mountains. I was absolutely out of stores, and the last two days
Klaas and I lived on a tin of jam and a small tin of rancid sardines,
without bread or any substitute for it. And I was therefore glad to
find Ransson with a steaming three-legged pot full of flamingo. He shot
these each day with a rifle as they strutted on a sand-spit on the
German side, for his stores were finished too, and we had no chance of
replenishing. And there was still a good deal to be done. But good as
the flamingoes tasted, they soon got shy and we were often extremely
hard put to it, for there was no game near this spot. And so I came to
actually enjoy dassie, and to forbear to turn my nose up at roasted
leguaan’s tail, and to be thankful for a good many other weird dishes
which I had, perhaps, better not particularise.
Varied as was our diet, however, our work was now monotonous, and, as
it lay in ground already described, would be of little interest to the
reader; and a few weeks later we returned to Port Nolloth and Cape
Town. Before proceeding to the latter I travelled again to Steinkopf
to endeavour to find out more of a certain big diamond that a native
had once sold there for a waggon and a number of oxen, but could get no
definite information, as the man had left the mission some time. Mr.
Kling, however, promised to get me full information later; meanwhile he
was confident upon one point: the stone had come from somewhere above
the Great Falls, and my thoughts travelled back to Brydone’s story and
the “pans” of the Kalahari.
Meanwhile these two long trips in the least-known part of Klein
Namaqualand had made a profound impression upon me. True, we had
tried in vain for gold, but we had been misled into frittering much
valuable time away, and, considering the size of the region we had
penetrated, we had, after all, barely scratched it. There were hundreds
of reefs we had not even sampled, hundreds of gullies where the most
promising-looking gravels lay deep and undisturbed, for we had been
handicapped by the Namaqualander’s greatest handicap--want of water.
Copper there was in bewildering abundance, galena, iron, and the
other base metals on all hands, and in the few places where water had
allowed of “panning” the results had often been surprising. But widely
distributed as were these mineral riches, it was perfectly obvious that
to exploit them to any advantage would mean a colossal scheme with a
colossal capital.
CHAPTER XII
BRYDONE’S DIAMONDS--THE GREAT FALLS OF THE ORANGE--MOUTH OF THE
MOLOPO--BAK RIVER--THE GERMAN SOUTH-WEST BORDER--KAKAMAS--LITTLE
BUSHMAN LAND.
In Cape Town I found a most encouraging budget of news awaiting me from
my energetic friend in Upington. Ever since my return from Rietfontein
through that unsophisticated village (?) he had been collecting and
collating every scrap of intelligence he could gather relating to
the old legend of a rich diamond-mine in the Noup Hills, below the
Great Falls of the Orange, and which for shortness I shall refer to
as “Brydone’s diamonds”; and he had come to the conclusion that not
only did the spot exist, but that he had sufficient data to enable him
to proceed directly to it. The only doubt he expressed was whether
the spot would be found to be on British or German territory, for
everything pointed to its being just about where the twentieth degree
of east longitude formed the boundary between the two. Probably, had
I been critical, I should have discovered that a good many of his
deductions were far from logical; but his glowing accounts tallied
greatly with my own belief and with the vague stories I had heard from
both natives and whites, and any little hesitation I felt was finally
disposed of by still another urgent letter and some wires conveying
the satisfactory news that a guide had been found who could take us to
the actual spot. That settled it, and I immediately set about looking
for a partner, and soon found a most satisfactory one in the person
of a German named Paul, who had been a most successful diamond-digger
at Harrisdale and Bloemhof, and who wanted a few more. In addition to
his expert qualification as a digger, I felt that I had been lucky in
striking this man, for he told me, as soon as I broached the subject
to him, that he had heard of this spot whilst in German West, and
had even made an attempt to reach it, but had been prevented by the
authorities. Here then, apparently, was additional proof that this
Golconda existed; a bargain was struck, and we were soon on our way
to Upington. Except for the fact that, during a bitterly cold night
in a Cape cart on the veldt between Prieska and our destination, I
contracted pneumonia, we reached our enthusiastic partner in safety,
and after a few days’ annoying delay, during which I coughed and fumed
and fretted and feared that someone would forestall us, we started off
in the most overcrowded Cape cart I have ever squeezed into. Paul was a
big, hefty chap; de Wet, our guide, at least a six-footer; Smidt, the
driver, bigger still; and Borcherds, the “cheerful optimist,” weighed
about as much as any two of them put together. We had reduced stores
to a minimum, expecting to shoot for the pot; tools also were but few;
for were we not to be led straight to the spot where we could pick the
diamonds up? But even so, there were certain essentials: guns, a pick
and shovel, a water-cask, emergency rations, sleeping-gear, etc.; and
when, after several readjustments, I got all the foregoing jammed into,
or tied on to, the cart, we suddenly remembered that a place had still
to be found for me. However, a Cape cart is a wonderful vehicle, and
at last it was managed, and we trotted out of Upington on September
13th, 1911, the observed of half its inhabitants--two of whom again
paid me the compliment of trying to jump my claim by the Gordonian
method of “following” a mile or two ahead. We had six spanking mules,
and made good progress downstream, near the bank of the river, which
is here very beautiful; smiling “lands” of wonderful fertility showing
what irrigation can do with the belt of silt brought down by this Nile
of South Africa: vineyards, orchards, corn-lands, lucerne, oranges,
fruit-trees--and all flanked abruptly by stony sterile desert or red
sand-dunes, outliers of the Kalahari stretching to the north. Into
these dunes the “road” soon led, and within a few miles of Upington the
mules were straining at a cart up to the hubs almost in heavy sand.
At nightfall we were at Keimoes, a most fertile little village,
afterwards made famous as the scene of a fight with the infamous
Maritz, who was wounded there. Here we slept, and getting away early
and pressing on the whole of the day, were at North Furrow, opposite
Kakamas, by nightfall, having done a good fifty miles of extremely
heavy going in a little over a day and a half. Kakamas itself, the
“Labour Colony,” the pioneer irrigation settlement of the Orange
River, is on the southern bank and we were on the northern, and I had
no opportunity then of seeing the actual village. We passed the night
at Krantz Kop, with a most hospitable store-keeper named Miller, whose
well-stocked little Winkel was at that time a good 200 miles from
the railway (at Prieska), and the last store, indeed almost the last
dwelling, in British territory. Here a few well-disseminated lies as
to our destination had the effect of ridding us of the claim-jumpers,
who had kept in sight of us from Upington, and who rode away before
daybreak the following morning in the wrong direction entirely.
From Krantz Kop downstream towards the German border the roads are
atrocious for a few miles, and then cease altogether. The only track
leads away from the river, crossing stony kopjes where every step
tempts a smash-up, and leading directly towards a formidable barrier
of red-hot-looking peaks. The surroundings become wilder at every
step, and the strange shapes of the peculiar-looking vegetation,
_koker-boomen_ (_Aloe dichotoma_), thorny candelabra euphorbia, and a
variety of _melkbosch_ exactly like gigantic asparagus, lend a weird
aspect to the landscape. The prevailing granite--pinkish and speckled
with a profusion of rock garnet--is broken by numerous quartz reefs
which, as one approaches the German border, gradually change from
pure white through every shade of pink to the most beautiful of rose
quartz, which in numerous instances becomes amethystine and ranges from
heliotrope down to deep purple. Many of these reefs are full of large
crystals of jet-black tourmaline, beautifully faceted, and often as
thick as one’s wrist.
On the horizon, westward, a jagged line of fantastic-looking peaks
show faintly blue in the shimmering heat, prominent among them being
the two pointed _spitz kopjes_ which mark the spot where the Molopo
joins the Orange. Away on the left, and across the river, lies a long
ridge of queer-looking peaks outlined like a cockscomb, and especially
noticeable even in this land of violent colour contrasts, for they
are jet-black as though made of coal. There is no sign of habitation
or life, for with the exception of the small farmhouse at “Omdraai”
(“Turn back”), the whole country is uninhabited, except for a few nomad
Bastards or Hottentots.
By midday we were at “Waterval,” where, in a canvas hut, we found
Oberholzer, a Dutch farmer who probably knows more about the Great
Falls than anyone living, and who had acted as guide to most of the
rare visitors who have from time to time made their way to that most
marvellous natural wonder. To reach the Falls, or a view of them, a
guide is absolutely necessary, for access to them from the north bank
is both difficult and dangerous, and indeed can only be obtained when
the river is low.
Above the actual cataract the river, split up by numerous islands, is
almost a mile in width, and to reach the main channel where it takes
its huge leap several minor streams have to be first negotiated.
The first of these we waded through, following our guide most
carefully, for the water was up to our waists, and the current strong
and rapid; moreover, we had to grope for footing on a narrow ridge of
rock, uneven and slippery, full of sharp points and pitfalls, and with
deep water on either side of it. Orange River water is always turbid,
and the treacherous bottom was quite invisible; moreover, the ridge
did not run straight, but zigzagged, and altogether the passage of this
preliminary channel was by no means pleasant. Another foot of water
would have rendered it perilous, two feet would have made it wellnigh
impossible for the strongest swimmer, for the rapids immediately below
lead to one of the side-falls.
Once across and we were on an island of sand and silt, split up into
deep channels by past floods, and with plenty of big trees; then
came more rapid streams, which, however, were easily negotiable over
the huge granite boulders that encumbered them. The last of these
side-streams was running in absolutely the contrary direction to the
others and the general course of the river, and, following it, we came
to an open, boulder-encumbered spot, where it disappeared, but where
we could still hear it rushing swiftly deep beneath us. And then came
chaos: huge monoliths of riven rock, the size of houses, strewn and
heaped about in the wildest confusion, piled on each other, balanced
and tottering, a maze of bare stone without a vestige of vegetation.
And now the dull murmur that had scarcely been noticeable became a
muttering thunder of appalling depth: and emerging from a rift in the
labyrinth of granite, we stood suddenly on the edge of a profound
chasm, over the farther lip of which, a few hundred yards upstream, the
huge muddy volume of the Orange was hurtling in one stupendous spout.
The scene was absolutely terrifying, for the dark precipice, smooth as
though chiselled, and dank and slippery with the incessant spray, fell
sheer away from our very feet, and where it did not actually overhang,
offered no foothold even for a baboon, whilst clouds of spray drove
round us, and the solid rock trembled with the monstrous music of the
fall.
Rapidly converging from its width of a mile upstream, the Orange at
this spot becomes pent in a deep channel, self-worn in the solid
granite, until, when it takes its final plunge, it is concentrated into
a terrific spout barely twenty yards in width, which hurls itself with
incredible velocity over the precipice a sheer four hundred feet into
the gloomy abyss below. And with the plunge it practically disappears
into the unknown, for many miles penned in a gloomy cañon, quite
unapproachable and scarce to be obtained a glimpse of, till it emerges
into a slightly wider bed close to the German border; thence it winds
a tortuous course through solitary, wellnigh unknown and uninhabited
country, for the last two hundred miles of its course to the sea;
surely the most lonely and deserted of South African rivers? For, with
the exception of the tiny police posts at Scuit’s Drift and Ramon’s
Drift, not a habitation stands on or near its banks, through all those
tortuous reaches that wellnigh encircle the mountains of Richtersfeldt,
whose solitary peaks and ravines I have already made shift to describe.
Higher than the Victoria Falls, and more than double the height of
Niagara, the Great Falls of the Orange lack the spectacular beauty of
either of its famous rivals. Impressive they are, but the impression
they leave is of terror rather than of pleasure, of awe rather than
of beauty. There is no “fern forest” such as lends romance to the
Zambesi fall; on all sides nothing but riven, shattered rock, sheer
precipice, and giant buttress, a nightmare of barrenness, of desolation
so appalling that one might well be standing in some other planet, some
dead world from which all sign of life had long since vanished. The
vegetation of the side-streams is hidden by the chaos of rocks near the
brink of the cañon, and animal and bird life there is none, for all
live things seem to shun the spot. This absence of vegetation and of
life makes it additionally hard to realise the stupendous height of the
main fall; the enormous smooth cliff opposite, the giant boulders, all
confusing one’s sense of proportion.
Discovered by the traveller George Thompson in 1824, they were named by
him the “Falls of King George,” but are generally known as the “Great
Falls”; whilst to the writer’s way of thinking, their native name of
“Aughrabies” is far more fitting than either of the others.
Gloomy and terrifying as was the spot, it fascinated us and we
could not tear ourselves away, but sat and watched the thunderous,
ever-changing chaos of falling foam, speculating on what sight it would
present in flood-time; and with the thought came the reflection that
the Orange often rises 20 feet or so in an hour or two, and that we
had been sitting there some hours already, and that a couple of feet
would maroon us beyond all hope! I mentioned this great thought to the
others, and the “time” we did back to the first and worst side-stream
would, I am sure, have done credit to any athletic meeting’s records.
Some day, when civilisation shall have spread so far, there will of
course be safe bridges over these side-channels, and mankind will be
given an opportunity of seeing what no man yet can possibly have seen
at close quarters and lived, the Orange River in flood, filling not
only its self-worn channel, but spreading all over the lip of that
nightmare of an abyss in one appalling maelstrom. Anyway, we got back
safely, though sure enough the water had risen a good 6 inches since
we crossed it before, and it was time to get going, for we were after
better things than waterfalls; and bidding good-bye to Oberholzer, who
prophesied our return, beaten, within a couple of days, we started
again towards the blue peaks that beckoned to us from the German Border.
“You’ll maybe get as far as ‘Wag Brand,’” were Oberholzer’s last words;
“not that you’ll ever get the cart there, but on foot you may do it:
then you’ll have to come back. There’s a bit of a footpath that far,
but it ends on the bank of the river, and you can’t get farther that
way. Good-bye, so-long; see you back in a couple of days.”
However, we had long since learnt to take nothing for granted, and so
we struck across rough but still negotiable country, away from the
river, and hoped for the best. And our luck held, for though we had to
zigzag in and out of huge boulders and round granite kopjes that barred
our way every few hundred yards, we still managed to keep something
of a course, and made steady progress. At every step the country grew
wilder and more interesting; moreover, its general characteristics
resembled those narrated in Brydone’s narrative so closely that our
conviction grew at every step that we were indeed on the path of the
man who, forty long years before, had penetrated this wild country and
brought out a fortune. Rocks and ridges of startlingly vivid colours
criss-crossed with numerous quartz reefs, in which the huge black
crystals of tourmaline were exceptionally prominent; bright red and
yellow sandstones, bare, clean, and looking red-hot in the bright sun,
with prominent serrated ridges, and kopjes of jet-black and shining
dolerites, amongst which the frequent outcrops of beautiful rose
quartz showed up in startling contrast. Every dry stream-bed (and they
were many) was full of large water-worn blocks of this lovely pink,
translucent stone.
Now, Brydone had mentioned blocks and fragments of “rock crystal” in
his narrative, and we concluded, much to our own satisfaction, that
he must have referred to this remarkable quantity of rose quartz,
and welcomed it as a proof that we were hot on the scent. Late in
the afternoon we entered a most picturesque bit of country, where
the fantastic kopjes were standing in small but thickly grassed open
spaces, and where the usual sand-rivers were bordered with thick
vegetation, principally of _cameel-doorn_ trees, upon which the yellow
bloom was thick, and the air full of its fragrance. This pleasant spot,
I afterwards learnt, was known as “Knog Knieu” by the Bushmen, who made
almost their last stand here.
[Illustration: HOTTENTOT REFUGEES FROM THE GERMANS AT MOUTH OF THE
MOLOPO, ORANGE RIVER.]
[Illustration: INTERNATIONAL BEACON IN THE BAK RIVER, BORDER OF
GERMAN SOUTH-WEST.]
The only possible track trended downwards, sometimes a faintly defined
footpath, where it was often necessary for the whole party to combine
forces and roll huge rocks aside to allow the wonderfully mobile Cape
cart to pass; at others a soft-bedded sand-river, where the going was
easy, except for occasional rocky falls, which were negotiated
with brake on and sled-fashion. Now the way went among peaks instead
of low kopjes, and as it trended rapidly downwards, these bordering
heights became veritable mountains, until late at night we were in a
deep defile flanked by lofty abrupt peaks, an apparent cul-de-sac which
ended on the bank of the Orange again, where the latter emerged from
the cañon leading from the “Great Falls.”
Morning showed us that, though the Cape cart had certainly performed
miracles so far, it could go no farther. For, though the Orange had
emerged from the narrow Falls cañon, it was still pent in by steep,
precipitous peaks on either bank, which in parts went towering up
skywards from the water with scarce foothold for a goat. Just where
we were there was a dense belt of vegetation, for the side-ravine
through which we had reached the main stream widened somewhat at the
mouth. Among the thick trees we found a deserted hut, but the Hottentot
guide we had hoped to find there had gone. However, de Wet had been to
this place before, and he said we could get downstream to the mouth
of the Molopo, where we should find a few Hottentots who might act as
porters, for the cart must go round. By going back to Waterval and
taking a circuitous route, it could get to a spot near the German
border, and there wait for us, whilst on foot we explored the maze of
unsurveyed peaks between, and in which our goal was believed to lie.
So we unpacked sufficient food, arms, and other necessaries for a
week, and our driver turned back to try to circumvent the mountains.
We were now absolutely “on our own,” each man having from sixty to
seventy pounds of impedimenta to “hump,” and before we had gone a mile
down the difficult bank of the river we were fervently praying that we
should find Hottentots at the Molopo; otherwise, once we really got
amongst the mountains, instead of skirting them, we should be terribly
handicapped by our loads.
In places the path was treacherous, smooth, water-worn granite rocks
sloping steeply, straight into the swift, muddy current below; at
others it widened into a belt of thick and tangled wood, in which
pheasants and guinea-fowl were calling, and grey monkeys chattered
in the thick trees. At length our way was barred by an exceptionally
formidable peak rising sheer from the water, and we followed a faint
and difficult spoor leading over its steep flank inland. On cresting
the ridge, we saw that, though the country beneath us was still broken
and rugged in the extreme, it was comparatively open, and that for some
miles, at least, the river was no longer pent between formidable walls
of rock. On the south bank loomed a huge red mountain, flat-topped
and striking-looking, even in this land of strange-shaped mountains.
This mountain--“Zee-coe-steek”--as it is called, is the highest point
in the Kenhardt district, and during the Boer War a helio station was
established on its summit; but this had long been abandoned, and the
southern bank in its vicinity is almost as unknown and deserted as the
wild hills in which we were searching.
Opposite this mountain, and near the mouth of the Molopo, we found
a few Hottentots, who made a beeline for the hills the moment they
saw us. Luckily two ancient hags and some pot-bellied little kiddies
could not get away, and when they found who we were, and that we
gave them tobacco and sugar instead of the sjambok, they hobbled off
into the rocks and soon brought the refugees back. They had taken us
for Germans, and their actions spoke volumes as to how they fear the
white men on the other side of the border. They were all refugees
from Damaraland, who had fled after the brave fight put up by Marengo
against the Germans had finally ended in their defeat. In this remote
spot, cut off by difficult mountains and uninhabited country for many
miles in all directions from even the nearest dwelling, they had
existed unmolested, seeing scarcely a white man a year, yet always
in fear lest their old taskmasters should appear on the scene. They
existed chiefly on the milk of a few goats, honey from the wild bees
in the rocks, dassies (rock rabbits), and barbel caught in the river.
In a short time they were chattering and clucking round us in high
glee, but though we promised them good pay (or its equivalent in goods
once we got to the cart) to guide us and act as porters, they were
most reluctant to do so. They feared to go into the wild ravines we
were bound for, fearing thirst, the leopards with which they said the
mountains swarmed, and most of all fearing the Germans, whose patrol
parties were often to be met with on our side of the border.
But at length our arguments prevailed, upon a solemn promise that if we
penetrated German territory, as we fully expected to do, we should in
nowise force them to accompany us.
Having made the old women happy with tobacco and tea, we once more
started, this time in light marching order with the Hottentots as
porters, towards a peculiar conical kopje a mile or so downstream,
which denoted the mouth of the Molopo.
We found the ancient river-bed (which can be followed right through the
Kalahari to Kuruman) dry, and choked from bank to bank with huge mounds
of sand, but a little farther up its course, where the banks were still
exposed, there was ample evidence to show that in the not far distant
past a huge volume of water had flowed. Even the miserable little
channel, worn deep in the débris that chokes the old bed, and which
shows where an occasional trickle of water finds a way down after rain
in the desert, was now bone dry, and it was evident that once away from
the Orange we should have anxiety about water.
It was on the western bank of the Molopo, on a ridge of abrupt kopjes
leading to the higher land to the north, that our guide, de Wet, had
stumbled on the old waggon in a recent trip, and from it we hoped to be
able to shape our course for the diamonds. We found the remains of the
vehicle as he had described it. It was obviously very old, the natives
knew nothing of how it had come there, there was no vestige of path
or spoor anywhere near--in fact, it seemed incredible that it should
ever have been dragged there at all. But there it was, and, taking
stock of the wild surroundings, we felt more certain than ever that we
were hot on the scent. A huge ravine had been mentioned, deep-cut and
profound. There, less than a mile away up the Molopo bed, showed the
entrance to just such a place, deep and clear-cut in the sheer rock
as though split out by the stroke of a giant axe. And the “strangely
shaped mountain” to which it led, in the narrative? We turned as one
man in the direction given in the book, and there, its crest well clear
of the intervening foothills, was just such a hill. It appeared useless
to traverse the ravine, for it must lead to the hill, and there was no
need to follow the devious path taken by the first man. From the height
on which we stood we could take compass bearings of that hill, and cut
straight across country to it.
The guides clucked and jabbered and intimated that it couldn’t be done,
but we knew better--or thought we did; and it did not look more than
five or six miles.
Evening found us struggling in a perfect maze of deep, tortuous ravines
from which it was impossible to see anything, and in which to keep even
an approximate course was out of the question, and as night fell we
were glad to “give it best” and turn in beside a tiny pool of stagnant
rain-water which we were lucky enough to stumble upon. There was dead
wood enough for a fire, and the “boys” kept it up all night, for a
perfect path of leopard spoors encircled the little puddle and the
Hottentots were scared out of their wits; for they credit the leopards
of these mountains with a ferocity above all others--and not without
reason.
We were afoot at early dawn and plunged again into the labyrinth, here
and there climbing a high point to endeavour to obtain a glimpse of
the peak we sought, or of some tangible landmark or way out; but it
was high noon, and we were almost dead-beat, before we at long last
broke clear, and into a wide, well-defined ravine that ran in the
right direction. The tourmaline crystals in the white quartz reefs
abounding in this ravine were the largest I have ever seen, and there
were abundant traces of tin everywhere; but we were eager for diamonds,
nothing less, and pushed on, at length emerging into more open country,
with our elusive hill full in sight. But alas! as we proceeded and
broke clear of the surrounding rocks, we saw that instead of one hill
there were three--four--five--all the same strange shape, all alike
as two peas! Truly an _embarras de richesses_, for this multiplicity
either meant we were on the wrong scent, or that we should have to
search all of them before we could get the next landmark!
We sat down and had a meal of sorts before tackling them, and very
little was said, Borcherds’ cheery remark that there would be a mine
in each of them being met with a cold silence. Not that anything, even
silence, could be “cold” in those ravines, be it understood, for the
rock was too hot even to sit upon without an aroma as of fried steak
arising, and the fact that our water was nearly finished, and we had no
notion when or where we should find any more, by no means added to our
hilarity.
The next two days were productive of more climbing, scrambling, and
general discomfort and profanity, than I ever remember concentrated
in so short a time. Not that we did not find the landmarks; on the
contrary, we found too many of them. For from the five hills we could
see others; from each there were dozens of ravines, any one of which
would answer the meagre description of the narrative, and as we plodded
along from one to the other, doggedly determined to find the right one,
we were eternally stumbling on something to raise our hopes to the
highest pitch, only to find them dashed down immediately by some new
obstacle.
We found enough rain-water to live on, though it was vile and stinking,
and every hour of daylight we searched, and searched, in vain.
Apparently no human foot had ever trod these hills before, for no spoor
except those of baboon, leopard, and lynx showed in the white sandbeds
of the many dry river-beds; in fact, the whole region was given up to
these, its only fit denizens. Except on the summits of some of the
flat-topped hills there was no vegetation; there the queer-looking
_koker-boom_ clustered in miniature forests.
The Hottentots apparently thought we were mad, though in any case as
long as they had enough to eat and drink they cared little; but even
their curiosity was at length stirred, and it occurred to them to
ask us what we were looking for, anyway; and in a queer mixture of
Dutch, English, and Hottentot, we told them. “Oh, _that_ place,” said
they, “where the ‘bright stones’ come from? _That_ place, by the big
mountain? Oh! that is not in _these_ hills, _that_ place is a long
day’s trek farther on; not near the Molopo, but near the Bak River,
right on the German border, _that_ place.” Words failed. So these poor
despised chaps knew the real place all the time, and we had not even
asked them!
Borcherds tore his battered remains of a hat off, and jumped upon it in
sheer exasperation.
“Which way?” he snorted, grabbing up his kit, and preparing to make a
beeline.
But the Hottentots apparently knew no way except to get back to the
Molopo, and thence follow the Orange downstream, and we did not at all
like the idea of that; but patient inquiry elicited the information
that the place to which we had sent the cart could not be more than
half a day from where we were, and from the cart the men could find the
way.
At great pains we reached an open valley that night, where at some
deserted water-pits the cart should have been, but neither cart nor
spoor could be seen, and we spent an anxious night, for our food was
finished, and game had proved so scarce that there was little chance of
living by the rifle, should any mishap have happened to the vehicle.
In the morning, however, we found it a few miles up the valley, and had
the first real square meal we had had since it left us.
We consulted again as to the route, and the natives soon demonstrated
that, although the valley we were in led eventually to the Orange,
it was impassable in that direction, for the lower end consisted of
a series of huge sheer precipices of polished granite which led like
gigantic steps to the river, and down which this side-river had at one
time poured in cascades similar to that of Aughrabies. To go round
upstream would be possible, but it would mean about three days with the
cart, which we were reluctant to leave again.
The alternative was to climb the almost vertical mountains that barred
our way, cross their flat tops and descend on the far side, a distance,
we judged, of not more than ten miles as the crow flies. Time was an
object, and we decided not only to attempt this path, but also to try
to take a pack-horse over with us. It looked impossible, but Paul had
spent a few hours in clambering the slopes and thought it could be
done. So Stoffel, one of the leaders, an old horse who was used to
pack-work, was chosen and packed with a miscellaneous load of food,
tools, blankets, etc., round which was wound the stout rope with which
we proposed to negotiate the crater in which were the diamonds--should
we find it. The Hottentots were well loaded too, and altogether we had
sufficient in the shape of stores to make us independent of the cart
for a long time. The cart was to remain by the water-place, which was
nothing but a hole scraped in the dry sand of the river-bed, but into
which water soaked as fast as we could use it.
That climb was a thing to be remembered. The first hour was fairly
easy, for the lower slopes, though encumbered by huge blocks of rock,
were negotiable by cautious zigzagging; but steeper and steeper grew
the incline, till the “capping” of about two or three hundred feet
was reached, and this was almost vertical. By working along the
face, however, we found here and there a steep gully where water had
worn a way, and in which there clung quite a lot of thorn-bushes and
other vegetation. Up one of these we got the old nag, until it seemed
impossible to get him farther, and we unpacked him and sent the “boys”
on with his load to the top, where the others had long since arrived.
I was loth to abandon the idea of getting him up, seeing how near the
top was, and therefore started making a path, pulling here and there
a rock away and making it possible for him to scramble up, disturbing
more scorpions in so doing than I had ever seen before. Within 50
feet of the top, and when I could hear the other chaps laughing and
talking above, I got tired of this road-making and tried to pull the
old horse up by his rein. He had just reached up for a mouthful of
dry grass growing in a crack, and as I snatched him a bit he reared,
lost his balance, and went over with a crash. Of course I thought he
was finished, for the rock went sheer down, but on looking over I
found that he had only fallen about 10 feet full into the middle of a
thick thorn-bush, and there he lay, on his back, with his legs wildly
pawing and the bunch of dry grass still in his mouth, looking about as
ludicrous an object as it would be possible to imagine. My yells soon
brought the whole party down, and somehow we managed to get him out
and up to the top, full of thorns, but with no bones broken, and still
munching the bunch of grass.
The tableland on which we now stood was remarkable. Apparently it
extended as far as the eye could reach, for this was the true level
of the country, and the valleys from which we had emerged simply
water-worn by erosion towards the bed of the Orange.
So sheer did these numerous valleys go down that at a few yards from
the brink it was impossible to see that such depressions existed,
the whole country appearing as an unbroken flat. The vegetation
was entirely different to that of the lower levels, whole forests
of _koker-boomen_ and other aloes, and thick-leaved succulents and
resinous plants abounding.
Reloading, we made our way across this flat due west, and eventually
came upon a descent as steep as the face we had climbed, along the
brink of which we searched for an hour or more for a possible path,
which at length we found, and got Stoffel down to a similar valley
to the one we left the cart in. This, however, trended due west; it
was full of pleasant vegetation too, and, better still, full of game.
Here we camped, and an hour’s trek in the morning brought us among
formidable peaks again, whence we soon looked down into an ancient
river-bed deep worn in smooth granite, and seemingly quite inaccessible.
This was the Bak River, its steep walls at this lower part of its
course worn a good 500 feet in the rock, and its farther bank German
territory.
And the Hottentots knew a way down, though they were already on the
_qui vive_ for a German patrol, and ready to bolt back into the
mountains every time a dassie moved in the rocks. In this strange
river-bed we made our camp, choosing one of the few spots where sand
and soil had lodged and a thicket of reeds had sprung up, through which
ran a trickle of water as clear as crystal, but very salt to the taste.
Both above and below this spot for miles the actual bed of the river
was worn so deep and smooth in the living granite that it was almost
impassable for a man on foot, and out of the question for horses. In
no part of the mountains bordering the Orange, where erosion has been
so widespread and enormous, have I seen anything to compare with this
polished granite river-bed, through which for many thousands of years
huge volumes of water must have rushed from a region which to-day is
one of the dryest in the world.
From the spot where we camped a side-gully led conveniently into the
western bank and German territory, which at this part is as wild and
unknown as the British. About a mile upstream we found the first
international beacon, standing in the actual river-bed, a pile of rough
rocks surmounted by an iron plate bearing on one side the inscription
“British Territory,” and on the other “Deutsches Schutzgebeit.” These
beacons extend at irregular intervals from the Orange River right up
the twentieth degree of east longitude for many hundreds of miles; many
of them are in almost inaccessible places, and have probably been seen
by few, if any, white men since the International Boundary Commission
first erected them; some have been thrown down by animals or the
natives, and several that I have seen have been used as targets, the
iron plates being perforated with bullet-holes. For this region formed
a fastness for the guerilla bands of Hottentots that put up such a game
fight against the overwhelming odds of the Germans in the “Hottentot
Rebellion” of 1903-6.
We soon found that, though this Bak River ravine answered to the
description of the place we were after even better than the country
near the Molopo, the natives who had brought us to it could not, or
would not, show us the actual spot. They had all heard of it, all said
it was near where we were, but there their knowledge ended.
Moreover, so scared were they at the proximity of the dreaded
_Duitsters_ that they were practically useless, except to gather
firewood, look after the camp, and steal every bit of tobacco, sugar,
etc., they could lay hands on.
About a mile upstream a faint track showed where the German patrol from
Stolzenfels at rare intervals took a turn round this remote portion of
their frontier, and it was interesting to note that for miles this path
of theirs ran well within British territory. However, we saw nothing of
them, and after days of fruitless scrambling in the wild ravines and
precipitous slopes of our own side of the line, we made a systematic
search of all we could cover of theirs. Day after day we started at
daybreak, dividing our forces and meeting at prearranged spots, each
taking a little food and water for the day and returning only at
nightfall.
[Illustration: THE MAIN FALL, GREAT FALLS OF THE ORANGE.
The cliff opposite is about 450 to 500 feet.]
In German territory the mountains were higher than upstream, their tops
wide spaces of flat tableland covered with _koker-boomen_.
From the riverwards edges of these plateaux a vast panorama stretched
on every side. Upstream the winding Orange lay like a blue ribbon
fallen between a wilderness of bare and riven rocks, the only
vegetation visible being the thin dark line of trees lining the actual
river-banks, and this in many places entirely disappearing where the
cliffs that pent in the water gave no footing for even a plant to
cling. For many miles the river was unapproachable, and from these high
mountain-tops from which we viewed its course, a long and difficult
detour would be necessary before the thirsty traveller could reach a
drop of water. As far as the eye could reach in any direction no sign
of habitation or of life could be seen; all was silent, desolate, and
infinitely lonely.
Our food ran short, and awkwardly enough the only game seemed to be on
the German side, where we were chary of shooting; for sound travels far
in this region, and the last thing we wished for was a visit from a
German patrol. Their nearest post was a bare twenty miles east as the
crow flies, but twenty miles of as rough country as can be found in the
rough north-west, and therefore a good two days’ trek away. We found
many things: copper, galena, and more precious minerals; but search as
we would, we could not find the spot we were looking for. Yet even to
the last day our hopes ran high; for whatever the origin of Brydone’s
narrative may have been, there was proof positive to be found in these
gullies that somewhere in the vicinity Kimberlite pipes actually exist.
On one of the flat-topped mountains well within German territory we
came upon the remains of a Hottentot bivouac, evidently dating from the
time when Marengo and Simon Cooper fought the Germans here. Scattered
about amongst the bushes were odds and ends of clothing, German
ration-tins, etc., and in one heap I found the gilt hilt of a German
sword, and a pair of binoculars which had been battered and smashed to
try and get at the prisms.
In one of the ravines where a thick bush known as _haak doorn_
(hook thorn) abounded we found more gruesome relics in the shape of
skeletons, firmly entangled in the thickest part of the bush, where
they had apparently been thrown as living men.
The Hottentots claim that in this unhappy war of reprisals the Germans,
exasperated by the protracted resistance of the natives, used to treat
all wounded men who fell into their hands with horrible severity;
breaking their bones, and throwing them bodily into these thorn-bushes,
from which a sound man could scarcely escape, being a favourite method
of disposing of them.
I have had this told me by numbers of Hottentots who fought in this
war, and have seen the skeletons in several places where fighting took
place. The Germans claim that German wounded were thus treated by the
Hottentots, but the rags of clothing clinging to the bones I saw were
not part of a German uniform.
One of the most beautiful things in this wild region was the wonderful
outcrops of rose and amethyst quartz to which I have already alluded,
but which in the vicinity of the Bak River reached a profusion and a
perfection I have seen nowhere else. Huge kopjes of this beautiful
stone, of the most exquisite rose-colour, big reefs cropping out of
the mountain slopes and in places crowning them, afforded a wonderful
sight, especially when the early sun shone into their translucent
depths. Since I first wandered there I have seen this beautiful
semiprecious stone cut into jewellery, and sold in shops as “pink
quartz,” but in the Noup Hills by the Bak River there is sufficient of
it to build a town.
A day or two before we abandoned the trip I had an adventure which
might have proved more unpleasant than it did. Food was already
very scarce, and one afternoon I took a shot-gun and went down the
defile to where the Bak gorge ran into the Orange. Here the river was
very wide, placid, and beautiful, and in the thick trees there were
pheasants in plenty; but so thick was the vegetation that to flush
them was next to impossible, and it was only after hours of walking
and creeping through thick thorn, and the expenditure of the eight
cartridges I had brought with me, that I got three pheasants. Of the
others I had hit one or two hard, only to see them fall into the high
and unclimbable thorn-trees, or into the river, and missed the rest.
With my last shot I began to think about getting back to camp, and
found that, absorbed in the pheasants, I had made my way upstream
much farther than I had imagined. It was about sunset when I realised
this, and night falls very suddenly in this region, so, getting clear
of the thicket, I hurried campward. But the way was not only long but
difficult, cut up with huge mullahs that had been worn in the deep
silt of the banks, impeded by rocks and thick bush; and by the time I
reached the Bak River gorge it was as near “pitch dark” as it ever is
in Gordonia.
Of course there was no mistaking the way, for once in the ravine it
is almost impossible to get out of it; but the pitfalls and pot-holes
in the ice-smooth granite are bad enough even in the daytime, and I
blundered along through the thick bush of the lower end of the valley,
cursing myself for being so late, and wondering how I should get on
when I got to the really difficult bare and rocky part.
Thought of any danger from leopards never entered my head, for though
there was abundant evidence that the kloofs were full of them, and we
knew that they had killed lots of natives thereabouts, they kept out
of our way, and though we heard them all round us at times, we had not
seen them.
Now, on my way down, I had wasted a shot on a splendid _lammer
vanger_, a fine specimen of an eagle that got up from a rock within
shot and with a big dassie in his claws, and that I had killed. I cut
his wings, beak, and talons off, and left them hanging in a tall
thorn-bush, and as I neared this spot I thought of trying to locate the
bush and taking my trophy. I had just decided that I was quite near it
when, just in front of me, rose a chorus of yelps and snarls, and it
was evident that jackals were quarrelling over the eagle’s carcass. I
was feeling around for a stone to shy at the small scavengers when I
heard a sound as of a soft but heavy body landing amongst gravel and
twigs, another stifled yelp and then the snarling, coughing growl of a
leopard, or rather of two leopards, who appeared to be carrying on a
similar quarrel to the one they had so summarily put a stop to.
I realised several things instantly. No cartridges, no trees except
unclimbable thorn-trees, and no matches. A fire would have scared them
immediately. No way home except past them--well, I’d have to go back!
I did not like the idea of a night by the river, but even that _pis
aller_ had to go by the board, for as I turned to sneak back I heard
the cough of another leopard in that direction. Clearly this was no
place for me, but what on earth was I to do? The pheasants had bled a
good deal, and I was smothered in the blood, which probably accounted
for the gentlemen on my trail.
Well, something had to be done, and having heard that the human voice
was feared by all animals, I left off a yell that scared me so that I
dropped the gun. It echoed up among the rocks like the screech of a
steam-siren; it woke the baboons on the peaks and they barked back in
faint imitation; far up the ravine a big owl took up the refrain and
passed it on farther. The snarling of the leopards stopped instantly,
and the shuffle of a displaced stone among the rocks showed they had
bounded away. So, picking up the useless gun, I took my courage in both
hands and “lit out” for camp. Every few yards I repeated the first
yell, but when after a bit I stopped for sheer want of breath and
hoarseness I heard those blamed leopards making remarks to each other
across the ravine; they were accompanying me on either side. Long
before I reached camp I was as hoarse as a crow and my yell lacked vim.
I fell over rocks and into crevasses, and once glissaded down a slope
of slippery granite into about 3 feet of extremely wet cold water. But
at long length I turned a corner of the defile and came in sight of the
welcome fire, and heard the leopards no more.
There seemed to me to be a lack of anxiety about all of the home party.
Paul was asleep and snoring within a few inches of the fire, and
Borcherds and De Wet were smoking and swapping lies on the other side
of it.
“Hallo,” said Borcherds. “Bit pleased with yourself, ain’t you?”
“What d’ye mean?” I asked, none too sweetly.
“Oh, we heard you singing for the last hour or more,” he said. “Thought
you might have struck someone with some whisky.”
SINGING!
* * * * *
We did not give up the search till our food absolutely petered out.
The Hottentots lived for days on dassies, which none of us would eat,
though they are perfectly clean and good eating. They cooked them
by the simple process of throwing them in the fire. The hair burnt
off, but formed a sort of shell round the carcass, and when it was
sufficiently roasted, they simply knocked the charred part off and ate
the rest. I never saw them make the least attempt to clean one.
When we finally trekked, our rations for the journey back to the cart
consisted of two tins of sardines, about four pounds of Boer meal, and
a tin of golden syrup.
We decided to attempt to get the old horse down the Bak River, and
thence up the Orange bank, to a path that would get us back to the
cart, and so, at daybreak one morning, we reluctantly bade farewell to
our camp and took the back trail.
Most of the morning was spent in getting Stoffel down smooth granite
slopes by strewing sand over them, and many a slip and scramble did the
old thing get, but at length we stood on the bank of the Orange; where
he gorged himself with grass, and we turned to and made a big pot of
“mealie pap,” and divided the sardines and syrup amongst the eight of
us. And leaving the “Bak” behind us, we reluctantly abandoned our first
attempt after Brydone’s diamonds. I say “reluctantly,” for every man of
us still believed that somewhere in the immediate vicinity of our late
camp lay a diamond-mine.
Our journey back to the cart was a hungry but uneventful one. We found
the driver on the point of clearing for Upington with the news of
our being lost or captured by the Germans, for we were long overdue,
and he had consoled himself by eating practically every bit of our
remaining stores. Three days later we were back at Kakamas North Bank,
where at the store Borcherds ransacked the whole stock for a pair of
pants large enough for his ample proportions. For his only pair were
in rags, our boots were in shreds, and altogether a bigger lot of
ragamuffins rarely straggled over a frontier. Of course, we had had
no news from the outside world since we left Kakamas on our way down,
and our first anxious inquiry disclosed the fact that a messenger had
been chasing me for days, with telegrams which he had brought all the
way from Upington. We located him later, and one of the telegrams
brought me news that immediately sent our despondent spirits up with a
bound. Before leaving for the trip, I had vainly endeavoured to obtain
the name of a certain individual who, years before, had sold a very
large diamond at Steinkopf, which he said he had found somewhere near
the Great Falls, and who, after obtaining a considerable sum for it,
had gone back to Gordonia. And this wire, which had been following me
for weeks, conveyed the welcome intelligence that he was a certain
Hendrick, living at Kakamas--the very place in which the wire reached
me! Here was luck with a vengeance, luck which might atone for all our
misfortunes--for Steinkopf credited this man, above all others, with
knowing where there were plenty more to be picked up!
Cautious inquiry elicited the fact that the man was well known, and
lived but a mile or two away. And without loss of time, Paul and
Borcherds set out to find him. He was a sly-looking Bastard, who at
first strenuously denied that he had ever been to Steinkopf, or knew
what a diamond was; but when he found we were not police, and that he
had nothing to fear, he owned up. Yes! he had found three--big ones.
One he had sold at Steinkopf, the others he had buried beneath a tree
close to where he found them, for he believed that the police were
watching him, and had feared to go near the spot again. We showed him
our licences, and as he assured us the spot was on Government ground,
we felt that all was indeed well in this best of all possible worlds.
The wily old fox drove a hard bargain with us, and in nowise would
he tell us the whereabouts of his discovery. It would take us three
or four days to reach it, that was all he said, and when, in trying
to pump him, we mentioned that we had been to Bak River on a similar
search, he smiled grimly and said, “You were on the wrong side of the
river [Orange].”
This hint excited us more than ever. How if, after all, we had been on
the wrong side, and the diamonds were lying within a mile or so of us,
but across the water? True, the narrative seemed to apply to the north
bank; but was it not possible that some point of the journey had been
omitted, and the man who found the mine might have crossed to the south
bank to reach the spot? Anyway, this remark of old Hendrick made us
close with him. We held a council of war, and within a few hours had
crossed the river into Kakamas, and were arranging to leave at once for
a flying trip--somewhere.
De Wet had reluctantly to return to Upington, and our driver would in
nowise consent to stay a day longer with us, and so we gave him our
blessing, and let him go back likewise.
Kakamas, the celebrated “Labour Colony,” a community of over 3,000
souls living in isolation, five long days’ trek from a railway, is
worthy of far more space than I can afford it here. Its one long
straggling “street” extends for miles along the Orange River bank, the
broad, flat alluvial stretches having by irrigation been connected into
one of the most fertile spots in South Africa; fruit, vegetables, and
cereals growing in a profusion unsurpassed.
There are numerous schools and churches, but never a hotel or
boarding-house, and the nearest doctor for this populous place was
at Kenhardt, full two days’ ride away. As a result, Borcherds was in
demand immediately he was seen and recognised in the village, and
within an hour was being mobbed.
So clamorous, indeed, were the population for his ministrations, that
to us laymen it appeared quite needless for him to go away again
looking for diamond-mines, with a gold-mine ready to his hand; but
somehow he seemed a bit dubious about the gold!
Meanwhile we were busy. A Cape cart and good-looking team was engaged,
stores were laid in, and long before Borcherds had got through with
his patients we were ready. We gave him a little grace, and he lost
no time in emptying his little travelling medicine-chest and joining
us, and away we went westward again, this time at a spanking rate; for
on the south bank there were at least some alleged roads. For many
miles we still passed the straggling houses of the Kakamas colonists,
which became poorer and poorer until they gave place to the hut, tent,
waggon, or makeshift abode of the new-comers, who had as yet had no
time to build. On through an even more remote outpost, the tiny little
hamlet of “Rhenosterkop,” where an enterprising Hebrew had what was
not to be found in all Kakamas, a fully licensed “hotel.” And thence
through country scarcely less wild and but little less solitary than
that of the northern bank. Part of Little Bushman Land, this northern
extremity of Kenhardt, and notoriously a waterless country. But here
and there a tiny farmhouse was to be found, at each of which Borcherds
was received with open arms, and even we others basked in his reflected
glory. Anyhow we got milk, eggs, and fresh meat, and began to realise
that he was well worth his place in the cart. This time we visited
Brabies, Nous, and Onderste Zwartmodder, whence a long waterless trek
of twenty-odd miles brought us again to the wild country trending down
to the Orange. We finally landed on the bank of the latter again, at a
place called “Nourasiep,” considerably below Scuit’s Drift, and many
miles lower than we had reached on the northern bank. Here we found a
solitary inhabitant, a Hottentot herd, who was supposed to be minding
cattle, but who had evidently heard of Borcherds’ being on the way, for
he too was “sick.”
Hendrick now told us we were within half an hour of the spot where he
had picked up the stone he sold, and two others which were still buried
there, and our impatience to go and fill our pockets was so great that,
without waiting for a meal (and we had had none that day), we urged
him to take us to it at once. He led us away from the river, uphill,
among a region of wide, well-defined quartz reefs, which were here and
there very highly mineralised; and after a walk of a couple of miles
he brought us to what he pronounced to be the actual spot where he had
found the stones.
It was a small gully between granite dykes, which were seamed with
quartz reefs, and a big outcrop of hæmatite in the latter had strewn
the slopes and bottom of it with black crystals of that very widespread
and--in such a place--worthless metal. And amongst all this débris of
iron, he swore he had found the stones. There was not the remotest
indication of any diamondiferous soil of any kind anywhere near the
spot, and unless the diamonds had weathered out of the granite, or
had been dropped there by ostriches, they could never have been there
at all. Anyway, as Paul said, after we had searched every inch of the
locality for hours, “How about those two that Hendrick had buried?”
The gentleman now said that the tree was no longer there; which was
true, in so far that nothing but a couple of _koker-boomen_ grew within
a mile of it. Nor was there any trace of any tree having ever grown
there; and reluctantly we were forced to come to the conclusion that we
had been fooled again.
I am sure that, had Paul had the man on the opposite bank of the river,
in German territory, he would have shot him, and I am not sure that we
should have tried to prevent him.
But there was nothing to be done--he stuck to his tale, and we could
not prove it a lie, and there was nothing to be done except--go back!
Later, we found that, as the river was very low, the granite bed was
exposed in many of the channels into which it was here divided, and in
them there were many extraordinary “pot-holes” worn in the hard stone,
deep and perfectly circular cavities varying in size from a quart pot
to a hogshead, or larger: and we spent a day in emptying some of these,
and washing the gravel always found at their bottoms. But we had no
luck: garnets, iolite, water opal, and some fine amethysts there were,
but never a diamond. And, sadder and poorer men, we made our slow way
back to Kakamas, Upington, Prieska, and civilisation.
Whilst on my way back, I again heard news as to diamonds having been
found by Bushmen in the pans of the Southern Kalahari, and this time
the information was so precise that I made up my mind to apply for
a permit such as had hitherto never been granted to a prospector,
a permit from the Government to search for diamonds in the vast,
forbidden “Game Reserve.”
CHAPTER XIII
GRAVEL TERRACES AT ZENDLING’S DRIFT--SECOND CHRISTMAS AT
RICHTERSFELDT--GERMAN POST AT ZENDLING’S--MAKING A RAFT--HIPPO AT THE
LORELEI MOUNTAIN.
It was obvious, however, that such a permit would take a lot of time
and patience to procure, and at any rate would be of no use until the
long drought broke.
So I made no formal application immediately, but contented myself with
taking certain preliminary steps, after which, calculating that at
least three months must elapse before I could get any “forrader,” I
determined to utilise that period in testing the wonderful gravels near
Zendling’s Drift, to which I have already alluded.
They are ancient “terraces” of very large extent, and at some distance
from the present bed of the Orange. Fully 50 feet above the open
country they stand on they are remarkable in many respects, and their
flat surfaces present a most beautiful appearance: agates, jaspers,
banded ironstones, chalcedonies, and countless other beautiful pebbles
lying there by the thousand tons, and all so clean and polished by
the constantly blowing sand that they present the appearance of a
vast mosaic. Scarlet and purple jasper, milk-white quartz, opalescent
chalcedonies, black and white agates, and, most abundant of all,
ironstone pebbles so beautifully oxydised by Nature’s chemistry that
their jet-black surfaces exactly resembled the polished gun-metal so
much used for watches and other jewellery.
Except for being of a much larger grade, these gravels resembled stone
for stone the deposits found at Pomona and other islands and beaches
of German South-West, where diamonds had been found so plentifully,
and I was of the opinion (and hold that opinion still) that thorough
prospecting would prove them to be diamondiferous. I had had no time to
do any systematic work on my previous visit, but having got a friend as
enthusiastic as myself to join me, an expedition was arranged, and we
left Cape Town early in December (1911). Finance was extremely low, and
we fully expected to have to rough it even more than usual. Only actual
necessities were taken, but even the modicum of foodstuffs, tent,
tools, and the bulky and essential barrels for “washing” the gravel
taxed to the very utmost the only vehicle we were able to procure. This
vehicle was a Scotch cart owned by a native missionary, and it met us
at “28 miles,” a water station on the Cape Copper Company’s line from
Port Nolloth. We had expected a waggon, but as vehicles of any kind
are as rare as honest men in Namaqualand, we had to put up with what
we could get. Naturally the load was far too much for such a cart, on
such a road (heavy sand), and before we were out of sight of the lonely
railway track we had stuck twice, and finally broken down. The team was
the usual Hottentot mixture of cows, heifers, young bulls, and a couple
of oxen, and the drivers worse than the team, and our progress was
maddeningly slow.
Before leaving Port Nolloth we had heard a rumour that there was
some kind of trouble at Zendling’s Drift between the Richtersfeldt
Hottentots and a German survey party which was about to cross into
British territory for survey purposes, and with the permission of the
Union Government. We could get no details, but troopers of the C.M.P.
were supposed to be on their way to the spot, and these Hottentot
drivers were full of the news. They were inclined to be surly and
cheeky too, but as soon as we were well on the road we showed them the
error of their ways in the only way a Hottentot can be taught such
things, and they became extremely civil. The road was new to me, via
Kalkfontein, Lekkersing, and Chubiesses, but a description of it would
only weary the reader, almost as much as the journey did us. Where
it was not deep sand it was rough rocks, and for the first two days
we were incessantly sticking or overturning, unpacking or repacking
the cart. On the fourth day, in the middle of a wide plain of heavy
sand, we ran into soft dunes in which the wheels sank up to the hubs,
and here we stuck hopelessly. The oxen were suffering from thirst and
would pull no more, the heat was overpowering, and our own water very
short, so we decided to send half the load on and dump the other till
the oxen had drunk and returned. Dittmer (my partner) and I tossed to
see who should remain with the dump, and I lost, and during the rest
of a boiling day I sat under a white umbrella which the missionary had
forced on me, and which I was now extremely grateful for.
The team turned up again next day, refreshed, and we got through to
Doornpoort, where there was still a gallon or two of water that the
oxen had left.
We had fully intended reaching Zendling’s Drift by Christmas, but here
we were, still a long distance from Kuboos even, and it was Christmas
Eve. At any rate I determined to reach Kuboos for some part of
Christmas, for there at least would be clean water and a pleasant tree,
where Ransson, Poulley, and I had spent our Christmas Day a year back.
Early in the morning, therefore, I struck out ahead of the cart, on
which Dittmer had now made a perch, and by midday had skirted the big
granite range and was in sight of the tiny Hottentot church and few
_pondhoeks_ of the little mission. Better, I could see the water and
_my_ tree, and pressed forward as men hasten homeward on such a day.
Shade, rest, and plenty of water--after all I should be able to enjoy
my Christmas! I reached the first little pool amongst the granite
boulders; it was crystal-clear and ice-cold, and I drank deep, and
did not envy any man stronger Christmas tipple. Then I made for the
tree--almost as welcome as the water in this barren land--and promised
myself a pleasant sleep till the cart came along.
But to my intense surprise, there under my tree lay three big troopers
of the C.M.P.
I nearly dropped with surprise, for I had never met a white man near
this spot before, and considered that tree to be my own particular
property. I felt hurt!
They never moved, so I said, “Hullo!”
The nearest one opened one eye--“Hullo!” he echoed; to the others,
“Here’s Rip van Winkle.”
Well, I suppose I looked something like it!--a week’s beard, and
the grime collected in hauling empty oil-barrels about, greasing
cart-wheels, sleeping on Mother Earth, etc., being added to by the
blood of a steenbok that I had shot and carried slung across my
shoulders.
They turned out to be a party of mounted police under Lieutenant
Burgess, which had been hurried through the wild country from Upington
to Zendling’s Drift on news of trouble there. They had been to the
Drift, found that the Germans had decided not to venture across, and
were returning to “civilisation” when I found them under my tree.
They had a waggonful of stores, and we spent a most enjoyable Christmas
together.
We found the Kuboos natives extremely surly and suspicious; it was
evident that they resented the visit of the police, and we could get
no one to take us farther till after Boxing Day, when at an exorbitant
price we succeeded in getting a waggon, and reached the Drift on
December 28th. Here we pitched camp in a pleasant spot by some trees
close to the river, which was in flood and higher than I had hitherto
seen it. The waggon turned back to Kuboos, and we were alone.
About a mile downstream, and opposite the German police post, there
was a tribe of Hottentots encamped, and from them we expected to get
a sufficiency of labour, but we found that they had acquired the
Christmas habit and were all drunk, insolent, and inclined to be
dangerous.
At length, after a long powwow, I induced two of them to join us for
good wages and plenty of tobacco, and we got the camp shipshape, hoping
that their spree would not last longer than the New Year.
Meanwhile the river rose rapidly, a brown swirling torrent of some 300
yards separating us from the German bank, whilst downstream the roar of
the rapids warned us when bathing to keep out of the main current.
We had hoped to get a certain amount of game, and an occasional sheep
or goat from the natives, but their crowd of mongrel dogs had caught or
driven away the former, and they demanded an exorbitant price for the
latter, so that we had for a time to depend on our tinned stores.
Occasional Hottentots still crossed the swollen river to and from the
German camp by means of their swimming-logs, and on New Year’s Eve we
received a courteous message from the Wachtmeister in charge asking
us to come over and join them. I did not like to leave our belongings
to the mercy of the drunken Hottentots, so declined with thanks, but
there was no reason why both should remain, so Dittmer sent an answer
saying that, though a poor swimmer, he would try. I tried to dissuade
him when I found he was a long way from being a strong swimmer, for the
water looked very ugly, but later the messenger returned with a more
urgent invitation and--a life-belt! I had never expected to see such a
thing in Namaqualand, but the Germans are nothing if not thorough, and
I found later they had about fifty of them at the post!
So Dittmer went, and I fell to cooking a fine wild goose that I had
shot, for he promised to return and dine with me. But, alas! I had
to eat it alone. However, he turned up before midnight, in state,
accompanied by several natives with mouth-organs, and having had a
glorious time. So enthusiastic was he, in fact, that I had great
difficulty in preventing him from blowing up the whole of our dynamite
to welcome in the New Year.
With its arrival we started work in earnest; a few more natives joined
us, and we began our testing of the gravels.
We had hoped to get donkeys, oxen, or horses from the natives, but
these had been driven away into the mountains when a rumour had spread
that the Germans intended crossing, and nothing would induce them to
bring them back. So that the large amount of water necessary even for
“hand-washing” diamondiferous gravel had to be hand-dragged from the
river to the deposits nearly a mile away, and this handicapped our
operations considerably. Still, so promising were the indications that
we were full of hope and enthusiasm, and worked from daylight to dark.
Meanwhile the Hottentots kept up their reputation for laziness and
deceit; our gang was never full--except of honey beer--which they
made from a big haul of wild honey that they had made in the rocks
just before our arrival, and on which they got gloriously drunk every
day. They plundered our stores in our absence from the camp, and we
were obliged to take turn about in remaining there; kind treatment
was taken advantage of, and when we simply _had_ to sjambok them they
ran away. Moreover, those who did work clamoured for fresh meat, and
this we could not obtain except from their drunken old headman, Klaas
Fredericks, who asked prices out of all reason. Once or twice after
a big drink these thieving, poaching scoundrels came to the camp
in the evening and demanded tobacco, etc., and became threatening
when we refused, but the sight of a couple of rifles always stopped
them. Still, there was very little chance of doing much under such
conditions, and so exasperated did we become that we should have
welcomed an open outbreak by the brutes, which would have given us an
opportunity for a lesson in the shape of a few bullets. Our nearest
policeman was at least five days away--and we had no horses. To add
to our annoyance, the river rose again with startling rapidity, until
it threatened to burst through an old channel behind our tent and
completely maroon us. That this had happened before was amply evident,
as many of the larger thorn-trees showed traces of having been more
than once almost completely under water.
[Illustration: PACKING THE CART FOR THE JOURNEY.]
[Illustration: DUMPED WITH MY BELONGINGS IN THE DESERT WHILST THE OXEN
WERE DRIVEN ON TO SAVE THEM FROM DYING OF THIRST.]
Moreover, the intense heat, hard work, and hard living had told on
both of us, and on more than one occasion we were down with fever at
the same time; and we were deaf and nearly blind with quinine and
mosquitoes.
Still, we did not like to strike camp, but one day, after both of
us had been queer with fever, it occurred to us that we should be
in a very bad plight indeed if we got too ill to get about, for the
Hottentots would be more likely to rob us than help us! We therefore
attempted to make a raft, so that if need be we could get across the
river to the Germans, from whence at intervals there was communication
with the outside world.
A boat would have been better, but that was out of the question,
so we contrived a curious arrangement in the shape of a =T= of
tree-trunks, at the three extremities of which were lashed a couple
of small water-casks and an empty oil-drum. The whole thing was tied
together with rope, wire string, and _ruimpjes_, and we also contrived
a couple of crutches as rowlocks and a pair of sculls. We found when
it was finished that the only way to float on it was with our legs in
the water, and the first time we ventured across it appeared highly
probable that the current would take us into the rapids before we got
to the German bank; but we got across somehow, and felt that we were no
longer in danger of being marooned.
Afterwards we went across on several occasions, and always received
courtesy and civil treatment from the German police. These police were
a military body and were all picked men, only soldiers who had attained
the rank of sergeant in the Imperial Army being eligible. Their
quarters were extremely comfortable, and they were well and regularly
supplied with rations by camel transport from the far-distant railway
at Aus. They had all sorts of queer pets--baboons, monkeys, and
various kinds of wild-cats caught in the dense bush of the river-bank.
The post, built well back from the river, commanded a fine view of
all the approaches to the Drift on the British side; they had a deep
well close at hand, which made them independent of the latter, and
a pleasant feature was an experimental garden, where all manner of
plants, both African and European, were being grown in the prolific
Orange silt.
A fine fowl-run and an apiary gave additional proof of their industry,
and considering their distance from civilisation, and the fact that
the post was barely eighteen months old, they had done wonders; but
any admiration I felt for them and their work died a sudden death when
I walked through that same garden, and found that the work was being
done by Herero prisoners working in chains. Not light chains, but heavy
manacles on legs and arms, and neck and waist, manacles that were never
taken off till they knocked them off when they died. These men, as far
as I could gather, were “prisoners of war” only--not criminals in any
sense of the word as we understand it. I am no negrophile, but German
methods of treating natives are far too heartless for “the likes of me.”
The day after our first visit to German territory, the clan of
Hottentots that had proved such a nuisance flitted, taking with them
most of our able-bodied men, and we saw them no more. The few that
remained worked better without them; but as Klaas Fredericks had taken
every goat and sheep with him, we could no longer give our labourers
the _vleesch_ they insisted upon, except by going far afield and
bringing back an occasional buck.
Thus, with our difficulties always on the increase, we spent a couple
of most arduous months, only deterred from throwing up the venture by
a firm belief that the diamonds were there somewhere; often ill with
fever, hard up for food, and quite cut off from all news of the outside
world. Our only amusement was in trapping animals as the Germans did,
improvising traps from spare sieves, and baiting them with small birds.
Scarce a day passed but that the traps were full, and in this manner
we caught, alive and unhurt, wild-cats, ratels, iguanas, and several
of the beautifully spotted “leopard cats”--or genets, to give them
their proper name. On more than one occasion a _muis-hond_ (the South
African skunk) got into the traps, and made its presence known by the
most appalling smell, and a tree leguaan (iguana) once gave me an awful
shock, for he lay so quiet under the leaves covering the sieve that
I thought it was empty, and the dart of his head--so like that of a
snake--made me fall back in the thorn-bush, for I thought I had bagged
a huge puff-adder.
Towards the end of our stay provisions got so low, and game so wild and
scarce, that we had to spend most of our time after it, and one day,
whilst looking for a square meal, I had rather a peculiar experience.
About two miles above the Drift, and near the Lorelei Mountain, we
spotted a flock of ten or a dozen wild geese floating near the German
bank, and Dittmer emptied his magazine at them, killing three. The
river was still in flood, and with the perversity usual in such cases,
the geese floated into the German bank. We wanted them very badly, and
as Dittmer could swim but little, it was up to me to go across and
get them. Helped by the current, I got across the muddy, turbulent
water fairly easily and got the geese, and as I had drifted a long way
downstream, I got out with the intention of walking up the bank to
opposite where my clothes lay. The thicket on the north bank was dense
and teeming with monkeys, baboons, and all sorts of animal life; it was
thorny too, and I was as full of spikes as a porcupine, as I picked my
way gingerly along the bank upstream, feeling horribly helpless--for,
naturally, I had nothing on but a hat--and looking out carefully for
snakes.
Seeing an open space with tall reeds, I decided to cut across it, but
had scarcely got among the bush vegetation of this swampy place, when
at my very feet I saw a huge spoor in the black mud, so freshly made
that the water still oozed into it, and at the same time heard an awful
snoring grunt close to me, answered by another, and realised that I
was right among a herd of hippo. I had seen traces of this small herd
before at their favourite haunt, higher up near the Great Fish River.
There were but four or five of them, but remnants of the hundreds that
swarmed the Orange when Alexander first crossed and described it.
As a rule, of course, hippo are harmless, but at times the huge brutes
are mischievous, and I did not stay to inquire what kind of mood they
were in, but sprinted back across the river in a manner that left
little to be desired. But I brought the geese.
At length food and labour became so scarce that we were compelled
to give up; a messenger was sent to Kuboos, and a few days later
the waggon made an appearance. We struck camp, filled in our
prospecting-holes, blew up our dynamite in a deep pool in the river, as
a parting salute to the Germans, and took the home trail, feeling that
we had put up a good fight against sheer bad luck. Lack of natives and
other adverse circumstances had hampered our work so that, in spite of
our own hard labour, the few holes we had been able to make had been no
real test of the huge beds of gravel, which, with proper appliances and
systematic testing, will very probably some day yield very different
results.
Our bad luck lasted us right to Cape Town. The waggon got hopelessly
stuck in the Holgat River, and delayed us so that we missed the
only decent boat at that time running, had to kick our heels for an
interminable week in Port Nolloth, and finally were obliged to take
passage in a glorified tug, with several other unfortunates, and take
ten long days in coasting round to Cape Town--a trip of 36 hours by the
boat we had missed! Moreover, we were loaded from cut-water to taffrail
with a cargo of guano, the concentrated odour of which was the only
thing we tasted during the whole of the voyage. Dittmer landed ill,
and within a few days was down with diphtheria, which was generally
ascribed to the rough living and bad water we had to put up with during
the trip, but which I put down to that over-generous diet of guano.
CHAPTER XIV
PERMIT FOR THE FORBIDDEN GAME RESERVE--VAN REENEN AND THE
SCORPION--SECOND VISIT TO THE GREAT FALLS--OLD GERT, OUR
GUIDE--BUSHMAN ARROWS AND THEIR POISONS--BUSHMAN INOCULATION AGAINST
SNAKE-BITE--ANTIDOTE FOR SNAKE-BITE--TALES OF “THE GREAT THIRST.”
The trip had given time for certain preliminary plans to mature, and
immediately on my return I made a formal application to the Department
of Mines for permission to enter the Kalahari Game Reserve, and bring
out proof of the existence there of certain diamond-mines.
I pointed out my reasons for holding the belief of their existence,
also that the country was badly in need of revenue, and that the
Premier Mine had that year contributed no less than £600,000 to the
Union’s finances.
And, I argued, there might easily be several “Premiers” awaiting
discovery in the Kalahari, and to find them would not cost the
Government one penny; for, given the desired permission, I would find
the necessary finances myself. All I stipulated was “Discoverer’s
Rights” (half the mine) should I bring out the proof--so that the
Union Government stood to win half a diamond-mine to nothing over the
transaction. As I fully anticipated, the Department of Mines didn’t
see how it could be done! The territory mentioned was “forbidden” to
prospectors, no one was allowed to enter it, it was the breeding-place
of Royal game, no one had ever been granted such a permit, etc.--all
of which I had acknowledged in my application. And finally--and best
reason of all--the Mines Department added that in any case the Reserve
was not under its jurisdiction, being still in the hands of the Cape
Provincial Council, and the Administrator; Sir Frederick de Waal. This
gentleman being unfortunately absent on tour, I was again hung up; but
I made another formal application to him, and strove to possess my soul
in patience, what time letters and wires from Upington urged me to
“get a move on,” for heavy thunder rain had fallen in the desert, and
t’samma would soon make the trip possible.
As I firmly believed in my ability to obtain the permit sooner or
later, I made arrangements for waggons, stores, etc., to be in
readiness, and retained the guide I have previously mentioned, and
another one in Upington, whom my energetic friend there had been months
in tracing, and had finally secured.
But alas! “the best-laid plans of mice and men gang oft agley!” as
this one did; for after a long, long wait I received a point-blank
refusal from His Honour the Administrator, who again informed me that
the Kalahari Game Reserve was “closed to prospecting” as it was the
“breeding-place of Royal game.”
Now, I am as good a sportsman as the next man, and a firm believer in
game-preserving, but considering that I did not propose to ever need
more than a square mile or so of the (approximately) ten thousand
square miles given over to the Reserve, this harping on the rights of
a few gemsbok to keep me from a fortune only made me more determined
to get it, and I again went to the Department of Mines--this time with
more success.
At any rate I this time obtained a sympathetic hearing, and finally,
after many rebuffs and months of delay, during which waggons, horses,
oxen, and guides were “eating their heads off,” I had the supreme
satisfaction of obtaining the desired permission. In it the Honourable
the Minister of Mines agreed to allow me to enter the Reserve for a
period of three months, to start from the date I left Upington, to
search for the “supposed pipe,” conditional that I undertook the work
on behalf of the Government, _and at my own expense_, etc. etc.; also
that a policeman should accompany me on the trip, and that I paid half
his salary during the period he was with me.
The latter gratuitously humiliating condition was afterwards withdrawn,
as it was found impossible to arrange for a camel police trooper to
be spared for the work, and I and my assistants were graciously given
permission to proceed without such escort.
By this time it was the end of September 1912; over six months had
been taken in obtaining the permit, the t’samma season had come and
gone, and the torrid heat of a Kalahari summer was at hand. It would
therefore have been madness to attempt the expedition until some months
had elapsed and young t’samma had again made its appearance--for upon
the precarious patches of these little wild melons we should have
to rely for a substitute for water, in this wild stretch of parched
sand-dunes. Anxiously we therefore waited through the long summer days
of October, November, and December, for news of the first rains, and
it was not until January 1913 that news came from Gordonia that the
first t’samma was beginning to make its appearance, and that it was
considered safe for us to start.
One of our guides had most inconsiderately died whilst waiting, but
the other, with waggons and trek animals, drivers, “boys,” etc., still
awaited us, and on January 26th, 1913, our little party left Cape Town
for Prieska and Upington, where lay our transport.
I had two partners, E. Telfer, a young and enthusiastic Scotsman of
many years’ Colonial experience, and W. van Reenen, a still younger
Cape Dutchman. Both were seasoned men, and though the desert would be
new to them, they were both good shots, good horsemen, and thoroughly
versed in farming, transport, and veldt craft, and I had little fear as
to their ability to see the thing through. Our outfit was chosen with
great care, for we knew that, once away from Upington, our waggon would
be the only source of supplies--food, arms, ammunition, clothing,
tools, and above all, medicine. As we hoped to establish a water depot
within transport distance of the nearest well, we had a number of
specially constructed tanks made--designed especially to pack on camel
or oxen--but these, unfortunately, were of no use to us.
At Prieska all this paraphernalia was transferred to transport-waggons,
whilst with our lighter gear we hurried on to Upington to prepare for
the real desert trek.
The monotony of the Prieska to Upington trail has been referred to
before in these pages, and a description of it would be of little
interest. The drought had not broken here for many months; in the tiny
village of Marydale no shower had fallen for two years, and hour after
hour we trotted through a brown, dreary, dusty, verdureless expanse,
where never a blade of grass or a green leaf could be seen as far as
the eye could reach.
Carcasses of horses, mules, oxen, and other animals lay by the road
every mile or so, and spoke rather too eloquently of the toll the
terrible drought was taking upon the transport animals, and the flocks
and herds of the farmer. Our driver gave us gruesome accounts of farms
whose owners had neglected to trek with their livestock whilst the
veldt still held good, but had waited, hoping for the ever-promising
rain, waited until their last drop of water had dried in their vleys,
wells, or pits, and every nibble of herbage had been cleared off the
face of the land, and who had lost every head of stock they possessed.
Transport was almost unobtainable, for every pound of forage for
the animals for the long trek of 150 miles had to be carried on the
waggons, leaving room for little else! Water, even at the regular
watering-places, was so scarce that a heavy charge was made for each
animal drinking, and it seemed that, if the drought did not break very
soon, the route would have to be utterly abandoned.
And day after day the heavy storm clouds gathered, dark, lowering, and
threatening (or rather promising) torrents of the longed-for rain, a
promise that seemed never to be fulfilled. This gloomy state of affairs
was by no means encouraging, and our driver, when he found out where
we were bound for, laughed, and told us that we were mad to make the
attempt. He said that the farmers between Upington and Rietfontein had
suffered worse than any others, and that a bare week ago he had spoken
to a camel policeman from the north, who had told him that not a drop
of rain had yet fallen, and there would be no t’samma! So we were most
anxious to get to Upington, to find out the truth, for this gloomy
account was an entirely different story from the cheery optimism of the
recent letters and wires we had received.
Apparently, however, whatever might have happened in the Kalahari
during the last few months, it was certainly raining there now, for
as we got farther north, the whole horizon in that direction appeared
covered with a dense bank of clouds, from which lightning frequently
flashed. It seemed as though a perfect deluge must be falling there,
and we took heart of grace, and even wished we had brought our
mackintoshes.
The evening before arriving at Upington van Reenen had a nasty
experience. We had outspanned at a spot only a few hours from Upington,
and had made a large fire in order to roast a porcupine van Reenen had
shot earlier in the day. It was nearly nightfall, and the sky was dark
and lowering, whilst distant thunder could be heard northward. As we
sat by the camp fire, a sudden gust of wind scattered the embers in
all directions, and this was but the prelude to a furious gale that
came tearing along at whirlwind speed, bearing with it not only embers,
but hats, kettles, big flaming branches from the fire, and almost
blinding us with a thick cloud of dust. The morsels of porcupine went
flying into the cinders, and thence all over the veldt, as the wind
whisked the heart of the fire away; through the blast of sand and small
stones came a few drops of rain, and a vivid flash of lightning, with
a simultaneous peal of heavy thunder right over us, showed that we
were in for one of the sudden storms peculiar to the place and season.
In a few minutes it was pitch dark, and we were scuttling all over the
place, in a vain endeavour to retrieve all sorts of belongings that
the wind had snatched away even from the shelter of the waggon. In a
quarter of an hour the worst was over, though still the wind howled
across the shelterless veldt, and we began to collect the scattered
firebrands, and built another fire. Van Reenen, determined to sup off
porcupine, crouched down by the embers, and began cooking fresh slivers
of the rank-smelling meat, when suddenly the driver yelled to _pas
op_ (look out), for the scorpions were “trekking.” Rain, or a heavy
dust-storm, will always bring out these little pests in swarms from
the holes and crevices in which they hide, and I knew that in such
cases they simply ran “amok,” travelling with tail erect, looking for
trouble, and lashing out at anything living that came in their way.
But I was hardly prepared for what followed the driver’s warning, for
within a minute or two the veldt was literally alive with the venomous
little pests, numbers of them walking straight into the fire, where
they squirmed and sizzled horribly. Van Reenen, intent on his cooking,
only swore a little as he brushed one or two aside, and took them far
too lightly, for suddenly a big black specimen ran along his bare arm,
and stung him on the big vein on his wrist, causing him to drop the
second lot of porcupine steak, and let off a yell that scared the whole
camp.
There is nothing more painful than a bad scorpion-sting, but as a rule
they are not particularly dangerous. This, however, was an exception,
for the symptoms that followed were alarming in the extreme. As quickly
as possible the sting was scarified and treated with permanganate of
potash, but within a few minutes the arm had swollen to an enormous
size; and although I bound a ligature tightly above the wound, the
glands of the neck, arm-pit, and groin became similarly affected, the
jaw stiffened, and other most alarming symptoms showed themselves. Van
Reenen was almost mad with pain, and, strong as he was, he was soon in
a state almost of collapse.
We had a small bottle of brandy, and this we poured down him at once,
without the least effect, and for hours we walked him up and down, to
prevent him from falling into the deadly stupor that followed the first
effect.
For days afterwards his right arm was quite useless, and the experience
made him extremely nervous whenever scorpions took a hand in our
proceedings, which was pretty often, for the desert swarms with them,
and scarcely a morning passed but we found three or four of the
venomous things snuggled in between our blankets and the sand on which
we had lain.
We found the Orange at Upington extremely low, and even the favoured
river-lands not wholly free from the effects of the drought.
News from the desert was very conflicting. The farmers were suffering
badly, and _veldt_ for transport animals along the route to Rietfontein
was practically non-existent, but most of them seemed to believe that
heavy rains had fallen in the actual reserve eastward, to which we were
bound.
Into this large tract of country no one ever went, except an occasional
camel trooper, and their infrequent patrols did not extend farther than
the large pans known as “Aar Pan,” “Gunga Pan” and “Betterstadt Pan,”
which were said to lie about twenty miles from the western edge of the
desert.
A patrol had passed that way about a month previously, and had seen no
sign of rain having fallen, but Bushmen had reported that t’samma was
flourishing farther east, and the only way to find out if such was the
case was to go in and find out for ourselves.
In Upington we were lucky in finding Lieutenant Geary, the officer in
charge at Rietfontein, who was down on a holiday, and who very kindly
filled in the approximate positions of the above-named pans on my
map, upon which the vast Game Reserve was simply a huge blank space,
marked “Unexplored.” These pans he had visited himself on camel-back,
and he was sceptical of our being able to reach them in any other
manner. But camels, we found, were quite unobtainable in Gordonia, the
Rietfontein police being the only people who had any, and they, it
appeared, being so short that to lend us any was out of the question.
[Illustration: “CANDELABRA EUPHORBIA.”
The Bushmen make arrow-poison from this.]
[Illustration: “OLD GERT.”
My guide in the Kalahari, and for many years a chief of Bushmen
there.]
Meanwhile, as we had hopelessly out-distanced our heavy transport,
and could not start till its arrival, we arranged a flying trip to
the Great Falls, hoping to obtain a successful film of the wonderful
cataract; for with an appreciation of the fact that we should be
visiting places where not even a photograph had been taken before, we
had obtained a cinematograph camera and many thousand feet of film.
Although the volume of water was not so great as on our previous visit,
I was more impressed than ever with the solemn and desolate grandeur
of the place, and above all with the fact of so much potential energy
being absolutely unutilised, and the strange anomaly of a huge body
of water, in a land where it is such a scarce and valuable commodity,
running absolutely to waste.
The views were obtained with considerable difficulty, for, as I have
before described, the Falls are very difficult of access, and to obtain
a frontal view of them we had to operate the machine from a tiny ledge
of rock overhanging the abyss at a great height, and so small that the
third leg of the tripod-stand could find no footing, but hung out over
the precipice, whilst the two of us operating hung on by our eyebrows
to it and to the trembling rock. I was profoundly thankful when it was
all over, and we were back on firm ground again, with what we hoped
would prove a very fine and unique film.
This preliminary canter over, and once again in Upington, we settled
down to preparations for the northward trek, for our heavy belongings
had arrived in our absence, and we were anxious for the road. Both
guide and waggon were ready, the latter belonging to a young Dutchman
named Gert du Toit, who was familiar with the fringes of the Reserve,
and who was himself most anxious to accompany us; for he, too, had
heard of, and believed in, the diamond-mine. And to give him his due
at once, no better sportsman or companion have I ever roughed it with
either in Africa or elsewhere.
Old Gert Louw, my guide, was a most remarkable old chap. Full of veldt
lore, and at one time famed as a hunter, his knowledge of the Kalahari
was unequalled. For many years of his young manhood he had been the
chosen chief of all the Bushmen that wandered there, and knew every
“pan” in the whole vast expanse.
He had no idea of his own age, but must have been well over ninety;
but he was still alert, keen-eyed, and full of intelligence. But
Bushman chief as he had been, old Gert was not a Bushman born. Son
of a Boer father and a Hottentot mother, and born in the Kenhardt
district, he had, whilst still a youth, wandered with other hunters
into the Kalahari in search of ostrich feathers and skins, and there,
joining a Bushman tribe, had eventually become their chief--apparently
by the simple process of eliminating all his rivals by means of the
flint-lock, with which he had been an unerring shot, and against which
the poisoned arrows of the little Bush folk had very little chance.
Not that he despised the arrows altogether, but learned to shoot well
with them, and had many a tale to tell of the myriad head of game that
the little flint-pointed darts had brought down for him. He told me of
the poisons the Bushmen used, poisons so virulent that a scratch from
an arrow dipped in either of them meant death to man or beast within a
few minutes. The huge “baviaan” spider provided one of these. Caught at
a certain season, these venomous insects were pounded between stones,
and the resultant paste exposed to the light of the moon for several
nights before it was fit for the arrow-tips. Another favourite poison
was made from the viscid juice of the _Candelabra euphorbia_, and this
also was prepared with certain rites and observances in which the moon
again figured. Both these poisons were so rapid in effect that the
Bushmen, shooting at game with their arrows thus poisoned, made little
effort to do more than pierce the animal’s skin, nor troubled to pursue
their quarry, leisurely following the spoor in the certainty that the
wounded animal would be found dead at no great distance. Peculiarly
enough, these poisons, though so virulent, had no ill effect upon the
flesh of the animal slain. These arrow’s were never used for war.
For this the favourite poison was obtained from certain portions of
a putrefying corpse, and, according to Old Gert, a man wounded with
a war-shaft poisoned with this awful venom died horribly of lock-jaw
almost immediately.
Even when iron was obtainable, it was rarely used for arrow-heads, the
Bushmen preferring those of flint, agate, or bone, as the poisons were
not so effective on the iron barbs.
The old man’s gnarled and wrinkled body was covered with scars, and he
had a tale to tell of each. The raised tattoo marks upon his chest were
tribal marks, given to him with weird ceremonies when he was admitted
to the “blood brotherhood,” whilst directly over his heart was a circle
of little cuts, showing where he had been inoculated with snake-venom
and made immune from their bite. He described this as a fearful ordeal,
under which men often died, but which, when they survived, “made them
snakes themselves,” as he expressed it. Neither puff-adder, ringhals,
cobra, or night-adder would attempt to bite a man thus transformed;
and he claimed that, if he came near a snake, it would remain rigid,
and allow him to handle it with impunity. Certainly he showed not the
slightest fear of them, though I noticed he invariably carried the
Hottentot antidote for snake-bite about with him. This antidote is a
small low bush with yellow flowers, found in the Kalahari--but nowhere
very plentiful--the parts used being the dried roots and small twigs.
The inoculation is carried out with the venom of the cobra, which is
captured alive, and forced to bite the patient or novitiate over the
region of the heart. Meanwhile he is held by two men, who watch him,
and administer the antidote only in small doses, and when the poison
seems likely to gain the mastery, they rub the perspiration which pours
from him into the bite. In common with every Hottentot and Bushman
ever met, Old Gert believed the sand-gecko to be the most deadly of
all poisonous reptiles, though scientists assert that it is absolutely
harmless!
He showed us a bite on his knee, which he solemnly asserted was made
by one of these little lizards many years before, and which had nearly
killed him, his whole body swelling, and his jaw being locked for days!
For many years the old pagan had been virtually King of the Kalahari
Bushmen, with henchmen and wives galore, hunting the ostrich for its
plumes, and the lynx, leopard, lion, and jackal for their valuable
pelts, bringing in his commodities twice a year to the white men at
Klaas Lucas Kraal, Kheis, or Griquatown, and returning with his waggons
full of Manchester goods, sugar, coffee, and tobacco, and above all
with _dop_ sufficient for a glorious jamboree.
He told me many gruesome tales of the “Great Thirst” (the Kalahari),
where even the Bushman is occasionally unwary enough to stray too far
from t’samma and dies hideously of thirst. He had wandered northward
to N’Gami, and westward to the wild coast near Portuguese territory,
where the Kunene runs into the sea, and long before a German flag was
ever hoisted in that north-western part of Damaraland. Once, after many
days of trekking and half dead with thirst, he shot and wounded a bull
eland, and following it, found water in a pit in a desert pan.
Drinking it, three of his four horses fell dead almost at once. He
and his companions got away, but no less than 43 out of the party of
46 Bastards following them were poisoned, the three who escaped being
young children.
Dop, Hottentots, Bastards, and white men between them had long since
wiped out his tribe of Bushmen, and the old man had settled down at
Upington with a new tribe of children and grandchildren; but his
heart’s desire was the desert, and he was frantically eager to be back
among the dunes. He knew the pan where the other Bushman had picked up
the diamonds; he knew also a pan where the garnets and carbon lay thick
in a soft yellow matrix, which, by its description, could be nothing
but “Kimberlite”; and, more remote than any of them, he knew a similar
pan, where there was a big limestone capping, in which were dotted
bright green stones innumerable.
I showed Old Gert my collection of stones, and he picked out my one
tiny emerald unhesitatingly from among half a dozen others--green gems,
peridotes, green garnets, chrysophrase, tourmalines, etc.--and in
addition described the precise crystallisation that the emerald takes.
Anderson was credited with having found emeralds in the Kalahari; I
myself had picked up beryls--of which they are a variety--in abundance
in German territory, west of where we were bound; and to add to
the likelihood of there being emeralds as well as diamonds in this
“Tom Tiddler’s Ground,” I heard from Mr. H. S. Harger, a well-known
Johannesburg gem expert and geologist, who happened to be in Upington
at the time, that some years back no less than £40,000 worth of fine
rough emeralds had been sold in Hatton Garden--and that it was believed
by all the _cognoscenti_ that they came from the Kalahari!
On Saturday, February 17th, all was at length ready. We had discarded
every bit of superfluous gear, and our waggons were packed with all
that we expected to need during our long trip; our rifles and shot-guns
hung from straps, ready to hand for the game we hoped to kill along
the path, and we were armed with an additional permit from the Resident
Magistrate, authorising us to take these weapons into the Reserve--a
permission which had been omitted in the Government permit, and without
which the first police trooper we met would have promptly hauled us
back in ignominy.
CHAPTER XV
THE “PANS” OF THE KALAHARI DESERT--THE MOLOPO
ROUTE--BOOMPLAATS--ENTERING THE RESERVE--SPOORS--THE WATER
CAMP--THIRST--THE GREAT SALT PAN--LOST!
The first few days of our trek lay through the route referred to in
Chapter V--the post road to Rietfontein and the north. Except that both
grass and water were even scarcer than on that occasion, everything
was exactly the same--the infrequent “homesteads,” naturally somewhat
dirtier and more dilapidated, and the accumulation of dead animals and
similar horrors somewhat increased on account of the drought. This
latter, however, did not appear to be as bad as we had been led to
expect, as water was still plentiful at the usual wells and water-pits.
The veldt was very bare, and Du Toit was often obliged to drive his
tired oxen many miles from the outspan before he could get a mouthful
of grass for them.
So our trekking was of necessity slow, and, on account of the great
heat, most of it was done at night. Thus we crawled through Areachap,
Steenkams Puts, Grondneus, and Zwartmodder, into the old bed of the
Molopo, where there was water in the deep wells, but fodder was
non-existent, and the oxen apparently lived on pebbles. We were now
skirting the south-west extremity of the Reserve, which stretched
east in a vast, dim, featureless, and apparently boundless world of
sand-dunes, but the spot at which we intended entering it was still
days to the north. The few habitations became fewer and wider apart, a
long day’s journey of heavy sand-dunes usually dividing “neighbours” in
this lonely fringe of huge desert farmlands on the Kalahari border, and
water being unobtainable in between them. In fact, numbers of these
vast surveyed desert farms had neither permanent water nor habitation
on them.
Ten days of trekking, and our eyes were gladdened by the most welcome
of all sights in such a country, a large vley of water, in which cattle
stood knee-deep, and over which flew Namaqua partridges in countless
thousands. This was “Abiqwas” Pits, close to the tiny police post
of “Obopogorop,” where two unfortunate young police troopers were
stationed, within a mile or so of the equally desolate German border.
Here we shot partridges to our hearts’ content, browning the big coveys
shamelessly, for cartridges begin to be valued by the time one has
spent a few months in the veldt.
There were several waggons here, Boer families trekking to Upington for
their periodical _nachtmaal_ (communion), which festivity, if it may be
termed as such, appeared to be the one exciting event of their dreary,
monotonous existence. They were incredulous as to our being allowed
into the Reserve--with rifles!
“_Allemachtig!_”--why, then, should we _verdommte uitlanders_ be
allowed in the Reserve, when _they_, who lived on its border, scarce
dare follow a strayed beast a day’s trek into it without the police
being after them?
But there--we should see! The police would take but little notice of
our precious permit, and we had better look out! They were cantankerous
and surly, and evidently wished us all the bad luck they prophesied.
According to them, there was no t’samma in the whole Reserve; we should
die of thirst.
We asked them how they came to know this, considering that they
professed never to have been in the forbidden area. They said they had
“heard so.”
We had no _dop_ to placate them with, though we made coffee all day
long for them. They were living on mutton, or goat, rather, when
their half-bred greyhound lurchers failed to bring down a buck for
them, that is to say; for they were out of cartridges too. And when
I say “mutton”--I mean just that--not with its attendant “fixings”
of potatoes, or carrots, or turnips, or caper sauce, or even bread,
but just _vleesch_ along with every meal, every day! They had been
out of Boer meal for weeks, so there was no bread, or even mealie
pap, to accompany it; the meat was hacked off in shapeless chunks,
and half-boiled in a Kaffir pot, or thrown in the embers, and torn
apart by the teeth as a native would tear it--cinders and all! Coffee
they had not seen for weeks, using as a substitute a vile-smelling
and vile-tasting decoction made from the root of the _wit boom_
(carrion-tree). Yet these men had property, broad farms (even though
of poor land) and plenty of flocks and herds, and undoubtedly a goodly
number of sovereigns tied up in a skin bag, and buried somewhere in or
near the hovel they called a “home.”
The only time they relaxed their sour visages was when, after tobacco
and coffee and the loan of all the meal we could spare had failed
to make them more companionable, we had the happy idea of inviting
them to try our rifles. Then they became quite jocose, and as we had
plenty of rifle cartridges, we had a regular Bisley of it there in the
sand-dunes. They were good shots, but only when they could choose their
own position--that is to say, lying down. This, of course, not only
gives them a better chance at game, but is their normal posture. Stand
and shoot they could not, and their attempts at doing so were weird and
wonderful.
The abundance of water at Abiqwas Pits made us careless, for the next
day, after passing a most desolate little homestead called Klip Aar, we
discovered that each man had left it to the other to see to filling the
water-casks, with the result that they were all empty, and we were in
the middle of a long waterless stretch.
The driver said he knew of an old water-hole a mile or two from the
trail, and that evening late we turned off towards it. Though we had
only been without water since morning we were parched, for the heat
had been at its very height. We found the “pit” all right, a well of
about 40 feet deep, covered with a sheet of galvanised iron, and a
splash from a dropped stone showed we had come to the right place for a
cool, deep drink.
Hastily we lowered a bucket and heard the delightful cool “splash,
splash,” as we hauled it up with thirsty anticipation. I had a tin
beaker in my hand to get first dip, but van Reenen, always the
thirstiest, was not standing on ceremony, but flung himself down and
tilted the whole bucket to his lips, and simultaneously with the yell
he gave as he emitted that long draught came a SMELL! There are no
words to describe it!... Rotten eggs and black powder principally,
perhaps, and scientifically I believe it was only sulphuretted
hydrogen, and rather healthy than otherwise; at the same time I quite
sympathised with the near-side leading ox, who promptly kicked van
Reenen severely when he hopefully offered the innocent animal the
remainder of that bucketful. These aromatic wells are called _stink
water_ or _stink fonteins_ by the Boers, whose language is both terse
and expressive. Fourteen days from our leaving Upington we arrived
at the farm from which we proposed to enter the Reserve, a place
called Boomplaats, where the dry Molopo--which most of the journey
had been bare of trees or any vestige of vegetation--was scattered
with magnificent camel-thorn trees of great age and girth, and shaped
like a very symmetrical oak. Here there was a small homestead and good
water, the owner, a well-to-do Boer named Rauchtenbach, had plenty of
trek animals and waggons, and we hoped to be able to arrange for water
transport to our first camp, as far as practicable eastward in the
Reserve.
Rauchtenbach assured us that there could be no t’samma for months, as
he had entered the Reserve after strayed cattle a few days previously,
and had for a full day’s journey seen no sign of rain having fallen,
without which there would be no t’samma.
Old Gert had wished us to enter a day farther south and make for “Aar
Pan,” where he considered it would be best to work from to locate the
nearest diamond pan, but we had feared to venture with the waggons
until we had spied out the land.
On hearing Rauchtenbach’s report as to the nonexistence of t’samma,
however, the old man again strongly urged his plan, and now claimed
that there was a deep pit at Aar Pan, where water had never failed in
his day, and that there would be no danger in trekking on. However, it
would mean at least two hard days’ trek to reach it with the waggons,
and should there be no water we should scarcely get the oxen out alive,
for though these Kalahari cattle can go that time (four days) without
great inconvenience when simply ranging the veldt, it is quite another
matter when they are hauling heavy waggons through deep sand and over
veritable mountains of sand-dunes.
Were the water there, however, it would make matters easy for us, so to
make sure we decided to send Du Toit in with a native on horseback to
find out how the land lay.
He was gone two days, and came back with the horses absolutely
exhausted. The pit was there, but it was bone dry, there was not a drop
of water between the Molopo and the pan, and although there was an
abundance of grass, the horses had suffered badly: for it too was dry.
Of the various succulent sorrels and other juicy plants and grasses
that spring up immediately after rain there was not a vestige, nor of
t’samma.
This was bad news, and we now for the first time realised what the
failure to obtain camels would mean to us.
Our specially made water-tanks would be almost useless, and our idea of
pack-oxen as bad, for obviously they could not carry water for their
own consumption, and could therefore only work within a very limited
radius of the water base. We were two months too early, the reports as
to t’samma in abundance that we had received before leaving Cape Town
were without foundation; and as we could not afford to wait, there was
nothing else for it but to attempt to arrange a water depot as far in
as practicable, and do our exploring on foot.
Rauchtenbach strongly advised us not to make for Aar Pan, but to camp
at a spot about eighteen hours’ trek due east of his farm, from which
spot we should be within a reasonable distance of the better-known
pans, and which would be the farthest distance to which he would be
able to convey water for our actual need.
As Old Gert knew this spot and approved of the plan, this was agreed
to, and we trekked up to the water-pits at the northern part of the
farm, from which we should in future draw our supplies. For days past
the clouds had hung heavily to the eastward, and it appeared to be
raining in that direction, though so far no drop had fallen near us
during the whole journey; but as we now trekked towards the well, a
violent sand-storm came up behind us, and within a few minutes of
its overtaking us we could scarcely see a yard. We were sitting in
the after-part of the waggon, talking to Du Toit, who was holding on
behind, when suddenly he gave a yell and began dancing and kicking
frantically.
“There’s a snake up my leg!” he shouted, and we jumped down just as
a frantic kick sent it squirming and wriggling into the sand, whence
it made off like greased lightning. We killed it under the waggon.
It was a young _geel capell_ (yellow cobra), about 2 feet long,
quite big enough to have killed Du Toit, who was very lucky not to
have been bitten. All kinds of reptiles and venomous insects seem
to “trek” and run amok during these sand-storms, probably seeking
for shelter from the rain that usually follows. In this case the
rain followed immediately, thunder-clouds rolling up all around with
incredible rapidity, and before we could properly cover the forepart
of the waggon, the longed-for rain was pouring down in sheets. In a
few minutes it was pitch dark, except for the vivid lightning, and we
huddled in the waggon under a big bucksail which covered and half
suffocated us--four white men and half a dozen Hottentots. So heavy
was the downpour, and so near the almost incessant flashes of violet
lightning, that the driver himself crept under the sail, and his weird
screams at the frightened oxen, the roar of the wind and thunder, the
crash and bump of the waggon as the scared animals scuttled along at
their own sweet will, the darkness, heat, and perfume of Araby from the
sweating natives, all combined to make that little joy-ride a thing to
be remembered.
[Illustration: ON THE GREAT SALT PAN, IN THE CENTRE OF THE SOUTHERN
KALAHARI DESERT.]
Eventually a big tree-stump brought the waggon to an abrupt stop, and
the storm ceasing as suddenly as it had begun, we were able to get
a light and disentangle ourselves from the most appalling jumble of
gear imaginable. Guns had fallen from their slings, clothing, boots,
cartridges, food, and Lord knows what, were piled all around and on
top of us; but all might have been well had it not been for young van
Reenen, who had taken advantage of the darkness to abstract a tin of
marmalade from the “scoff-box” and was, as he confessed, making good
going, when the waggon hit a snag, and he lost the run of the tin.
Every blessed thing in the waggon was sticky for days afterwards.
At the pits we left our reserve stores, every available utensil
was filled with water, and in addition two hogsheads belonging to
Rauchtenbach were lashed upon a further waggon; the oxen drank their
fill, and we made our entry into the Reserve.
On leaving the Molopo, in which the well was situated, we immediately
entered the Reserve, the huge sand-dunes here trending in the right
direction, and for a time making the going fairly easy. For in the
long valleys between the wave-like dunes the sand was comparatively
firm, being bound by various stunted roots and grasses, mostly dry,
and showing but little signs of life, but capable of bursting forth
into luxuriant growth with astonishing rapidity at the most meagre
encouragement in the shape of a passing thunderstorm.
The bare-looking little bushes were principally the _drie doorn_ and
_zout bosch_ common all over South Africa, whilst here and there on
the slopes of the dunes were thick _haak doorn_ bushes of vivid green.
These were covered with huge cocoons, the size of one’s thumb and very
firmly attached to the twigs. This cocoon is of the consistency of very
tough, thick cardboard, and contains a large black larvæ which is eaten
by the Bushmen, who utilise the strong case for snuffboxes, etc., also
making bracelets and anklets of them, stringing them together, and
placing small stones inside so that in their favourite “baboon dance”
they give forth a swishing, rattling sound with each movement. They
also eat the huge white maggot which bores so freely into the larger
gum-trees, scorching them on hot stones as they do their other _bonne
bouche_, the locust.
As we got farther into the dunes, the going became more and more
difficult, for the long parallel waves of sand, though trending at
first south-east, soon curved away from our course, and we were forced
to cross them, diagonally at first, but later they lay right athwart
our path. So high were they, so steep and close together, and so soft
the sand near their summits, that our progress became slow to a degree,
and only possible at all by infinite labour and difficulty. Often the
second team had to be outspanned and added to the leading waggon to
haul it over the crest of some sand-mountain, whence it plunged down
a perilous slope, to encounter a similar obstacle immediately. In
addition to this laborious crawling over wall after wall of sand, the
hollows between were now frequently honeycombed with the huge holes of
the ant-bear, or the burrows of large colonies of musk-rats, meer-cats,
jackals, porcupine, and other small animals, amongst which the oxen
fell and floundered, at imminent risk of breaking their legs, and we
were therefore often forced to make tedious detours from our already
difficult course.
Track or path, of course, there was none. We were making our own
waggon-path through country where no waggon had ever ventured within
the memory of Rauchtenbach’s Hottentots who were guiding us. No sign
was there anywhere of a man’s footprint, though the soft sand was as a
closely written page with the spoors of countless animals.
Dainty little _slots_ of steinbok and duiker, quaint little hand-like
paw-marks of the porcupine, dog-like pads of the jackal; here a wide
swath of country trampled and torn up by the sturdy hooves of a vast
troop of trotting gemsbok, proud monarch of these desert wastes--there
the fast trail of a pack of the ferocious wild hunting-dog, most
dangerous and destructive of pests. Huge spoors of the ostrich, like
a grotesque, deformed human foot, and showing by its gigantic strides
where the big bird had flown like the wind before us; tiny, dainty
pads of wild-cat and genet, larger ones of the _rooi kat_ or lynx,
and, too frequently to be pleasant, the big spoors of the treacherous
sand-leopard, which, when wounded, is more to be feared than the lion.
The queer-looking footprints of the _tijger woolf_ (spotted hyena),
with two huge paws and two quite small ones, were often to be seen
covering these spoors of the leopard, showing where the hulking,
cowardly beast had followed the bolder animal, content to eat his
leavings when he had killed and eaten his fill. And prominent among
all these signs of the dune-dwellers were the huge claw-marks of the
giant _gom paauw_, a magnificent game bird of the bustard family,
which attains a weight of 50 lb. or more, and which, superb in spread
of wing, could be seen getting up from the crest of the dunes well in
advance of the waggon. With the exception of these fine and wary birds,
and of the noisy korhaan, whose harsh, warning cackle sounded from all
quarters, no game whatever could be seen, for the yells of our drivers,
the cracking of whips, and the creaking of the waggon gave plenty of
warning of our approach.
Moreover, here, deep in the dunes, our scope of vision was extremely
limited. In the hollows between them nothing could be seen except the
crest of the sand-wave we had passed or were climbing, and the long
narrow _straat_ on either hand, whilst from the crest itself vision was
bounded by the nearest dune a few feet higher than its neighbours, and
rarely could a view be obtained of anything more than a few hundred
yards ahead. Occasionally we climbed one of the most prominent dunes,
and could see an apparently limitless expanse of wave after wave of
dunes, covered with grey-green grass and scrub, monotonous in form
and colour, and with no single distinctive feature, as far as the eye
could see. No landmarks, no paths, each dune the counterpart of its
neighbour, nothing to guide us, nothing to rely upon but the sense of
direction, this waterless wilderness made it easy to understand the
tales of men who had wandered in a circle for days searching vainly for
t’samma or water or a way back, and dying within a mile or so of safety.
With an occasional brief outspan, we trekked all afternoon, evening,
and throughout the night, for the drivers were most anxious to reach
our camping-place before the sun gained power the following morning,
and with the exception of a precarious perch now and again on the
waggon, we walked the whole time. Towards morning the steep and
difficult dunes came to an end, and we entered a _straat_ a hundred
yards or more in width, and trending in the right direction. Here
the going, after the switchbacking of the previous twelve hours, was
easy and pleasant, and we climbed thankfully into the waggon, and had
just fallen asleep, when a chorus of yells and shrieks and the waggon
coming to a standstill woke us all up again. Rauchtenbach’s waggon
with the water-supply, which had been leading, had crashed into a big
ant-bear hole and overturned, and one hogshead lay broached with all
its precious contents spilt in the thirsty sand, whilst several of the
smaller tanks were badly battered and leaking.
We lit fires of dry _toa_ grass, outspanned the oxen, and all hands had
to turn to and worked hard till daybreak before we salved the rest of
our precious water and were ready to trek again; and the sun was high
in the heavens, and both the oxen and ourselves about played out, when,
after negotiating a few lines of extremely steep and difficult dunes,
we came upon a small pan from which stretched a broad straight _straat_
leading due east, and which was the spot Rauchtenbach had recommended
as a camp. His judgment had not been at fault, for the position was
admirable. He had gauged the capabilities of the oxen to a nicety,
for it was quite obvious that they could not have dragged the waggons
farther with a reasonable chance of getting back to water; the _straat_
was open and of firm sand, in which tents could be pitched without
fear of being blown away; there was an abundance of dry firewood in
the shape of old tree-stumps all along the ridges of the flanking
dunes, and the small pan showed traces of having held water, and in the
event of rain would hold it again. And, best of all, in the immediate
vicinity was an exceptionally high dune, from which we were able to
distinguish several of the larger pans eastward, and which would form a
most useful landmark as to our camp’s whereabouts when we wandered far
afield.
There was grass in profusion--dry, but still good food for the cattle,
and barely three dunes’ distance north we found a tract of sand where
a heavy shower had fallen some time before, and where the t’samma was
already beginning to bloom.
So that everything looked _couleur-de-rose_, and we unpacked stores and
tools, pitched our tents, and prepared our camp with a light heart.
In the evening the water-waggon left for the return journey, and not
before it was time, for the hollow flanks and staring eyes of the poor
beasts showed that they were suffering from thirst already. They were
to return in a week with a further supply, meanwhile, in spite of the
loss of one of the hogsheads, we should have sufficient.
The first two or three days were spent in exploring our immediate
neighbourhood. North and south, the dunes were very formidable and
close together, and half a day’s toiling in either direction disclosed
nothing but the same endless succession of long serried lines, ending
in confused and broken country eastward. This preliminary canter was
to enable us to get a general idea of our immediate surroundings, and
gradually we were able to add other landmarks to our friendly big dune,
a solitary _wit boom_ tree, scarcely 10 feet in height, but looming up
like a forest giant, and prominent for miles in this treeless waste,
a clump of _haak doorn_ bush, or a peculiarly bare patch of sand,
all helping us to steer a course without the tediousness of working
by compass, or of having to always follow the return trail over own
our spoor. Gradually, too, the seemingly featureless contours of the
dunes, each at first appearing the counterpart of the adjoining one,
became distinguishable, and we began to gain the faculty of acute and
mechanical observation of trifling differences essential for the long
journeys we were preparing for in this pathless and unexplored waste.
From the “lookout” dune we studied the country eastward. Almost due
east, and apparently only about ten miles distant, a line of pure
white sand-ridges showed the position of a big pan, which Old Gert
recognised as a famous hunting rendezvous of the Bushmen in his day,
and taking his bearings from it, he showed us, several points south of
it, a long humped dune which apparently rose to a great height above
its surroundings, and which towards evening loomed up like a mountain.
This, he said, was “Aar Pan,” and from it he could locate pan after
pan, including those which we were in search of. But the time of all
times to locate these distant depressions was at daybreak, when for
a short period before the sun actually rose, a small, distinct, and
well-defined cloud could be seen floating low down over each of the
larger pans, due doubtless to the moisture evaporating from their
firmer soil, and which was wanting in the loose sand of the surrounding
dunes.
The furnace-like heat continued, though each afternoon storm-clouds
gathered, and apparently heavy rain was falling eastward, especially in
the direction of Aar Pan, where Old Gert assured us water would now be
found.
Our anxiety, however, was not now so much about water, but about Old
Gert himself, for he had contracted rheumatism so badly that he could
scarcely hobble, and it soon became apparent that, until water fell in
the pans, or t’samma made it possible to employ a riding-ox to carry
him, we should have to rely upon his instructions, and search out the
places for ourselves.
Aar Pan we could not miss, and thence the nearest pan where diamonds
had been found was but half a day’s trek. The others were several
days’ journey distant, but this nearest pan appeared an easy task to
find. Gert tried to dissuade us, however, and suggested that we had
better first try to locate a vast salt pan at one time well known to
the natives, and which should be, he considered, about six hours’ trek
due east, and impossible to miss. The locating of this pan would,
he explained, help us greatly in our further operations, and we
accordingly set out early one morning with the intention of finding it.
Du Toit, van Reenen, and myself made up the party, as Telfer was
indisposed. Each man carried only a water-bottle, a little food, and a
rifle, for we fully expected to reach the pan by midday, and be back by
night.
Experienced as I thought myself in the desert, that first walk
eastward, so lightly undertaken, was to provide a lesson never to be
forgotten.
For an hour or so the almost straight _straat_ in which the camp stood
led in the right direction, due east. It ended in broken dunes, very
high and confused; still, we were able to keep the general direction
for another couple of hours, when we had the “luck” to strike another
series of dunes and _straats_ apparently in a beeline with our
objective, and we pushed on, congratulating ourselves that by noon we
should reach the Salt Pan. Unfortunately, however, the rough country
had thrown us a point or two out of our bearings, and this easy, wide,
and seductive-looking _straat_ fooled us nicely. For, as we afterwards
discovered, it not only started slightly in the wrong direction, but
curved so gradually as to deceive us completely, and without even
a glance at the compass we toiled on till the terrific heat of the
blazing sun right overhead showed us that it was noon, and our burning
feet and aching calves urged a halt. There was an abundance of low bush
and thick grass, but not a tree anywhere, and we threw ourselves down
and rested for a while in the blazing sunshine. We had been walking
about six hours with scarcely a breather, and even allowing for slow
progress in the broken dunes, we had, we calculated, come a distance
of at least twelve miles, and should be near the Salt Pan. But the
crest of the dunes showed us no break in either direction, and with a
brief rest we pushed on again for about an hour, when the end of the
_straat_ came in sight, barred by formidable dunes running right across
it. Evidently there was no salt pan in that direction, and a tardy
look at our compass showed us that we had gradually been turning from
our course, and were heading north-east instead of east. Had we been
sensible, we should have turned back to camp, whilst there was still
time to get within sight of it by nightfall, but we were so chagrined
at having neglected to steer a straight course that we wrong-headedly
determined not to return till we had found the Salt Pan. It was a
foolish decision. We had brought only a little water, and most of it
had gone already, for there had apparently been no need to economise,
and we had even given a few precious drops to the two wretched dogs
belonging to Old Gert, which had followed us in spite of all our
attempts to keep them back. The scorching sand had already played
havoc with their feet, and at every short halt we made they scratched
themselves frantically into a hole in the sand.
It was about two o’clock, and there was therefore about six hours’
daylight left to us as we left the _straat_ and plunged into a perfect
chaos of broken dunes, from the crests of which the whole of the
circumscribed expanse from horizon to horizon revealed nothing but a
featureless ocean of ridges.
In vain we swept it for some recognisable landmarks, our big dune near
the camp or the vastly bigger one that marked Aar Pan; but either
they were hidden from view by intervening dunes, or were no longer
recognisable from our new viewpoint.
“Either straight back on our spoors or due south,” said Du Toit, and
as we thought of Old Gert’s sardonic grin when we told him we had not
found such a big space as the Salt Pan, we unhesitatingly turned due
south.
Late in the afternoon, already nearly played out, we crested a
prominent rise, and saw an exceptionally high dune a good deal east
of us, and from its base there seemed to stretch a white flat space,
though but little of it was visible. Evidently this must be the Salt
Pan, and we concluded that Old Gert had been mistaken about the time
needed to reach it, and that we had not been so far out of the course
after all. So we headed for it, thankfully trying to forget that we
had scarcely any water, and that we should have a long, thirsty day’s
trek back on the morrow. The dune was a great deal farther off than it
appeared, and seemed to recede from us; but the pan at its foot showed
more plainly from the brow of every dune we toiled over, and at about
sunset we struggled clear of the sand and stood on the edge of its
flat surface. It was about a mile in width, almost a perfect circle in
shape, and across its broad surface there trotted away from us a fine
troop of at least a hundred gemsbok, which halted every now and then
to stand like statues, gazing back at the intruders. Then, again, a
big bull would give a toss of his four-foot horns, and a stamp, and
instantly the whole body would break into a rapid trot, keeping line
and pace, and wheeling and changing direction as might a well-drilled
regiment of cavalry.
We stood for a minute entranced at the fine sight, then, as they
cantered off, I said, “Well, boys, here’s the pan at last!”
“Yes,” croaked Du Toit, “but not the Salt Pan!”
Nor was it. The white sand which I had first seen, and taken for
granted as salt, only extended round the slopes of the dunes encircling
the pan, which was mainly composed of hard-baked greenish mud, covered
with a glaze and as smooth as a billiard-table. Here and there lay a
few pebbles of jasper and quartz similar to those found all over the
north-west, but there was nothing at all approaching the “indications”
we were in search of, and we had evidently stumbled upon quite a
different pan from any of those described by Old Gert.
Meanwhile it was rapidly growing dark, and Du Toit very sensibly
suggested that, whilst there was yet a little light, we should separate
and search the pan as much as possible, to see if by great luck there
might be a little water in any of the slight hollows. But nothing but
a little still moist mud rewarded us, and we wearily sought a nook
in the dunes and threw ourselves down to sleep. We had biltong and
_roster-kook_ enough, but scarcely a gill of water between the three of
us, and our mouths and throats were already so parched and dry that it
was difficult to sleep.
“Straight back over our spoors, as soon as it’s light enough to see
them,” said Gert du Toit as we discussed the situation. We were a full
day from water, and although in no danger, we could afford to run no
risks.
In the desert the nights are often extremely cold, and before morning
we were awake and shivering, and as soon as the first peep of dawn
appeared we searched the vicinity for dry bush, and soon had a fire,
round which we crouched till daylight. And then we did a sensible
thing which, however, led to our doing an extremely stupid one. For it
struck us to climb the big dune and spy out our surroundings, instead
of turning straight back before the cool of the morning had gone. The
dune towered a good fifty feet above the surrounding ridges, and as we
reached the top, an extraordinary panorama stretched out before us. For
eastward there lay pan after pan, looking exactly like little lakes
left in the sand by the receding tide, their white rims and dark blue
centres showing up clearly among the surrounding wilderness of reddish
dunes and grey-green scrub. At least a dozen of them were in sight,
and the little clouds hanging low over the farther distance showed
where numerous others were situated. On more than one large numbers of
gemsbok could be seen, and the thickness of the vegetation appeared
to prove that in that direction at least there would be t’samma. Our
resolution to return vanished instantly. Probably these were the very
pans of which we were in search, and a few hours might fill our pockets
with diamonds! At any rate these pans were entirely different in
appearance from the one beneath us, and the deep blue colour of several
of them, and their circular shape, were very suggestive. Moreover there
would probably be water!
“Wait a minute,” said Du Toit, as we were making a beeline east towards
them. “This is exactly how men get lost and die of thirst. Suppose we
don’t find water or t’samma? It will take us half a day to reach and
search one or two of them, and we shall never get back! We are thirsty
now, and by noon we shall be half mad. We’d better go back.”
So far we had not looked in that direction at all, but as we turned
reluctantly westward an even more wonderful sight met our eyes. For
there, apparently but an hour or two away and slightly to the south,
lay the Salt Pan, a wide expanse of snowy white, apparently a frozen
lake covered with untrodden snow, and bounded on the far side by
gigantic dunes. And beyond it, unmistakable in size and contour, rose
the huge dune of “Aar Pan,” whose long blue floor could be seen
extending for miles beneath it.
Apparently, then, we had passed within a mile or two of the Salt Pan
about noon of the previous day, though the many dunes we had climbed
had given us no glimpse of it!
Anyway there it was at last, impossible to miss, and we immediately
decided to make for it, for it appeared but a trifling detour from our
homeward track, and we had no fear of not finding our way back that way.
Once down from the big dune, and naturally the pan was lost sight
of, but we were not taking any more chances, and worked by compass.
Terrible work it was too, for we found no obliging _straat_ leading
in the right direction, but had to toil over ridge after ridge of
extremely loose, bare sand, which, as the day advanced, became so hot
that the hand could scarcely be borne upon it.
The dogs were now suffering greatly, for their paws were cracked and
bleeding, and they were half dead with thirst. The few bushes that had
afforded them occasional shelter got farther and farther apart as we
entered country where apparently rain had never fallen. This was indeed
desert, nothing but bare, scorching sand, with the blackened stumps of
the dead _toa_ grass, and here and there a shrivelled salt-bush, alone
showing that vegetation had ever existed there.
By noon we were in an extremely bad plight, our tongues and lips
cracked and parched, and we were each sucking a small pebble to promote
salivation. The dogs dug feebly into each tiny patch of shade from the
far-apart bushes, and lay panting and whining until we were almost
out of sight over the next dune, when, howling with pain from their
bleeding and burning feet, they would scuttle along after and past us,
frantically looking for a little shade to lessen their torture.
[Illustration: ON THIS GREAT SALT PAN, SOUTHERN KALAHARI.
Dogs dying of thirst.]
There seemed little hope of their getting through, and I wished to
shoot the unfortunate animals, but Du Toit dissuaded me, saying that
there was just a chance that we should find fresh water near the Salt
Pan, for he had heard the Hottentots say that in the old days, when
they were allowed access to it, they had pits dug in its margin, where
they got good fresh water quite near to the salt. He said he hoped also
to find traces of the old waggon-road, which would help us get our
bearings properly.
Still we could obtain no further glimpse of the pan, for the dunes
were all of the same dead level; moreover the mirage was now dancing
all round the circumscribed horizon, which ended in every direction in
shimmering sheets of water, in which clouds, dunes, and occasionally
gemsbok and animals were mirrored to perfection. Our feet were
blistered and bleeding, and van Reenen was rapidly getting lame, but we
dared not rest; moreover there was no shade, and to sit or lie on the
burning sand was worse torture than staggering on.
At length the bare dunes ended abruptly, grass and bushes appeared
again, and here and there Du Toit was able to pluck a tiny shoot of
young sorrel to chew, which gave us some small relief from what was now
torture. Then came a small _gar boom_ tree, its scanty greyish leaves
full of long bean-like pods on which buck feed greedily, and capable
of giving us a modicum of shade. We threw ourselves down, panting and
anxious. Du Toit, however, made for the first prominent dune we had
seen for hours, and, climbing it, brought us the welcome news that the
Salt Pan was barely a mile away. So we shuffled on again, and at three
o’clock stood on its margin. It was truly a wonderful sight--circular
in form, a mile or more in diameter, and covered with salt as pure
and white as the driven snow. Across it, and adding to its striking
resemblance to a snow-clad Canadian lake, lay the spoors of gemsbok and
other large animals, the recent ones showing as black as ink, for the
salt is but a few inches deep, and underlying it is a thick black mud.
Into this the poor tortured dogs dug their noses--it was cool, but
pure brine--and with their tails between their legs and howling
dismally they crawled back to the sand and bush.
Meanwhile, in spite of our plight, the wide expanse of clean salt had
proved as irresistible to us as a clean stretch of sea sand usually
does to schoolboys or “cheap trippers,” and we scraped our initials
deep into the black mud, till the lettering stood out as clearly as
black type upon white paper. Van Reenen wished to cool his burning feet
in the wet brine, but was dissuaded, and, separating, we searched the
margin of the pan for a sign of the pits spoken of by the Hottentots.
But we found no vestige of them, though on the southern margin we found
the old waggon-path, plainly visible owing to its thick covering of
_toa_ grass, but useless to us, as it led south-west towards “Aar Pan,”
whilst our camp and water lay north-west.
The big dune at Aar Pan loomed up temptingly; it did not appear more
than an hour’s walk, and remembering the thunder-clouds and apparent
rainfall we had seen in that direction, we were for a moment tempted
to make for it, but sanity prevailed--for to have gone there and found
no water would have meant death; as we afterwards found, the distance
between the Salt Pan and the water-pit there took a good four hours to
negotiate.
We therefore made for the north-west edge and climbed the highest dune,
whence we hoped to distinguish the big dune near our camp, but could
not identify it. It was nearly sunset, we were utterly worn out and
tortured with thirst, and could only talk in a whisper, but few words
were necessary. We had traversed one side and the base of an elongated
triangle, and to find our camp we must complete it, steering so as to
cut, if possible, our spoor of the day before, and the long _straat_
leading to our camp. Had we been able to rest the night and look for
it by daylight, this would have been child’s play, but we could not
disguise the fact that we were almost at the end of our tether, and
unless we did the journey in the cool of the night we should never
live through the heat of another day. It was now nearly sundown, and
we realised that at any rate we could not hope to reach our old spoors
before the light failed. However, we had to push on, and, marking our
course very carefully, we started again.
One dog limped behind, the other poor brute lay dying, and we gave it
a merciful bullet. We calculated that our camp lay about twelve miles
north-east; twelve miles--a trivial distance to a pedestrian on a good
road, but here in the dunes a difficult day’s march, even if we could
make our way to it direct, which was extremely doubtful.
One thing buoyed us up somewhat, and that was the belief that our
non-arrival in camp would cause them to light a beacon-fire on the
high dune, and as night fell, again and again, we were deceived by the
bright stars that came up over the horizon, twinkling so brightly--even
low down and directly over the dunes--in the clear atmosphere, that for
a time they appeared exactly like a blazing fire.
The night was by no means dark, but even so we stumbled terribly
amongst the tufts of _toa_ grass, low salt-bushes, and the numerous
meer-cat holes, and by ten o’clock van Reenen, whose feet were
bleeding, and who was suffering worse than any of us from thirst, threw
himself down and said he would go no farther. He was light-headed and
raving for water, and we could do nothing to help him. So, after an
anxious discussion, we decided to rest for an hour or two and slept
for awhile, dreaming of cool, sparkling water. Du Toit roused me or
I might be sleeping there now. My head was throbbing wildly, and my
lips, tongue, and throat like the dryest of leather; indeed, it seemed
as though every vital organ in me was drying up, and I felt that I
should soon go mad. I could make no articulate sound till Du Toit gave
me a few leaves of sorrel he had found, and which moistened my tongue
somewhat. We had to kick resentment into van Reenen, who lay like a
log, and who was in a very bad way. At last he staggered up, and,
drawing his hunting-knife, cut his boots off and threw them away. This
discarding of clothing is a bad sign with a man suffering from thirst;
many a dead man had been found in the dunes, stark naked, his boots
and clothing scattered along his staggering trail. But van Reenen had
simply done it on account of his bleeding, aching feet, and, in spite
of thorns, got on better without them.
Thus, painfully and with frequent rests, we toiled on, till about
midnight we came to a long _straat_ which led the right way, and which
we fondly hoped might have been the path of our outward journey. But a
patient search from side to side of it showed no spoor; and now began
a heart-breaking period, for we found that a whole series of these
_straats_ lay side by side in this direction, all of them unmarked by
human footprints. Tortured and anxious, we began to doubt whether we
were not out of the track altogether, and whether we had not passed
it, and I remember that I at least was for making due west towards the
Molopo--a good eighteen hours’ trek for a strong man, and which we
should never have reached. But Du Toit persisted: we could not be more
than an hour or two from camp, and he would yet find the spoor. Again
and again we fired our rifles and listened in vain for an answering
shot, again and again we climbed the highest dunes, and gazed into the
night for a fire that never shone there; now one, now the other, would
fall and lie there till pulled up, but somehow we managed to struggle
on a bit farther.
And at length, when despair had absolutely seized us, and van Reenen
lagged behind me and I lagged behind Du Toit, I saw him again light
a match and search the sand, and this time there came a hoarse cry.
He had found the spoor; and revived, and with the terrible fear and
anxiety lifted from us, we threw ourselves down and rested, knowing
that we were saved. By daybreak our terrible thirst had conquered
fatigue and we moved on again, and within an hour our rifle-shots were
answered, and our “boy,” Gert Louw, was on his way to meet us with
blessed, Heaven-sent nectar in the shape of a canvas bag of muddy water.
The fire had been lit, but not on the big dune.
Now, we had only been forty-eight hours away from camp and a bare
thirty-six without water, yet we were nearly dead, and without a shadow
of a doubt should have been dead of thirst before another sunset
without water. Yet I have read of men living four or five days under
like circumstances. The experience taught us several things. In future
no broad, pleasant _straat_ ever tempted us in the wrong direction, we
carried more water, even for short trips, and took compass bearings
more accurately. Moreover we set the “boys” to work collecting dry
wood, and made them stack it on the summit of the big dune, where a
fire would have been seen from the Salt Pan, and where their laziness
had prevented them from taking it before.
CHAPTER XVI
FORMATION OF THE DUNES AND PANS--“KOBO-KOBO” PAN--RAIN IN THE
DESERT--SCORPIONS--AAR PAN--MIRAGE AND “SAND-DEVILS”--KOICHIE KA--THE
PIT AND THE PUFF-ADDER.
The long, parallel, wave-like formation of the sand-dunes of the
Kalahari has been explained by many scientists as the result of the
action of the prevailing wind, but this theory scarcely holds water.
For though the majority of the dunes trend between west-north-west
and east-south-east, this uniformity is broken in the vicinity of
each of the numerous pans, around which the dunes are often formed in
concentric rings, whilst the dried-up river-beds are usually flanked
for some distance with dunes running parallel to their devious courses.
So prominent is this concentric formation near many of the almost
circular pans, that it appears probable that volcanic activity may have
been the disturbing factor which formed both “pan” and dunes. Certain
it is that no “prevailing wind” such as still blows, and still moves
sand, would have formed either “waves” or rings as they lie to-day; and
though science may be able to refute my theory, it is that the former
were formed by successive and severe earth tremors (or earth waves)
passing in the same direction whilst the sand was loose and without
the binding vegetation much of it bears to-day, whilst the upheaval
of volcanic magma similar to that of the Kimberley mine had in many
instances formed the latter.
Many ingenious theories have also been advanced as to the origin of
these pans, which, although such a feature of the desert, are by no
means confined to it. They are generally believed to have also been
formed by the action of the prevailing wind (which seems to have quite
a lot to answer for!), and doubtless in many places, where the sand is
thin, this had been the case. But it can scarcely have been the case
in these numerous pans of the “Game Reserve,” where the sand is at its
deepest, and where many of the circular or oval pans are surrounded and
protected by dunes of well over 100 feet in height, as with a wall.
A learned German scientist (Passarge) has suggested that pans have
been formed through vast herds of animals drinking and wallowing in
the mud at these spots, causing depressions in which rain-water and
sub-surface water collected, and I believe this is generally given as
an explanation of the salt pans such as I have described.
But for animals to “wallow in mud” presupposes water in these spots,
and they must have been free of sand in the first place to allow of
water standing there.
I have visited scores of these pans, and I have found them to differ so
greatly that it is hard to find a theory that would account for them
all. In many the soil is what is known locally as _brak_ alkaline,
spongy, powdery, into which the foot sinks deep at every step; in
others the surface is a hard, sun-baked mud, red in colour and covered
with a shining glaze. Some are salt pans such as I have described,
in others I found several feet of blue or greenish “pot clay,” under
which was a sort of black volcanic mud; still others were filled with
a species of Kimberlite (blue ground) almost identical with that of
the Premier Mine; and though the surface was often the usual blue
shale that underlies most of the desert sand, in very many cases these
depressions--on which the surrounding sand never accumulates--marked an
entirely different “country rock” from that of the region generally.
One useful peculiarity about these pans, and one by which we were able
eventually to locate them, was that their position was invariably
marked by exceptionally high dunes in the immediate vicinity--usually
on the south side; those of Aar Pan, the highest in the Reserve, being
a good 300 feet above the level of the pan they flank.
But to return to our own particular troubles.
Old Gert, when he had been given a very drastically edited account of
our trip, was able to describe minutely how we could take our bearings
from the Salt Pan to find a large pan called “Kobo-Kobo,” whence the
locating of our first diamond pan would be easy, and a day or two later
Du Toit, Telfer, and myself made an attempt to reach it; van Reenen,
with the “boys,” meanwhile testing a small pan about a mile to the
north, where volcanic action was unmistakable, but where we found only
pot-clay and volcanic mud.
As we had a great distance to traverse, we this time took the
precaution to load ourselves well with water, each man starting with
several spare bottles, which we buried at prominent spots along the
route. By midday we were at the Salt Pan, which we skirted, and with
a short rest pressed on, and by evening had reached the big pan,
“Kobo-Kobo.” It is one of the most perfect pans in the desert, as true
a circle as though drawn by a compass, surmounted by extremely high
dunes, and with a perfectly level, spongy, alkaline floor. In common
with most of the pans, it appears to have at some time contained a
large quantity of water, as the margin was covered with a miniature
beach of pebbles of jasper, banded ironstone, etc., identical with
the deposits found along the Orange River. On one of the dunes near
it stood a solitary _wit boom_, a big tree for these parts, about 10
feet high, and in the branches of which was a Bushman’s sleeping place,
composed of a few sticks placed across each other, and on which they
take refuge at night, when leopards or wild dogs are around and they
do not wish to make a fire. It was a very old nest, however, and the
bird had long since flown. Here we rested comfortably, the dry sticks
making a good fire. Towards morning a cold, gusty wind got up and the
morning broke with a sky completely overcast. It had threatened rain
so often that we thought nothing of it, and leaving our food, water,
etc., in the tree, we set out towards the highest dunes on the farther
side of the pan, from which we hoped to see the smaller one we wanted
so badly. Arrived there, however, we found that this time at least the
thunder-clouds were not bluffing, for rain was coming across the desert
in that direction in a perfect sheet, and whilst we stood discussing
plans, the first big drops began to fall amongst us.
We were totally unprepared for it, being dressed in two garments only
of the thinnest khaki: it was quite useless for us to attempt to find
the pan till it was over, and with one accord we turned back towards
the tiny tree--the only bit of “shelter” within a day of us. By the
time we were half across the pan the rain was coming down in sheets,
punctuated with flashes of lightning, and the spongy surface of the pan
was transformed into a quagmire in which we struggled up to our ankles.
So soft did the _brak_ become in a few minutes that I had serious
misgivings as to whether the whole place would not dissolve into a
sort of quicksand and engulf us, and I was extremely glad to be again
amongst the dunes.
The rare phenomenon of heavy rain in this arid spot, where it
had probably not fallen for years, was also responsible for an
extraordinary sight which we witnessed as soon as we had got out of the
mud on to the pebble “beach” and firm sand. Scorpions were “trekking”
in all directions. Driven out of the cracks and holes in the surface
of the pan by the water, they swarmed in such numbers that one could
scarce walk without stepping on them, and all with tail erect, rampant,
ready to sting anything that came along, or, failing that, each other
or themselves. And before we got to the tree, I had killed more of them
than ever I had seen, besides several tarantulas and two snakes.
“The tree will be full of them!” shouted Telfer, and he was right.
Luckily the embers were still alive, and there was a fair amount of
dry wood still, and by making a big fire we smoked and burnt them
out: though through all the hours of that storm, and the whole night
of dreary drizzle that succeeded it, these dangerous, venomous little
pests constantly immolated themselves on the glowing embers of the fire.
It rained all day, and a _wit boom_ was never intended by nature to do
more than afford a modicum of shade from the sun, certainly not to keep
out even a shower. Besides, this tree of ours was not much bigger than
a bush, and as it was impossible to keep dry, we had to try at least to
keep warm, and so the whole tree was gradually burnt piecemeal. Only a
few days back we had nearly died for want of water, and now, right here
in the dryest part of the desert, we were getting too much of it! Each
man had but a thin shirt and pants and a pith helmet, which was soon a
shapeless mass of pulp. Our meal-bag had hung in the tree, and by the
time we remembered the fact most of its contents had run away in thin
paste. We cooked the rest and had a hot meal with the rain pouring down
on us, our only anxiety being not to let the fire out. Towards evening
Gert said, “I never remember a rain like this in the Kalahari! It looks
like keeping on all night. Come, we must search for more wood, and if
possible shoot a buck; if so we can eat all night!”
So we gathered every dead bush within a mile--luckily there were a
fair amount of them--and Gert shot a gemsbok, that stood quite still
and seemed quite stupefied with the rain; and all night long we kept a
fire going, and sizzled buck liver and buck steaks on the embers, and
ate, and shivered, and grumbled, and steamed, as the hot flames drove
some of the moisture out of our dripping clothes. Of course there was
no chance of sleep, and indeed we were too occupied in keeping the fire
alight and killing scorpions to think of it, and we were never more
thankful than when morning at length broke, and we could see our way
for an attempt to reach our diamond pan.
By noon we had found the place, a small circular pan about 100 yards
in diameter, with a well-defined “wall” of tilted shale showing at
the base of the dunes all round it, but alas! like us, it was full of
water, and we could do nothing. The water, though freshly fallen, was
almost like brine, and quite undrinkable; and altogether our cup was
full!
However, about noon the weather cleared and the sun shone, and we slept
for a couple of hours, and then found a new camping-place, where wood
was abundant, made a big fire, and turned in for the night.
Although so much rain had fallen, it had been of no use to us, for all
the pans in this particular vicinity were, we found, either salt or
very alkaline, and whatever water they had caught was undrinkable. We
had therefore to return to camp, there to refit for another trip, fully
resolved that in future a mackintosh would be included in our equipment.
Thunder-showers now became frequent, and in some of the pans small
pools of muddy but still drinkable water could be found; but this
supplement to our supply of water was too precarious to be relied
upon, and we were forced to still keep our base within reach of
Rauchtenbach’s supply.
Meanwhile we tested several pans within easy distance of the camp, but
found they were not what we required, and therefore decided to make
a further reconnaissance eastward, towards where Gert had found the
stones.
Van Reenen and I, therefore, one morning started for Aar Pan, resolved
to climb the extremely high dune there, and from it chart out the
position of as many pans as we could see, and, should we find a
sufficiency of water in the pits described by Gert, to remove part of
our stores, etc., there, and make it the starting place for further
work. Van Reenen, who had been snug in camp during our deluge at
“Kobo-Kobo,” would not hear of a waterproof, and laughed so at mine
that I unslung it and left it behind again. In any case rain looked
out of the question, for it was one of the most incandescent days of
the trip. Starting at daybreak, we found that, though the distance
was not great, this direction led absolutely athwart the dunes, and
progress was extremely slow and difficult. The dunes were mostly
covered with thick grasses, which the recent rain had caused to sprout
in an astonishing manner, and which was every whit as troublesome to
traverse as loose sand. There was an abundance of game, gemsbok in
small clumps of four or six, or in pairs, standing and watching us
curiously till within a stone’s throw; wild ostriches in flocks, and
steenbok and duiker everywhere. Leopard spoor was also very prominent,
and we had great hopes of getting one; but they are the most wily of
beasts, and extremely hard to get at without dogs. By noon we were in
full sight of the pan, and a most extraordinary sight it presented.
Its perfectly level floor of light blue shale, surrounded by hills of
reddish sand, gave it precisely the appearance of a lake, and for some
time after I first came in sight of it, I felt confident that it was
indeed full of water. Then across this flat, unruffled surface came
sweeping what appeared to be a number of waterspouts, tall, perfectly
defined columns, travelling rapidly. But they were not water, but
sand-whorls, a common enough phenomenon in these dry regions, and known
to the Boers as _zand-duivels_ (sand-devils), and which, beginning
with a slight whorl of sand, gather force and velocity as they travel,
picking up small pebbles, sticks, leaves, and every light article that
comes in their path, and bearing it aloft to a tremendous height. Here
on this perfectly flat floor there was nothing to break their symmetry,
and they were as well-defined as the waterspouts I took them for. From
the high dunes from which we first obtained a full view of the pan,
the whole circuit of its flanking dunes was plainly visible, but as
we descended the mirage hid these, and when we eventually stood on
the floor no sign of the far dunes could be seen: we were apparently
standing on the edge of a vast unbroken lake, whose mirror-like surface
reflected the clouds as faithfully as a sheet of water would have done.
And when, after a few minutes, several more “waterspouts” sprang up
and went sailing across the “water,” I had almost to pinch myself; the
whole thing was so real in its unreality. The pan is about two miles
wide by five miles long, but by the time we were half-way the mirage
had puzzled us so that we began to wonder if ever we should find the
pits we were looking for. Occasionally a dune on the far bank loomed
up as though it _might_ be a solid reality, but a few steps in that
direction would see it melt away, dissolving into the hazy shimmer.
It was impossible to judge either distance or proportion; on several
occasions a big pile of rocks came into view apparently as large as
cottages and half a mile away, and, on our making for them, proved to
be boulders the size of a bucket, and barely fifty yards’ distance.
Then a long line of gemsbok came into sight following each other at
perfectly regular intervals. Suddenly they stopped as one, then they
all tossed their heads together, and then the line began to waver
and break up and float away, and lo! there stood a solitary old bull
staring at us, quite alone--the rest had all been tricks of the mirage.
When we were within thirty yards he turned and made off, and was soon
up to his knees in water, apparently, and followed by several of his
spectral attendants. Altogether the place seemed absolutely uncanny,
and in no part of the Kalahari have I ever seen the mirage play such
tricks as at Aar Pan.
We found the pits at length, a shaft of about 15 feet in depth, and a
shallower one of about 6 feet, side by side, and sunk at the side of a
dolerite dyke (“Aar”) bisecting the Dwyka shale of the pan, and from
which it takes its name. There was nearly a foot of muddy water in the
shallow shaft, and a very small pool at the bottom of the other, so we
had no anxiety as to water. Indeed, after having drunk our fill from
the shallow pit, we got fastidious: it was certainly very muddy and
alkaline, and with at least ten mosquito larvæ to the spoonful, not to
mention smaller abominations.
So van Reenen prepared to go down the deeper shaft, where a little
water looked cleaner. An old tree-trunk had been left in it as a
ladder, probably by natives, years before, and he swung himself over
the edge, trying to reach the top of this pole. As he did so a big owl
flew out, brushing past him, and nearly scaring the life out of both of
us. It probably saved his life though, for looking down carefully to
see if there were others, and our sun-blinded eyes getting accustomed
to the gloom, we made out, just gliding lazily away from the water, a
huge puff-adder, fully 4 feet long, and bloated as they always are.
It was so near the colour of the dark rock that, had it not moved,
we should certainly not have seen it, and van Reenen would almost
assuredly have been bitten, and to have been bitten would have meant
death.
The horror of that sluggish, bloated, most deadly of all snakes lurking
there by that tiny pool of water, in a spot where water is so precious
and certain to be sought by the rare wayfarer, and in a confined space
where escape from it would be impossible, appealed to me most vividly,
and we resolved that before we left the desert we would make an end of
that big puff.
Meanwhile we decided that the other water was quite good enough for us.
We had been walking about nine hours, and were dog-tired by the time we
had climbed to the top of the enormous dune, which can be seen for so
far in the Kalahari. It was nearly sunset, the mirage had disappeared,
and the big pan, with a smaller one divided from it only by a narrow
isthmus of dunes southward, could be seen from end to end, a distance
of about eight or nine miles running almost north and south, whilst
eastward a vast expanse of desert stretched to the far horizon, broken
here and there by the prominent dunes we had learnt to associate with
the pans.
In all directions the vast “sandscape” was unbroken by a sign of life,
and, used to the desert as we were, somehow that highest dune to which
we had climbed appeared the loneliest spot in all the Kalahari, and it
was quite a relief, after we had lit a fire on the very top, to see an
answering flame shine out from the signal dune at the camp some fifteen
miles or more away.
Though there was plenty of vegetation on the dune, there was nothing
in the shape of a tree, and later we lay down back to back near the
fire, for we had no blankets, and the night was chilly as the day had
been hot. I woke with a soft rain coming down in dense darkness, and
was already soaked through, thanks to my idiocy in again bringing no
waterproof. The fire was out and the wood hopelessly wet, and after
wasting half my matches in vain, I woke van Reenen up so as to have
someone to swear at.
He said, “That’s right--blame me! Why, you Jonah, don’t you know that
it’s you that brings all these samples of weather we get! Wet through
in the middle of the Kalahari! Why, you’re the sort of man who’d get
sunstroke at the North Pole!”
We walked round a bit in the drenching drizzle, but got tired of
kicking through the _haak doorn_ bushes and pulling out the thorns, and
came back to where the fire had been, kicked the ashes away, and lay
back to back again on the still warm sand.
We had seen numbers of big leopard spoors on this dune, and when, a
little later, van Reenen nudged me violently in the ribs and gave a
“Hist!” I listened for all I was worth. Then I heard him cock his
rifle. All I could hear was a faint scratching, but whether it was
a big scratch some distance away, or a small scratching close at
hand, neither of us could determine. And so we lay in the drizzle and
darkness, with the locks of our rifles huddled under us as much as
possible, waiting and expecting anything. Then suddenly van Reenen
said, “Machtig! why, the damned thing is in my pocket!”
He had on a thin khaki jacket which had been hung on a bush whilst
he collected firewood early in the evening, and there certainly was
something scratching in the pocket. Luckily he did not put his hand
in, but pulled the coat off. I struck a match and he shook the pocket
carefully, and out dropped a big black scorpion, the very counterpart
of the one that had stung him so badly at the beginning of the trip.
Had he put his hand in that pocket...!
He killed it, and walked about most of the rest of the night, though he
came over and woke me up once and said, “Jonah!” and I believe that to
this day he blames me for that scorpion and the puff-adder.
In the morning, however, we found that there had been another visitor
during the night, the wet sand showing the spoor of an exceptionally
big leopard, that had evidently been circling round our bivouac most of
the night, his pad covering van Reenen’s footprint in several places.
From this spot we worked a few days eastward, locating a number of
pans, in one of which we found extremely promising yellow ground, and
we determined to bring tools, etc., to Aar Pan, and make an effort to
properly test some of these places, especially as we found that more
rain had fallen in this locality, and that the t’samma, which would
make us independent of water, would soon be big enough to use. On this
part of the trip, to enable us to cover long distances, we cut our
equipment down to the very lowest: a rifle, twenty-five cartridges,
knife, compass, matches, etc., and a quart water-bottle, carrying
absolutely no food or cooking utensils. We used to shoot a steenbok,
cook the liver and kidneys on sticks over the fire, and the head in the
ashes for breakfast, and bury the legs in the embers till they were
roasted dry, and sling the meat on to our belt. No bread, occasionally
salt--from a pan--a big enough salt-cellar for a glutton! Occasionally
we found a few tiny berries that the Bushmen eat, but mostly these
are aromatic and bitter, and as there are poisonous varieties much
resembling them, we usually left them severely alone. Spiny cucumbers
were also beginning to appear, mostly intensely bitter, but also eaten
by the Bushmen. In this region, too, the grass was very luxuriant, and
would have provided food for thousands of cattle, without deprivation
to the huge flocks of gemsbok that wandered over it. Many of these wide
“desert” stretches were extremely beautiful, being covered for miles
with tall, thickly growing flowers, a species of campanula something
like a fox-glove, growing to a height of three or four feet, and of
beautiful and vivid colours of great variety. The scent of these vast
parterres was faintly sweet in the daytime, but during the night it
became almost overpowering, and I was told by Old Gert that Bushmen
have a great objection to sleeping among them, believing that to do so
means never to wake.
During the whole of our trip, so far, since we had left the border and
entered the Reserve, we had seen no human being, nor even a spoor, but
on the edge of one of these eastern pans we now discovered the remains
of a recent Bushman camp, the small shelters of interwoven branches
being simply constructed to afford a little shade during the hottest
part of the day. They had apparently been gone only a day or two,
trekking eastward, and the remains of full-grown t’samma showed that
the fruit was already to be found in that direction. The little desert
Ishmaels had probably seen our fires, and scented the presence of the
white man, as I put it to van Reenen. He looked me up and down and
said, “Well, yes! the wind’s been blowing from our direction!”
It is quite true that you cannot have many baths out of a quart of
water a day, but I think he might have put it differently.
After about a week of this we trekked back to our camp, where we
revelled in _roster-kook_ and coffee and sugar, and compared notes with
Telfer, who had tested several more pans north, as far as possible,
without water. We had expected a Scotch cart with our next load of
water, and the idea was to endeavour to get the oxen over as far as Aar
Pan with a light load of stores, tools, etc.; but the waggon turned up
without the smaller vehicle, and van Reenen and I decided to go back
again, with as much as we could carry, and try to locate a big pan
known by the Bushman name of “Koichie Ka,” near which was one of the
pans where several diamonds had been picked up, whilst Telfer and Du
Toit would come on with the cart a week later.
I shall describe this trip somewhat in detail, as it was typical of
what happened almost daily afterwards. We carried almost 60 lb., each
taking flour, coffee, tools, etc., and made very heavy going of it to
Aar Pan, where we made for a _wit boom_ tree we had discovered on the
top of one of the big dunes, and worked till late cutting branches, and
making a sort of shelter to which we added our waterproof sheets--for
this time we came prepared for rain, and we got it. By ten at night it
was coming down in sheets, and a terrific thunderstorm burst over us,
keeping us busy till daylight trying to keep the water out and the fire
in, and being pestered the whole time by van Reenen’s pet aversion,
scorpions. This continued well into the following morning, when, as
soon as it somewhat lifted, we made a cache of our stores in the
tree, and started towards the far-distant pan Koichie Ka. About noon
the sun came out, and the whole desert steamed. We passed for hours
through nothing but miles of the beautiful flowers I have described,
and then came to a patch of broken dunes where the vegetation was
scantier, and where we saw more snakes in an hour than I had ever seen
before. Presumably the rain had disturbed them, and they were now
drying themselves; at any rate, there they were, almost at every step,
principally big yellow and brown cobras; but one very striking and,
to me, entirely new variety was a very light yellow chap with round
spots of a brilliant scarlet speckled over him, exactly like spots
of blood. They were in every good-sized bush, in the meer-cat burrows
that honeycombed the hollows, coiled round the tufts of _toa_ grass--in
fact, they swarmed.
We had hoped to reach the big pan by nightfall, as there was a big
krantz there where we could shelter; but it became evident that we
could not do so, and we turned aside towards a small pan where a few
bushes gave promise of a fire at least, for it became evident that we
were in for rain again.
This rain was becoming monotonous, it seemed to follow us about, and
the annoying part of it was that it did not relieve our anxiety as to
water to any appreciable extent: no matter how it poured, the whole
rainfall sank immediately into the sand or, where it was caught in a
pan, became undrinkable brine almost immediately.
Moreover it meant that, to rest at all, we had to encroach on the
precious hours of daylight, to say nothing of lying on the damp
sand. And after another miserable and rainy night, I found to my
consternation that I was in for a bout of fever, here, a day’s march
from our few stores at Aar Pan even, and quite two from the camp! We
started on again as soon as possible, for I argued that, if I was going
to be ill, a krantz such as we expected to find at Koichie Ka would
be a better place to lie up in than the dunes--more home-like, as it
were. Van Reenen was all right, but unfortunately one of his shoes went
wrong through being soaked, and soon the sole began to part company
with the upper. And he had left his _voorslaag_ at Aar Pan. Luckily I
had some fancy native wire-work in my belt which, unravelled, served to
keep sole and upper together, but neither of us was doing Marathon time
that day. We found the pan about midday: one of the largest, almost a
perfect circle, and with the krantz as Old Gert had described it. This
rocky krantz we found to consist of deep red and yellow sandstone,
apparently belonging to the Zwartmodder series. It flanked the northern
edge of the pan, rising abruptly some 60 feet, and was capped with
concretionary limestone, which also covered the dunes behind it. It was
honeycombed with caves, and there was evidence that it had swarmed with
baboons, whose absence was probably accounted for by the fact that a
pair of big leopards and their cubs were its present occupants. Their
spoors showed that they were “at home,” and later we lighted a big fire
and tried to smoke them out, besides firing a few shots into their
cave; but luckily they did not respond to the invitation.
After a few hours’ rest and some quinine I felt better, but water was
getting a pressing matter now, for though the pan was soft mud all
over, we could find none, and our flasks were empty. At last we found
a little liquid mud, so full of lime that it curdled into a sort of
“curds and whey” when we tried to boil it. However, van Reenen shot a
duiker, and we stewed some of its flesh in this semi-liquid, and made
a sort of broth which appeased both hunger and thirst, and saved our
little remaining water.
As no more could be found, however, and I was still groggy with fever
and van Reenen had gone lame, we decided to get back to Aar Pan, if we
could, and leave further exploration for a later day. So, after a night
in the rocks, we turned back, taking the last of the liquid mud in our
bottles, and chewing sorrel and other grasses to allay our thirst. The
journey back was painful to a degree; we could only go slowly, and as
nightfall found us still a long way off Aar Pan and water, we struggled
on most of the night by compass and the stars.
Then we slept an hour or so, but were too anxious to sleep much, and
were wide awake before sunrise, waiting for daylight to show us if we
had kept the path. Luckily we had, and soon were climbing the big dune
at Aar Pan which separated us from water. Suddenly van Reenen stopped
and pointed. “Camels!” he said.
There were two of them, hobbled, feeding close to us, and at our tree
we found quite a party--two police troopers, Telfer, and several “boys.”
The police had been sent from Witdraai, their post on the Kuruman
River, to examine our permits, and their coming was extremely welcome.
Their big shambling mounts carry a big load, besides the rider, with
ease, and their saddle-bags were full of all kinds of luxuries. Soon we
were feasting on coffee and _real_ bread and tinned salmon, and began
to realise that there was something in civilisation after all.
After a few hours they left us to patrol towards Tilrey Pan, through
a country unknown to them, and with them went Telfer, who hoped
thus to be enabled to reach a far-distant pan which Old Gert called
“Wolverdanse” (Wolf’s Dance), where lay the green stones thought to be
emeralds, and which we feared we should never reach on foot.
The patrol dropped him a few miles away from us about a week later.
He had not succeeded in finding the emeralds, but he had a finer
collection of bruises and blisters from sitting on and falling off the
camels than he ever possessed before.
Meanwhile we thoroughly explored Aar Pan and several small pans
near, finding more Kimberlite, but being handicapped by the utter
impossibility of washing the ground. Our food ran short, and we had a
very rough time; but at length our cart turned up with food and tools,
and the first post we had had since leaving Upington. The newspapers
contained the news of Scott’s death, and the story of his heroism and
sufferings made us feel ashamed of having grumbled at our own few
privations.
Unfortunately, the water in the small pit had now shrunk to a few
bucketfuls of bad-smelling liquid, so full of insects as to be almost
undrinkable; and as no rain fell in the pan, and t’samma was not yet
available, we had to make up our minds to abandon the camp, and make
an attempt to establish a new water-base somewhere along the Kuruman
River till t’samma gave us a better opportunity of reaching the
farthest pans.
We therefore filled our bottles, gave the oxen the rest of the liquid
mud, and trekked due west, having first sent a “boy” to the main camp
to warn the water-waggon to take back our belongings there.
Before leaving, van Reenen made up his mind to shoot the big puff that
lay in the deepest shaft beside the little pool of water which we had
not touched--for we feared that some day a passer-by might see the
water and not the snake, and scramble down to his death. So van Reenen
lay peering down the shaft for an hour, till at last the big brute
glided out of his hole to the water, and a bullet cut him nearly in two.
“He’s finished, anyway,” said my pal, and so he was; but that
puff-adder was yet to revenge himself on me in a very decided manner.
We trekked all day through a magnificent grass country, the dunes being
almost waist-high in it, and I could understand the bitter complaints
of some of the border farmers that the gemsbok are given the best part
of the country.
We reached a well in the Molopo the following morning, and at a
border farm near we obtained horses, and rode up to Witdraai, the
nearest police post on the Kuruman River, to get information as to the
prospects of t’samma, etc., eastward of that place.
CHAPTER XVII
THE KURUMAN RIVER--WITDRAAI--AAR PAN AND EASTWARD--GEMSBOK AND
T’SAMMA--DRIELING PAN--WILD DOGS--THIRSTY CAMELS--SEARCH FOR
WOLVERDANSE--“NABA”!--BUSHMEN--END OF THE TRIP.
The old bed of the Molopo River, which farther south has been long
since denuded of timber, is, in the vicinity of its junction with the
Kuruman, both well wooded and interesting. Long, park-like stretches
of grass with fine trees of a variety of _cameel-doorn_, having huge,
bean-like pods, delighted the eye tired of sand and the monotony of the
treeless dunes we had just left, and when we eventually turned into the
Kuruman River the vegetation became even _more_ luxuriant.
Not only the dry and sand-choked bed of this once important river, but
for miles on either side of it, was a vast field of luxuriant grass
almost waist-high, and as thick as a corn-field; indeed, this portion
of the Kalahari, and for a long distance into the Reserve towards
Kuruman, would form an ideal ranching country.
In the fine trees were birds in great variety, hornbills with huge
grotesque beaks, and a most lovely blue jay with a plumage of the most
brilliant Oxford and Cambridge blues, small scarlet finches, and a
number of others less conspicuous.
In many a little glade along this delightful oasis we saw _paauw_ in
flocks of twenty or more, stalking about just like turkeys, and, given
water--which is never wanting if sunk for--there are few pleasanter
places than this ancient river-bed. A feature of the landscape was the
extraordinary number of dead, bare trees still standing, and showing
that the water, which sinks deeper in the sand every year, no longer
reaches their roots. Many of these trees were loaded with the huge
nests of the small “social bird,” which builds in colonies of hundreds,
constructing nests the size of haystacks, and which often accumulate
to such a size that the huge branch on which they rest breaks with the
weight.
Witdraai consisted then of three small native huts used as store,
living, and sleeping rooms by the trio of camel police stationed there,
and which were comfortable in comparison with the cave in the limestone
of the river-bank which was their only “home” for some months when they
were first sent to establish a post at this out-of-the-way spot in the
desert. However, remote as was the post, it compared very favourably
with the other few stations along the German South-West border. For
here was water in plenty, a borehole sunk deep in the Kuruman River
giving them a never-failing supply; moreover they had trees, grass,
flowers, and birds, and a long oasis stretching for over a hundred
miles towards Kuruman in which to forget the desert.
They had been greatly pestered by troops of wild dogs, which had on
several occasions broken into their kraal and killed and maimed numbers
of their sheep and goats.
As there were Bushmen near the camp at Witdraai, we endeavoured to
arrange a dance for the benefit of the bioscope camera, but the
spokesman of the tribe, when he saw the machine, incontinently bolted,
and we could not get in touch with him again. So far the camera had
been of little use, as it had proved far too heavy to take on the more
distant trips, and we had found it impossible to get it near to big
game in the desert on account of the want of cover.
Whilst at Witdraai I succeeded in killing a snake which I had seen once
or twice in the vicinity, and which I believe to be a new variety, as I
have not seen it described in any book, or a specimen in any museum.
Old Gert called it a _blaauw slang_ (blue snake), and said it was
peculiar to the Kalahari, and that in killing it I must hit it hard,
as it was very tough and difficult to kill. The specimen I at length
obtained was about 6 feet long, and of a light blue colour along its
back and reddish underneath. It was apparently a variety of cobra, as
it extended its hood and struck viciously when I tackled it, and I
found that Gert had been right, for the light stick I picked up made
very little impression on it, and I had to finish it with my rifle-butt.
For some reason I could never get the Hottentots or Bastards to skin
a snake. Several of our “boys” were expert hands at “braying” a skin,
and steenbok, duiker, jackal, lynx, leopard, or in fact any animals we
killed, were soon converted into beautifully soft furs, but when it
came to a snake I had to do it myself.
At the end of a few days of this pleasant break in desert life a
Bushman messenger whom we had sent out brought the news that he had
found a patch of mature t’samma between Aar Pan and a small pan called
“Koma,” where the indications were promising; and as this meant that
oxen could remain in the desert, and we should be independent of water,
we hastened back southward to the waggon and reentered the Reserve. We
also took a light Scotch cart, with which, from this new base, we hoped
to be able to make a flying trip eastward with sufficient tools to test
some of the pans properly.
About a day’s trek into the desert we found the t’samma, a patch of
about a morgen where a vagrant thunderstorm had fallen in season, and
in which the little juicy insipid melons were just about the right
size--that of a cricket-ball.
On them we lived, quite independent of water, eating them raw, or
leaving them in the ashes overnight--in which case they are full of
a clear liquid by morning. Coffee can be made or cooking carried
out with this, but though life can be sustained for an indefinite
period upon this substitute, the craving for water is always present.
Unfortunately, this t’samma did not obviate the real difficulty of
testing the ground, for which an abundance of water was needed, and
after a few days Du Toit and myself, leaving the rest of the party,
inspanned six oxen in the Scotch cart and started eastward. We had
with us a Bastard named John Louw, who knew the desert in that part
better than most men, and believed that with moderate luck we should be
able to trek from pan to pan with a fair amount of tools, etc., where
hitherto we had barely been able to reach as we stood.
Crossing the huge dunes at Aar Pan with a cart was a fair criterion
of what we should be able to do, and by the following evening, so
well had the oxen pulled, that we stood at the big krantz at Koichie
Ka pan, where van Reenen and I had had such a rough time a few weeks
previously. There was no mud in the pan now, however, much less water,
but John, who took the oxen farther east to feed, brought back some
t’samma and said there was plenty in that direction. So our minds were
at ease and we had quite a jolly evening under the krantz, where the
leopards still resided, for traces of fresh “kills” were everywhere.
However, we had a roaring fire, and I slept like a top by it till Gert
woke me at daybreak to witness a sight I would not have missed for
anything. The whole pan was covered with gemsbok, many hundreds of
them, straggling at first, but eventually bunching into a herd that
suddenly thundered across the pan like a regiment of charging cavalry,
and disappeared over the dunes westward. I was delighted at the
spectacle, but both Gert and the Bastard looked anxious.
“If the t’samma east is not a very big patch,” said Du Toit, “we shall
find that what they have not eaten they have trampled to bits!”
The oxen had been brought in and had slept in their yokes all night,
to prevent their straying, and we lost no time in getting underway.
Unfortunately, Gert’s prognostications had been correct, for we found
the whole width of the t’samma zone trampled for miles, and most of the
few remaining t’samma smashed and spoiled. However, the oxen were able
to get a feed that would keep them for a day or so, and as we expected
to find more, we pushed on.
During the three days that followed we had a most anxious and wearying
time, reaching several pans where excellent Kimberlite was obtained
within a foot or so of the surface, but being constantly worried and
baffled by the absence of water to wash it, or t’samma for ourselves
and the oxen.
We were now in the heart of the desert, three long days’ trek from
our waggon and t’samma patch, and simply living from hand to mouth on
the few t’samma we found here and there; and, realising that we were
risking rather too much, we made up our minds to return before the oxen
had begun to suffer from thirst.
There was a small portion of the big t’samma patch that the gemsbok
had spoiled which had escaped with slighter damage, and as the little
melon grows rapidly, we hoped to find refreshment at this spot; but our
bad luck held, for a troop of big baboons cleared out of it as we drew
near, and we found that the destructive brutes had torn up and smashed
most of those they had not eaten, and so both man and beast had to be
content with very short commons.
By the time we reached the vicinity of Aar Pan we were suffering rather
badly; each stray melon we found had to go to the oxen, and it appeared
doubtful whether we should be able to get them out with the cart. Most
of the heavier samples were thrown away to lighten the load, but even
so they could scarcely be got to drag the cart, and when we got to the
huge dunes at Aar Pan we could get them no farther.
We had seen thunder-showers falling in this direction, and had hoped
that there might be water in the pits again, so Du Toit and myself took
a billy-can and some cord and hastened across the dunes, leaving John
to watch the exhausted cattle.
I said to Du Toit, “In any case there is bound to be a little in the
deep pit, enough for us! Animals can’t reach it there.”
“But the puff-adder! Did van Reenen kill it outright?”
“The bullet cut it nearly in half. It would be sure to get into its
hole in the rock to die!”
Du Toit thought otherwise. “If it could crawl at all it would go to the
water--and if it died in it, the water will be _giftig_ (poisonous).”
I stuck to the opinion that the snake would have died in its hole--the
wish being father to the thought--for I was half dead with thirst. But
it needed no canful of water to show that I was wrong, for the stench
that rose from that pit was too awful for words, and I could not face
it long enough even to peer down. But Gert told me that the bloated
body of the big snake lay almost wholly in the water, of which, by a
strange irony of fate, there was quite a large pool in the pit, enough,
had it been drinkable, to have satisfied not only ourselves, but the
oxen. So that the puff-adder had a grim revenge for van Reenen’s
bullet. There was no water whatever in the other pit, and there was
nothing to do but to struggle through to the waggon, which we did by
abandoning the cart and with the loss of two of the oxen _en route_.
We found t’samma there almost exhausted, and a day or two afterwards
were forced to retreat again to the Molopo.
Here, after revelling a day or two in good water, we separated,
van Reenen and Telfer to enter the Reserve still farther south,
whilst I made an attempt to reach the far north-eastern pan known as
“Wolverdanse,” where emeralds were supposed to exist, and which Telfer
had searched for in vain. From the heights of a pan known as “Kei
Koorabie,” which we had reached on our last trip, John the Bastard had
pointed out this “emerald pan” on the far horizon to the north, a long
blue ridge of a very distinctive shape; but we had realised that the
only way to reach it was by striking south from the Kuruman River.
[Illustration: TEACHING CAMELS TO EAT T’SAMMA.]
[Illustration: BUSHMAN AT BOOMPLAATS, SOUTHERN KALAHARI.
With native musical instrument.]
I had therefore arranged with a camel police trooper, when on his next
patrol in that direction, to give me a lift as far as Tilrey Pan, which
is the extreme eastern limit of the patrol, and which is very rarely
visited even by them.
The meeting-place was to be at a small group of pans known as “Drieling
Pannen” (Triplet Pans), a few hours’ journey east of the Molopo and
south of the Kuruman, but where I had never been. I was told to
bring nothing but what I stood in, not even a rifle; but this latter
stipulation I did not carry out, as I could not quite risk ten days in
the desert without it, and before the camels reached me I had come to
be thankful I had brought it! I left Molopo at a spot called Lentland’s
Pan one Sunday afternoon, alone, finding myself in an abundant grass
country, through which an old waggon track still showed, though no
vehicle appeared to have passed there for years, and by sunset had
reached what I supposed to be the pan; but naturally there was no one
to ask, and I had an uncomfortable feeling that the road had misled
me, and that I might be at the wrong spot. The pan was small and was
literally covered with a big flock of _paauw_, which cleared at my
approach. There was mud enough, but no water, and I foresaw a thirsty
walk back should it be the wrong spot and the camels fail to turn up.
I found that there was a big pack of wild hunting-dogs in the vicinity,
for their fresh spoor lay everywhere, and I was glad I had brought
the rifle. Somehow the conviction gained upon me that I was in the
wrong place, and as night was approaching, I set about making a small
_scherm_ and gathering wood for a fire. There was very little near
the pan, but on the crest of some high dunes near I saw some big dead
stumps, and as I should need a fire all night, I went to try and get
them. The biggest one was very firmly rooted, and in my efforts to
uproot it, I fell and sprained my ankle so severely that I was hard
put to it to get back to the _scherm_. I immediately realised that,
should this prove to be the wrong rendezvous, I would be in rather a
serious predicament. I had only a little water and a piece of biltong,
and although I had walked from the Molopo in an afternoon, it would
take me two days to drag myself out with a badly-sprained ankle.
The sun was setting, and there was no sign of the camels, but as I
looked across the pan, I saw a dog come down over the dune to the edge
of it.
“Hooray!” I said to myself. “Police dog.” And I whistled to it,
expecting the camels to be just behind it. It stood looking at me from
about a distance of a hundred yards, a tall brindled thing almost the
size of a mastiff, but with a queer long neck, and as I looked others
followed it till nine of them stood there looking at me--a pack of wild
dogs. If ever man was thankful for a rifle it was I, at that moment,
for though they seldom attack an armed man, they seem to have an
uncanny sense which tells them when a man is maimed or without weapons,
and have torn many a helpless traveller to pieces.
I fired a shot at them immediately, and they made off for a time,
but by dark they were back again, apparently with reinforcements. I
had only a tiny fire which would certainly not last all night, and
altogether I did not exactly fancy my chances. However, an occasional
shot kept them from rushing me, and about eleven o’clock, just as
the moon rose and I could see them plainly, to my intense relief a
rifle-shot answered my own, and my friend the trooper and his Bushman
with two camels came upon the scene, and the dogs vanished.
Next day we turned eastward, passing a number of pans I had not seen,
and entering a region where t’samma was now abundant. Here the dunes
were so steep and high that they resembled huge walls of sand set close
together, and crossing them on camel-back was a thing to be remembered.
The camel is a bad climber, and after tediously toiling up the steep
slopes diagonally, and with a gait like a mule with the staggers,
my mount would make up for it by taking giant plunging strides down
the other side at a frantic pace, each one of which would threaten to
throw me over the next dune, like a stone from a sling. It is not only
the great height of the perch on a camel’s back that causes such a
feeling of insecurity, but rather the want of a sturdy crest like that
of a horse in front of one to cling to in case of need. With the camel
the place of the maned crest is taken by an aching void, a deep gap
falling away from the pommel, on the far side of which, and at a great
distance, rises the long, sinuous neck, apparently quite detached from
the animal you are riding on, and the thin reins, made fast to little
pegs in the nostril, have to be used so lightly that it is no uncommon
occurrence for the camel to turn his supercilious face right round and
gaze into your own, emitting a veritable “breath of the tombs” into
your face as he does so.
Altogether camel-riding in the dunes is a queer experience: at the
same time it enables one to be free of the haunting anxiety of thirst,
and to reach spots otherwise unapproachable. Unfortunately, my mount
met with a misadventure when but two days out, as in trotting along
a narrow _straat_ between the dunes, which were here waist-deep in
magnificent grasses, he put his foot into a hidden ant-bear hole
and came down, throwing me almost out of the Kalahari. Luckily--in
a way--he was too lame to run away, and when I succeeded in getting
my head out of the sand he was still there. As the other camel was
several dunes ahead, my friend the trooper saw nothing of my having
dismounted, and kept on; so that I had to walk the whole day and
lead the lame camel, who groaned and grunted in a most astonishing
manner the whole time. To enable the animal to rest and replenish our
water-tanks we turned towards a place in the Kuruman River known as
“Visch-gat” (Fish-hole), where there was usually water, but in this
case our luck was dead out. The pit was about 20 feet deep, sunk in
hard shale, and there was plenty of water, but it was quite putrid
and undrinkable even for the camels. A bucketful that I drew was full
of the decomposed fragments of small birds--bones, feathers, etc.--and
there were a number of them still fluttering around the surface of the
water, apparently too stupid to fly straight up and regain the open
air. A contributory cause to this phenomenon may have been the owl that
sat in a little niche about half-way down, screwing his head round and
blinking up at us as we peered down. We had to stay here three days
till the camel was fit to carry me again, and as time hung very heavily
on our hands, we rigged up a wire noose on the end of a branch and
fished for the owl in turns, making bets as to the time it took to hook
him and haul him out. Each time we succeeded, he flew wildly round in
the glaring sun for a minute, and came right back to the pit.
There were traces of Bushmen in the vicinity, and it transpired there
were ladies amongst them, with the result that our police-boy was
always stealing away, and had to be remonstrated with in the usual
manner. Two days later, when we were deep in the dunes near Tilrey Pan,
he retaliated by deserting, and leaving us to tend the camels ourselves.
This region was a vast grass-field, in which gemsbok swarmed in numbers
incredible, troops of five and six hundred together being met with
every day. Ostriches were also very abundant, but the short-legged
variety which I had heard rumours of as existing in this part of the
country was conspicuous by its absence. None of the pans contained
any water, though many of them were still full of wet mud, stirred
and trampled up by the herds of gemsbok, who appear to have a great
partiality for the cool mud, though it is doubtful if they ever
drink. I also noticed in this country that the duiker--which was also
extremely abundant--appeared to be a much larger variety than usual,
beside being of a bright rufous colour, and the female as well as the
male being horned.
There were signs of the destruction caused by the extremely numerous
feræ: half-eaten bodies of the smaller buck, and also of young gemsbok,
being found in great abundance amongst the dunes. On several occasions
we came across tiny gemsbok kids, apparently only a week or two old,
lying in the dunes at some distance from the old ones, but, although so
young, capable of travelling at a great pace.
We were soon short of water, but as t’samma was now abundant, we were
not worried on our own account. Unfortunately, however, the camels were
recent importations from Arabia, and unused to them, and at the end
of a week they were beginning to feel the thirst. As we had seen rain
falling south of us, we turned in that direction, and one evening came
into dunes where the vegetation was still drenched with heavy rain.
Here, to our joy, we at length found an open space with a small pan
full of water. The camels grunted and chuckled, and shuffled towards
it eagerly, and we promised ourselves a good long drink, and plenty of
coffee, and a bath! We got the last, but not the others.
The water, freshly fallen as it was, was salt as brine and of a
horribly putrid taste, and quite undrinkable even for the camels.
We were a long way from any other water, and it began to look serious,
for they would not touch the t’samma. At length, however, we hit upon
a plan which kept them alive and allowed us to search a little longer.
Making them “koos” (kneel, which they are taught to do at the word of
command), we cut up a big waterproof sheetful of the melons, crushed
them into a pulp, and actually ladled it into their mouths; and once
having got a taste of it, we found they would eat it when prepared in
this manner, though these particular camels would never touch the fruit
as it grew.
But, search as we would, “Wolverdanse,” the pan of the “bright green
stones,” eluded us. Pans in the vicinity were many, and the peculiarly
shaped dune we had seen from the far south was not recognisable from
these new aspects.
My good friend the trooper had also to return within a certain period,
and so we had at length reluctantly to turn towards Aar Pan, where I
was to be dropped to find my way south to rejoin my comrades.
As the camels, as yet unused to their new substitute for water, were
still suffering from thirst, we trekked through the night as we neared
the big pan, for I was now on ground I knew, and able to steer an
accurate course. Crossing the pan in the dark, we found no rain had
fallen there, and we off-saddled in the western dunes, anxious for the
morning to get on again, for the camels were now in a bad plight, and
had still a long day’s journey before them before they could drink.
Usually they were hobbled with huge straps and chains before letting
them loose to graze, but this night my friend said, “Let ’em loose
to-night; they’re too tired to go far.” We slept like logs, and in the
morning the camels had gone! We made tracks for the highest dune--no
sign of them. Then we separated and made for two other dunes. Still no
sign. At last we circled to cut the spoors, and found they led north.
After an hour’s running and walking, and with the spoor still making
north, we stopped for breath.
I said, “They’re making for Witdraai!”
He said, “Not they. They’re making for Arabia!”
At last, when I had given up all hope of catching them south of the
Equator, the spoor turned off at right-angles, and after a few more
dunes, turned directly back towards the camping-place of last night,
where we found them quietly feeding within a hundred yards of their
saddles, just hidden from our sleeping-place by a small dune.
A few hours from Aar Pan my good Samaritan dropped me, and turned
towards his camp with the two camels, having done everything in his
power to help me, and acting the man and the sportsman in every way.
[Illustration: THE HUGE NESTS OF THE “SOCIAL BIRDS.”
These birds, although only the size of sparrows, build in colonies, and
the resultant nests are often so huge that the limbs break with their
weight.]
I was more than sorry to lose his cheery company, and toiled on through
the terrible loneliness of the dunes, feeling rather down in the mouth.
I had about six hours’ walk before me, and knew the route, and there
was no hurry, so, finding a few t’samma, I sat down and ate some and
chewed a bit of biltong. Now, for a long time I had been on the lookout
for a variety of “truffle” which grows in the Kalahari after rain,
and which not only the Bushmen eat, but which white people esteem a
great delicacy. It is called by the Bushmen name _naba_, and though
I had never seen it, I had often had it described to me. It does not
appear above ground at all, but is detected by a slight swelling and
cracking of the soil under which it is growing. Enthusiastic friends
had told me that it was not only a true truffle, but that it knocked
spots off anything ever produced in Perigord. Well, as I sat in the
dunes munching t’samma and biltong of the consistency of an old boot,
and thinking of all the nice things I would have when once I got into a
town again, I noticed that the earth quite close to me had several of
these little, gentle swellings, and, scraping away the sand, I found
about half a dozen little fungi about the size of a small potato--which
could be nothing but _naba_. I had no means of cooking them then, and
put them in my haversack, resolving to test them the moment I reached
a frying-pan. However, about an hour later, still trudging along, I
took one out to have a better look at it. It certainly smelt nice, just
like a young, fresh button mushroom. Perhaps it would be nice raw? I
nibbled a bit--it was! So I ate it, and two others followed.... I got
no farther, for quite suddenly the dunes began to spin round, a deadly
nausea seized me, and I realised that I had been poisoned. There was
nothing to be done--I could not even find a t’samma to eat, and within
a few yards the Kalahari seemed to get up and smite me violently, and
down I went, the whole universe swaying round me in a most unpleasant
manner.
However, after about an hour of excitement I got the better of it, and
was able to walk again, though I felt like a chewed rag, and did not
get out of the desert and into the old Molopo till well after dark. I
have tasted _naba_ since then, and enjoyed it--but cooked!
Turning south, I plodded on till about nine, when a tiny glimmer told
me that I was again in the vicinity of human beings. It proved to be
a canvas _huis_ about 10 feet square, in which were living two white
men, a woman, and several children. They were smoking and drinking
coffee when I turned up out of the desert half dead with fatigue, but
they made no offer of the coffee (usually proffered even by the least
hospitable in these lonely regions), and I had to ask for water twice
before I got a cup of even that. They wanted to know whether I had
found diamonds, however, but feeling hipped at their boorishness, I
said “Good night” and walked about another hour, when I struck a tiny
border farm called “Wit Puts,” belonging to a Boer named Engelbrecht,
where I found an elderly man and a youth still awake and reading the
Bible aloud. Here I was given a very kind reception, plenty of real
bread and warm milk, and for the first time for months slept under a
roof.
I could get no horse, however, and the next day had to walk on to
Witkop, a distance of nearly thirty miles, to rejoin my companions,
who, I heard, were anxiously awaiting me, as I was some days overdue. I
did not get in till almost midnight, thoroughly knocked up.
Our time was now getting short, and we had still a great desire to
reach a pan in the southern portion of the Reserve, where several
diamonds had been picked up, so after a bare breathing-space, we again
turned into the desert at a place called “Zwart Puts,” this time with
a strong Scotch cart and eight oxen, and two Bastards who knew the
district. Two days’ trek eastward we struck both t’samma in abundance,
and most steep and difficult dunes, amongst which we came upon a small
tribe of Bushmen, who had not time to get out of our way. Their tiny
shelters of branches were extremely rudimentary, mere windbreaks
without roof, and they had seen no water for over eight weeks, living
entirely upon the abundant t’samma, roasting it for water, mixing
its pulp with the blood of animals as a tit-bit, grinding the dried
pips between two stones and making a most palatable meal of them, or
parching them in the fire first, and making a beverage not unlike
coffee. With the exception of a very highly prized and badly battered
old oil-can, their utensils were all of earthenware made by themselves,
their arrow-heads were of chipped flint and agate, and their t’samma
knives of the hard, ivory-like shin-bone of the ostrich.
They had digging-sticks of fire-hardened wood, near the point of
which was fixed the _kiwe_, a heavy, rounded, perforated stone, of
which I had often seen specimens in museums, and had myself found in
shell middens along the beach near Cape Voltas, but had never before
seen in actual use.
The men spent a good deal of their time in hunting, which they did
principally by pursuing the quarry--jackal, wild-cat, and especially
the _rooi kat_ (lynx)--till they got it surrounded or “cornered,” and
killing it with knobkerries. They “bray” these skins to perfection,
using the fat of the animal, and rubbing and working it into the hide
till it becomes as soft as silk. These skins they bartered eagerly
for tobacco or coffee, for either of which they have an inordinate
liking. They are the most omniverous of beings, for not only do they
eat the flesh of every animal they kill, cats, jackals, and baboons
not excepted, but lizards, locusts, ants’ eggs, larvæ, and carrion and
insects of the most loathsome description.
I have already referred to their stone implements, etc., and indeed so
little was metal of any kind used by them that they might be classed as
a survival of the Palæolithic Age.
Except for our meeting with these primitive sons of the desert, this
latter part of our trip in the Kalahari was tame and uninteresting.
T’samma was plentiful, and we moved from pan to pan in comparative
comfort, finding several spots where a species of Kimberlite was
exposed directly beneath the superficial mud or sand of the surface,
and at least one incontestable “pipe,” where the “blue ground” was
almost identical with that of the “Premier Mine.” But we were never
able to obtain water for the proper testing of these possibly rich
mines, and before we left the Reserve had arrived at the conclusion
that, if ever such a test was made, the first step towards it would
have to be the opening of a water-route. This would entail no very
great expense, as there are numerous places in the desert where water
undoubtedly exists at no very great depth below the surface, and a
series of boreholes would be almost certain to produce a plentiful
supply. Indeed, these Kimberlite occurrences, either pipes or fissures,
would themselves provide the likeliest place for such boring, as it
has long been a recognised fact that shafts sunk in them rarely fail
to obtain satisfactory supplies. Up to the very last day in the desert
we had strong hopes of being able to bring out diamonds wherewith to
prove that ours had been no wild-goose chase, but unfortunately this
luck was denied us. At the same time, so good were the samples of
Kimberlite we had obtained in more than one spot, and so convincing our
photographs and other data as to these spots being undoubted pipes,
that we considered our “proof” as required by the Government amply
sufficient to allow us further facilities; and with the knowledge
that finances would be readily forthcoming for the opening up of a
water-route such as we intended suggesting, we came out of the Reserve
at the end of our time considering that we were made men. We were
ragged, burnt to the colour and consistency of biltong, our boots
patched and cobbled with _voorslag_ past all reasonable belief, half
our teeth gone through living on t’samma (its worst effect), and
altogether as desperate-looking a gang of tramps as ever graced the
north-west border; but we were happy, for there was going to be an end
of poverty--we had found the pipes!
Moreover we had thousands of feet of entirely novel bioscope films--the
Great Falls of the Orange, the actual pans in the heart of the desert,
Bushmen hunting, dancing, preparing t’samma; the huge nests of the
“social bird” with their swarming inhabitants: in short, enough new
“pictures” alone to repay us for the trip, even without the diamonds.
For not one of the party was pessimistic enough to imagine for a moment
either that the Government would refuse to allow us a chance of opening
up a water-route to the pipes, or that the intense heat of the desert
had--in spite of all precautions--utterly spoilt every foot of our
films.
CHAPTER XVIII
TRIP IN SEARCH OF “EMERALD VALLEY”--FEVER AND FAILURE--BACK TO
GORDONIA--SECOND TRIP TO BAK RIVER--“SOME GUN!”--THE PACK-COW--SURLY
NATIVES--“ROUGHING IT.”
One of our greatest disappointments in the Kalahari had been our
failure to reach the pan of “bright green stones,” which we believed to
be emeralds, and when on my return to Cape Town I found a man awaiting
me who claimed to have found a rich deposit of them in Portuguese East
Africa, I decided to fill in the time of waiting the Government’s
decision as to my desert discoveries by making a dash for “Emerald
Valley.”
Rumour as to the existence of this valley has for many years been
current amongst prospectors and mining men in the Barberton district,
and many a man has heard the tale in Johannesburg. It is alleged
that a party of Boers, hunting on the Portuguese side of the Lebombo
Mountains, which form the boundary between Portuguese territory and the
North-Eastern Transvaal, came upon some ancient workings which they
failed to penetrate, owing to noxious gas; but that at the mouth of one
they found skeletons, and with the bones a small skin bag full of rough
emeralds. They got away with the stones, which fetched a large sum in
Europe, but for some unexplained reason were never able to reach the
spot again.
My merchant, who had a small rough emerald to help his tale, claimed to
have found the spot again, and wanted to make a dash for it from the
Transvaal side of the Sabi Game Reserve; but as it was in Portuguese
territory, I would only undertake the trip with a proper licence
from the Portuguese. As the upshot of negotiations, within a month
of leaving the desert I was on my way to Delagoa Bay, accompanied by
Telfer, another white miner from Johannesburg, and the “discoverer.”
We had been prepared for a certain amount of delay, as all must expect
in dealing with Portuguese officials, but it was only after three most
exasperating months of expense and waiting that we eventually crossed
the Incomati River, a fully equipped expedition, armed with a “Special
Mining Licence” and all the necessary permits for carrying out our
purpose. And two months later three of us staggered out of the swamps
more dead than alive, the fourth, the “discoverer,” having utterly
failed us early in the search, and having made his way back into
British territory after a terrific carousal, and when he found there
would be no more liquor as long as he remained with us.
We had been some months too late, and the rains had caught us in the
swamps, whence native women eventually carried out the remnants of our
once fine equipment. We were full of fever, bitten nearly to death by
the swarms of mosquitoes, and practically penniless; and altogether
the trip was one long disaster. Yet, though the man who took us there
was a drunkard and utterly unreliable, I still believe that there was
some foundation for his tale, and that “Emerald Valley” may yet make
the fortune of a better planned and luckier expedition. Telfer, who had
had a rough time in the Kalahari, collapsed with fever as soon as we
reached Delagoa, and had to remain there. Shadford, my other companion,
and I got back to Johannesburg, where he developed blackwater fever,
and lay in a hotel for days in a desperate state, whilst I tramped from
office to office in an attempt to raise the necessary finances for the
opening of a water-route to the Kalahari pans--when once Government had
made up its mind to allow of such a thing!
Meanwhile I found a large accumulation of letters awaiting me--several
of them months old--and amongst them a number urging me to return to
Upington, where several options on supposed diamond properties were now
obtainable. More, a wire reporting my return from Portuguese territory
elicited the news that a new and reliable guide to “Brydone’s diamonds”
had materialised at Upington, and that if I did not secure him pretty
quick, others would do so, and “jump” the rich mine near the Bak River,
for which I had already had a try (see Chapter XII).
Altogether there were a good many reasons why a rapid return to the
vicinity of the Kalahari was desirable, for in spite of the delay in
obtaining the fruit of our desert trip, we could not conceive that we
should eventually be “turned down” by the Government. Ministers and
Secretaries were away stumping or holiday-making, and I could not wait
in Johannesburg till their return. I had obtained the promise of the
requisite finances for the water-route when the time came; meanwhile,
however, it would be better not to neglect new opportunities, and,
thanks to the help of certain staunch friends, I was soon on my way
once more to the region of sand and t’samma.
This was on November 1st, 1913. Ever since early in June I had been
living a life of constant worry, anxiety, and hardship which had made
me look back with regret to those lonely dunes of the Kalahari, where
at least there were no crocodiles, few mosquitoes, and less fever, and
where the absence of water seemed rather an advantage when fresh from
the sodden, steaming marshes of the Incomati and Lebombo.
Telfer was still down with fever at Delagoa Bay, and Shadford, a wreck
of the strong man he had been, in a like case in Johannesburg, whilst
even I, fever-salted as I had considered myself, had turned yellow
to the whites of my eyes, shook periodically with fits of ague that
threatened to lose me all the teeth the t’samma had left, and had to
live principally on quinine. A week later I was back in Gordonia,
where the dry air and glorious sunshine of the finest climate in the
world soon drove away the effect of the “emerald picnic.”
At Upington I found that the “guide” who claimed to know the way to the
cave and hollow mountain of Brydone’s story near the Bak River was a
certain trooper in the C.M.P. named Trollip, a gigantic chap of about 6
ft. 3 ins., who had been through the country in question at the latter
end of the Hottentot rebellion. Trekking back from German territory, he
had passed through a celebrated gorge known as “Oorlogs Kloof” (Battle
Kloof), and thence through the wild hills I have described in Chapter
XII, and a Hottentot guide had pointed out a certain mountain as being
the place “where the diamonds were.”
This was by no means the precise information I had been led to expect
from the wires and letters I had received; still, I was convinced that
I had been hot upon the trail on my previous trip, and jumped at the
chance of following up this additional clue.
The native who had showed Trollip the spot could not be found, though
we rode over half Gordonia looking for him, but a Bastard who had been
also one of the party with Trollip in the mountains was induced to
accompany us; and, the police trooper himself having obtained leave of
absence, on November 22nd I again set out for the Great Falls and the
German Border.
In addition to Trollip and the Bastard (Carl van Rooy by name), I had
with me a young half-breed Hottentot named Gert, who had been with
me in the Kalahari, and a friend from Upington named Ford-Smith, who
wanted to see the Falls, try a new-fangled American repeating shot-gun,
which acted like a pump and was almost as elegant, and incidentally
bring back a few diamonds himself.
By a variety of conveyances, horses, Cape cart, ox-cart, etc., we
got to the Great Falls, which I looked at with more interest than
ever since I had heard that the Union Government intended utilising
their enormous power in the near future. We stayed a day near the
Great Cataract, partly to further explore its terrific gorges, and
partly because our horses had got away in the night and gone into
the mountains to look for grass, and whilst waiting for them, Carl,
the guide, gave us an exhibition of fancy shooting which I would not
have missed for anything. He first of all asked me if I had Martini
cartridges, which I had. He then produced from the bottom of the cart
the weirdest weapon I have ever seen, which is saying a good deal;
for in this wild part of South Africa it is no uncommon thing to find
rifles and guns of ancient make that, having been broken and patched
and cobbled with raw hide, nails, tacks, wire, and solder, in the most
extraordinary manner, are yet capable of doing excellent work in the
hands of their owners, who know their little peculiarities.
But van Rooy’s was the limit! It had been a Martini, one of the old,
long, straight-stocked ones, that kick like a mule; but one day it had
fallen off a waggon and a wheel had passed over it, breaking the stock
and bending the barrel almost double. Thrown away as beyond repair, it
had been rescued by Carl, who had long coveted a rifle (as every man
on the Border does), and who had determined to repair it. The stock he
had carved from an old ox-yoke, and the barrel was fastened to it with
a combination of all the home-made devices mentioned above; but the
crowning feat had been the straightening of the barrel, which he had
accomplished by making it red-hot and hammering it.
The result was startling, for not only was it battered and dented badly
by the hammer, but the foresight was a good eighth of an inch out of
alignment with the back; in fact it curved to such an extent that it
suggested an attempt at a weapon designed to shoot round corners.
I could not conceive that anyone would have the temerity to try and
shoot with it, but Carl was immediately on his dignity when I said
so, and wanted to know what was the matter with his gun. He said,
moreover, that the hills were full of _tijgers_, and unless he could
have cartridges for that gun he wouldn’t go a step farther; moreover
he wanted some practice, as he had rarely tried the gun since he
“straightened” it.
It appeared like aiding and abetting suicide, but at last I gave him
them, and we scattered for cover, whilst he lay down and let her go.
There was a most terrific bang, and I wondered what the coroner would
say, but Carl was still there, though at least three yards back from
where he had first fired, rubbing his shoulder thoughtfully. But he
was no funk, and with half a dozen shots had found out what allowance
to make for the kink, and could hit a bottle at a hundred yards. And
Ford-Smith, himself a “weapon fancier,” and usually festooned with all
sorts of weird shooting-irons, thereupon recognised him as a kindred
spirit, and was soon swapping shooting yarns with this valiant gunner.
He told Smith, if I remember rightly, that at a hundred yards he had
to aim two yards to the right and two feet below the object, and I
wondered how he would figure it out if a leopard charged him from a
quarter that distance!
Next day, at Wag Brand, we had again to abandon our carts, packing
sheer necessities upon two of the horses, and carrying a heavy load
ourselves as we pushed forward along the pathless and precipitous
slopes of the gorge, through which ran the Orange, and scarcely
expecting to get the horses through. Within a few hundred yards of the
start we had already come to grief, though luckily the accident was
more ludicrous than serious.
For in negotiating a granite shoulder smoothly sloping into the water,
the old white horse that was leading missed his footing, scrambled
wildly as though on skates, reared up and fell with a terrible splash
into the muddy water. His pack had been roped on with a long coil of
Manila, and in his frantic struggles this came loose and he was soon
tangled up like a fish in a net, and it looked like losing both him and
our precious pack. I jumped in with a knife and slashed his pack away,
and we got both out farther down. And then we stood and laughed till
the baboons came out on the rocky peaks and hooted us, for the poor old
horse was the most ridiculous-looking object imaginable. He had been
white before he fell in, now he looked like an equine rainbow.
Part of his multitudinous load had been a bag of yellow sugar from
Upington. I do not pretend to know what it was dyed with, or why it
should have been dyed at all, but all one side of him was a deep
mustard yellow; a box of permanganate of potash crystals had tinted
most of the rest of him from rose pink to deep purple; and a ball
of washing-blue, which the only fastidious member of the party had
brought, to be able to wash his shirts a nice colour, had completed the
picture.
Of course a good deal of our scanty stores were utterly spoiled, and
it meant short commons for the trip, but we were lucky to have saved
anything, and were thankful for small mercies.
With great caution we successfully negotiated the rest of the bad
places, and came to the mouth of the Molopo, whence the going was easy.
Lower down, by a lovely stretch of placid water, and opposite the huge
red mountain known as “Zee-coe-stuk,” we found a number of Hottentots
and _Beeste Damaras_ with sheep, goats, and cattle, which Trollip
shrewdly suspected had been stolen, for the few natives amongst these
wild hills are vagrants and thieves, mostly descendants of the old
free-booters who made this part of the Orange their fastness during
the last century, or fugitives from justice. They were surly and
suspicious, and would undoubtedly have liked to plunder the lot of us,
but we were all well armed, and when they saw the quick-firing section
and heavy artillery of Smith and Carl, they became quite civil. From
them we succeeded in hiring a pack-cow, which lightened our load
considerably, the old dear trotting along ahead of us in the most
willing manner, climbing like a cat over rocks and stones, and with a
half-grown calf running behind her.
[Illustration: A BREAKDOWN ON THE ROAD FROM PRIESKA.
Showing washing-machine, sieves, stores, etc. Note the canvas
water-bag.]
[Illustration: WASHING FOR DIAMONDS AT THE BASE OF THE ESCARPMENT AT
NAKOB.
The rotary washing-machine is in the background.]
A day later we were in the deep gorge of the Bak River, where we
succeeded in getting both horses and cow to our old camping-place of
Chapter XII. Apparently no human foot had trod those wild ravines
since last I had been there with Paul and Borcherds, though higher up,
where the German patrol-path crossed into our territory, there were
signs that these gentlemen visited this remote part of the border more
frequently than of yore. And the very next day we saw two troopers
cross the ridge a mile or so away from us, and a tiny watch-fire in
the mountains that night made us surmise that we had been seen, and
that Hottentot police trackers had been left to watch us. So we did our
searching with great circumspection, though we had often to penetrate
German territory for some distance.
It soon became evident that neither van Rooy nor Trollip knew as much
about the region as I did myself, and the only result of bringing them
was to have a mountain pointed out that the other native had said that
he had heard was the place where the diamonds were to be found (for
here on the spot the precise information of both of them boiled down to
that extent), and the identification of a huge gorge leading north-west
into German territory as the famous “Oorlogs Kloof” of which I had
heard so much.
Meanwhile, I acknowledge, both men made up for lack of knowledge
by willingness to be of assistance, and from daylight till dark we
clambered precipitous peaks, groped in caves and cañons, sifted the
sand of gullies and gorges, till our hands were torn almost as badly
as our boots and clothes. But still the place we sought could not be
found, although there was proof forthcoming that somewhere in the
vicinity pipe Kimberlite existed. The complexity of the ravines,
and the sand-choked nature of many, made the following-up of these
indications extremely tedious work, especially as many of the ravines
led into German territory, and we had to keep a sharp lookout in case
we were observed. My friend Smith, whose feet gave in after a few
excursions, usually stayed about the camp with a gun handy; for one
day, when he had accompanied us along a sandy ravine for some distance,
he found, in turning back, that a big leopard spoor had covered his own
for most of the distance, the wily animal having evidently followed
him, barely keeping out of sight! By the number of spoors in some of
the ravines, the place fully merits its reputation for these _tijgers_,
who are, however, so wily, and whose tawny coats harmonise so well with
the red and yellow sandstone and deep shadow of the rocks, that, when
standing motionless even a short distance away, it is almost impossible
to see them till they move. We were well off for water, but soon ran
short of supplies, and lived principally on klip-springer and rock
rabbits (dassies).
At last Trollip’s leave was up and he had to return, and with him
went Ford-Smith and Carl, leaving the boy Gert and myself alone. As
the horses went with them we sent most of our heavy stuff back, and
retained the barest necessities: but with rifles, water, and a box
of matches we were perfectly independent of everybody. And then the
search really began, for we were both far more active than the men who
had left us, willing as they had been, and we worked northward into
what had once been tributary streams for long distances, until I had
proof positive that at no very great distance higher up a diamond pipe,
probably a whole group of pipes, did exist.
Whether the “long arm of coincidence” alone was responsible for the
writer Brydone having placed a rich mine in these hills many years
before, or whether, as I still believe, the yarn had been founded upon
an actual happening, I still cannot say; but I repeat there was now no
doubt that in the near vicinity there was a mine.
We were not sure whether it would prove to be on British territory or
German; certainly, however, it would be perilously near dwellings and
on private property, and could only be searched for and located by a
further expedition having permission to search such private lands.
When we arrived at this conclusion we were absolutely at the end of our
stores, a small tin of Symington’s Pea Flour, a pot of jam, and two
tins of sardines being all that was left of the edibles. However, there
were rope, tools, pots, and various gear, and Gert left me to go back
to the Hottentots up the river, to bring back the pack-cow that had
brought us there.
He brought it back a day or two later with the owner, who was surly
when he found our tobacco and coffee were finished, and who wanted to
clear off again and leave us to hump the things ourselves. However,
he was “persuaded” not to do so, our things were packed on the cow,
and we started our long walk back. My boots were literally in shreds,
and my feet badly cut and bleeding, and as nearly the whole of the
journey was over sharp rocks, I was in a terrible state by the time
I got to “Zee-coe-stuk,” where the Hottentots’ encampment was. These
people were now insolent to a degree; they demanded tobacco and coffee,
and would not believe we had none. Gert showed them our kit, and the
cow was unpacked and led away to rest and feed, but they were still
derisive, and as there were a round dozen of them, and we were two, it
looked as though there might be trouble. We were on a high, well-wooded
bank, above a very deep part of the river, and Gert (who of course
spoke Hottentot) said that they were openly discussing rushing us, and
throwing us into the turbulent, rushing torrent. On the opposite bank,
on the lower slopes of the mountain, which came almost sheer into the
water, were a troop of big baboons, and this gave me an idea which
probably saved bloodshed.
They--the baboons--were about 300 yards away, four of them on a big
rock at the edge of the water, and I gave them a magazineful in rapid
succession. The second shot hit the rock in the centre of the group,
and, “mushrooming,” flew into flinders, which knocked all four of
the big _baviaans_ into the river, but I sent the remaining bullets
amongst the others higher up, just for effect. I got the effect all
right, for turning, I saw Gert, who had my short Martini carbine and
was watching the Hottentots, almost doubled up with laughter, and the
Hottentots running towards the rocks as fast as their legs would carry
them. And in the rocks they stayed, and when the hour came for us to
trek, there was neither Hottentot nor pack-cow. Gert went and parleyed
with the women in the _pondhoeks_, but they could do nothing except
demand coffee and _tabaki_, and the gentlemen up in the rocks evidently
thought they had the whip hand, as we could go no farther without the
cow. I got Gert to shout to them that if the cow was not brought back,
we would go, and they merely laughed, doubtless thinking that the pack
we should have to abandon would fall into their thieving hands. But
I was determined otherwise. We made all essentials into two packets
of about 60 lb. each, principally samples of ammunition and expensive
prospecting gear, and the pots, tools, cords, and heavy impedimenta we
very reluctantly but determinedly flung into the water.
As we were hidden by the thick trees, this procedure could not be seen
by the Hottentots, and humping the remainder of our gear, we stole
quietly away.
I suppose, with our rifles, etc., we had each about 60 lb. only, but
the heat was very great, the silt beside the river, where our path
lay, was heavy and intersected by numerous gullies, and within an hour
I was quite prepared to throw the remainder into the Orange; but just
as I had put the load down for about the twentieth time we heard a
shout, and the old cow came lumbering along with several of our late
friends behind it. I ordered them back, except the driver, and as they
saw me ram a magazineful of cartridges into my Mannlicher, they again
performed “Home to the Mountains.”
The rest of that day I walked as I had never walked before,
occasionally tearing up a fresh strip from my scanty garments to bind
afresh my feet, which were jagged and torn by sharp stones and pricked
with thorns till every step was anguish. By night we were at Wag Brand,
the old cow having made light of the bad rocks where our old horse had
fallen in on the outward journey.
We had hoped to find a few natives here, but the _pondhoek_ was empty,
and we could not even borrow a pot to make a little mealie pap from
the tiny remainder of our meal and pea-flour. We made a few cakes on
the embers, and slept like logs. In the morning we were desperately
hungry, and though we had set night-lines, there were no fish on them.
We could hear guinea-fowl and pheasant calling everywhere in the dense
wood, but could not see them. At last Gert put a bullet through a
pheasant, blowing it to bits, which we managed to roast on the embers,
and a very tough _hors-d’œuvre_ it proved. The Hottentot demanded
food--not without reason; and on our telling him he would get some
at Waterfal that night, if there happened to be any people there, he
demanded his money and proposed returning. He had had more than his
share of the pheasant, including the liver wing, and as I did not wish
to be unjust, I gave him the only handful of meal left. This left me
with about a tea-cup of pea-flour and a fragment of rusty bacon about
2 inches square to last us two days’ hard trek to Miller’s store at
North Furrow, Kakamas, should we fail to shoot anything _en route_. But
that Hottentot was a perfect Oliver Twist. He made _asch-kook_ of the
meal and devoured it, whilst we sat and partook of the smell. And then
he demanded more! I told him to pack the cow and trek, and if he were
lucky he would get something at Waterfal that night. Then, being full
of good hot meal, he got cheeky and thrust his Mongol face in mine in a
way that could have but one ending. So I knocked him down, three times
to be exact, whereupon he became most cheerful, and drove the old cow
towards the Great Falls in fine style. We were there by sunset, and I
took the boy Gert to see the Cataract, being a bit dubious of the first
stream, but traversing it quite safely. The Great Fall itself was more
awe-inspiring than ever at sunset, and Gert was so impressed that I had
great difficulty in getting him to cross the stream on our way back--he
could not swim.
There was not a soul at the Falls, and we could shoot nothing, and
short as was the distance, what with the heat and the state of my feet,
it took us all next day to get to the store at Krantz Kop, Kakamas
North Furrow. We had an alleged meal at midday by the river, where
Gert caught a small barbel the size of a herring. It was full of bones
and tasted vilely, but with the aid of the pea-flour, and the bacon
frizzled on a prospecting shovel, we ate it, bones and all.
We got to the store in the evening. I was literally in rags, and with
barely enough of my _veldtschoen_ uppers left to hold together the
blood-stained rags on my feet.
At the store I found friends, the magistrate, bank manager, and lawyer
from Upington, who were on their way to the Great Falls; though I still
believe they had a sneaking idea of making a desperate dash into the
Noup Hills themselves to try and get hold of my mine!
Anyhow, there they were, prepared for “roughing it” in great style.
They had a waggon crammed with provisions, on the top of which they
had stretched several mattresses and at least one feather-bed.
They had several riding-horses as well, and the capacious vehicle
was overflowing with every kind of eatable and drinkable. They had
immaculate white suits and big pith helmets, and altogether quite put
my poor old cow and myself in the shade.
I was most anxious to get back to Upington, but they inveigled me into
returning with them to the Falls, and so for a few days I played at
“roughing it” with them, and found it far from unpleasant after so much
of the real thing. I paid my cow-driver exactly what I had agreed to,
which astonished him, and he there and then declared his willingness to
take my pack right on the 200-odd miles to the railway at Prieska, or,
for the matter of that, to Cape Town if needs be! And he was quite hurt
when I refused, but soon recovered under the stimulating effect of a
visit to the store, where he bought tobacco, and sugar, and coffee, and
golden syrup, and “Pain Killer” to his heart’s content, leaving on the
home track with a pack almost as big as he had brought out.
CHAPTER XIX
RESULT OF KALAHARI TRIP--NAKOB--LACK OF POLICE ON FRONTIER--WORKING A
KIMBERLITE PIPE--UKAMAS--DRUNKEN GERMAN OFFICERS--SLOW TREKKING--A BAD
SMASH.
At Upington I took the preliminary steps for obtaining the right
to prospect the lands to which the indications on the border had
pointed, a task which proved both long and tedious. And meanwhile,
whilst negotiations were still pending with the scattered and absentee
owners of these huge desert farms, I at last received the Government’s
decision as to the Kalahari. And it was an adverse one: admitting
the interest of my report on this “unexplored” region, and even of
its scientific value, but refusing to take my samples of Kimberlite,
etc., as proof of the existence of diamond pipes in the Kalahari Game
Reserve, and refusing me any further facilities in that direction.
So we had risked our lives and our money in vain, and all the castles
we had built on those desert pipes met the fate at any time likely to
overtake such edifices based upon the sand--of a Government promise.
However, it was no good squealing, and as soon as the right to
prospect my newly found area was forthcoming, I started again for the
border. This was on March 17th, 1914, when I left Cape Town with a
full equipment of diamond-washing gear, to thoroughly test the region
north of the Noup Hills, and in the immediate vicinity of the German
South-West Border.
Handicapped by a heavy equipment, my progress from the railhead at
Prieska was maddeningly slow, and it was not until April 8th that I
at length reached my destination, Nakob, a tiny police post on the
border, and the “port of entry” into German territory.
In spite of its comparative importance as the customs “port” for the
southern trade-routes, this post at Nakob was one of the loneliest,
most isolated habitations in South Africa.
It was simply a little shanty of corrugated iron so small as to barely
afford shelter for the three troopers stationed there, and who, having
no stable, tethered their horses amongst the thorn-trees near by. South
of them stretched the wild country I have described, the Noup Hills
and Bak River, with not a single inhabitant for the whole difficult
day’s ride to the Orange, and more days beyond it. North of them, and
wellnigh fifty miles away, was the similar post of Obopogorop where two
other troopers were marooned, and thence a similar stretch of awful
dune country had to be crossed to reach Rietfontein--the northern post
of the camel police which I have already described, and where there
were about a dozen men.
This represented the whole police force guarding (?) the long desert
frontier of Gordonia and German South-West Africa--less than twenty men
isolated and separated from each other by great distances of desert and
difficult country, in many places cumbered by huge dunes of loose sand,
through which transport was impossible, and which rendered long detours
necessary. And these difficult, devious, and waterless paths were the
only means of communication between them, for neither telephone nor
telegraph-wire existed! Between them and their headquarters at Upington
stretched a good eighty miles also of wellnigh uninhabited country,
whilst their nearest store was at Zwartmodder, a tiny place in the bed
of the Molopo, forty miles due east, and therefore that distance from
the border.
Except for a few miserable Hottentot _pondhoeks_ and the mud houses of
a couple of Bastards, there were no other inhabitants of this important
boundary post. They had got water in a well at a little distance from
the post, and I soon found that my sphere of action would be limited
to a radius within reach of this water, for there was none other for a
very great distance in either direction.
A few days after my arrival I was snugly encamped some miles north of
the police post, and within a stone’s throw of German territory, my
tents being pitched in a deep ravine running into an escarpment of
higher land. These deep, abrupt ravines honeycombed the country in
all directions, and in them there was a certain amount of vegetation,
though the surface of the plateau or tableland above was principally
a stone-strewn wilderness over which one could ride for days without
seeing a human being or the trace of one.
One of these ravines was, I found, the upper part of the Bak River, in
which I had discovered my indications farther south; and within a few
days I had confirmed my original conviction that hereabouts was the
source of the Kimberlite I had found. Much of the country was hidden by
a huge accumulation of sand, but on the higher land I soon found, not
one but a whole group of pipes.
On the most accessible of these I began work in earnest, though even
there the difficulties were very great. First of all a road had to
be made through rock, bush, and débris over which to bring stores,
and, above all, the large quantity of water necessary for a rotary
washing machine; and part of this track had to negotiate the almost
perpendicular part of the escarpment, for the pipe lay on the top of
the plateau. And at this rise, in spite of all precautions, barrels,
tanks, and every other water-utensil I possessed were smashed in turn.
I soon gathered a miscellaneous gang of about a dozen “boys,” Young
Gert, who had stuck to me in many a tight corner, “bossing” them very
efficiently. There were Hottentots, Bastards, Damaras, and Ovampos
from near the Kunene River in the north of German territory, and two
Bushmen. Altogether a wild and polyglot lot, clad mostly in rags and
tatters, and most of them “wanted” by the Germans over the border.
However, they did not work badly, though they took a lot of feeding.
Of course we were entirely self-supporting, for I had brought a large
supply of meal, coffee, sugar, tobacco, and other necessities, dry wood
was plentiful in the ravines, and the camp, with huge fires burning
and a savoury smell of roasting buck or hot _roster-kook_, was a most
pleasant place to return to after a long day in the pipe or the veldt.
I had a terrier for companion, and was far from lonely, and once in a
while rode down to the police camp and saw the troopers, and heard the
news brought in by the rare waggons or wayfarers from Upington and the
far-distant world beyond. And day after day, once the gang knew their
work at the pipe, I explored every gully and likely spot for many miles
around, generally on foot, but occasionally, for the longer distances,
taking an old nag who was as surefooted as a goat and from whose back I
could shoot without fear of being bucked off. Much of this prospecting
was in German territory, which to the north was as wild and pathless as
our own, and where the rare patrols could be avoided with ease. Buck
and the magnificent _gom paauws_ were plentiful, and kept the camp
fairly well supplied with meat: any little deficiency for the “boys”
pot being usually made up by giving Gert two cartridges (at most) and
my short Martini-Enfield carbine--his favourite weapon--and telling him
that his shooting must be done in German territory. His weakness used
to be for ostrich meat, thick luscious steaks of it usually forming the
“boys’” Sunday dinner, looking exactly like rump-steak and cooked in
the thick breast-fat of the huge bird, which swarmed in the locality.
The pipe I had chosen to test was peculiarly situated, on the top of
the plateau and right upon the extreme edge of British territory; so
close indeed to German soil that the international beacon marking the
actual twentieth degree of east longitude (the boundary-line) stood
within a few yards of the well-defined western wall of the pipe, and in
full view of the shafts we were sinking.
From the edge of the escarpment, a few hundred yards from this beacon,
a magnificent view could be obtained of both British and German
territory, south-east, south, and south-west, the irregular peaks
that penned the lonely Orange River being visible along the whole of
the horizon in that direction. Over the whole vast space, one tiny
habitation alone was visible, the little police post at Nakob, at the
foot of the escarpment, and barely two miles away. From this beacon
post the experienced observer could pick up several of the other
signposts dotted here and there at irregular intervals amongst wild
bush and rock along the twentieth degree, the actual boundary, which
was, however, pathless and difficult to follow.
The corresponding German police post, also usually known as Nakob,
was not built opposite our own little post, but near a very prominent
granite hill some two miles south of it, where there was water on the
German side, and in the vicinity of which our own post at one time
stood. (These minute and tedious particulars as to the position of the
two posts are necessary to enable the reader to follow what happened at
this spot a few months later, at the outbreak of war.)
We saw little of the German police, who were few, and on excellent
terms with our own men along the border, and whose lot, compared with
that of our men, was a fairly easy one. For they were but eighteen
miles from their base at Ukamas, where a couple of hundred troops
were stationed, and from whence there was telephonic and telegraphic
communication all over German territory. There was a doctor there, a
“hotel” and store, and good roads led to it; in short, compared to
our own side of the border, a measure of civilisation was within easy
reach. These German mounted police belonged to a _corps d’élite_, each
trooper having been a senior non-commissioned officer in the Imperial
German Army, and they were for the most part well-educated men, and
especially expert in cartography. Part of their duties lay in preparing
exhaustive maps of the localities in which they were stationed, and I
have been shown, by them, maps of our own side of the border, showing
minute and accurate detail utterly wanting on our own charts.
For weeks I led a most strenuous life, never idle enough to have a dull
moment, in spite of the fact that, except for my gang of natives, I was
quite alone. Besides the clearing of the sand and débris from the pipe,
the cartage of water and other routine work, there were a thousand
tasks to see to: trees to fell for timbering shafts, or to be hewn into
rough windlasses; charcoal to burn for the sharpening of picks; tanks
to tinker and solder; the obtaining of fresh meat for a ravenous family
of a dozen or more, each of whom, if left to himself, would eat half a
buck at a meal; and in short the whole gamut of “jack-of-all-trades”
tasks that have to be performed by a prospector in such a spot.
There was an occasional break in the routine in the shape of a longer
trip in search of other prospects, and more than one night spent far
away on the wide veldt, with the path lost; but by remembering the
cardinal fact that a line due south on the plateau would always bring
me to the escarpment which could be followed “home,” I always got
back with no worse experience than being half frozen, for the nights
were now very cold, and the days glorious with bright sunshine, and
the air like dry champagne. One day, in trying to make my own way to
Zwartmodder, across the veldt, I got badly out of the path, and night
found me in dunes as wild as any I had seen in the Reserve, and in
which a bitterly cold wind froze me to the marrow as I crouched under a
bush till morning, clad in nothing but a thin shirt and trousers.
I was, as I afterwards found, a bare ten miles from Zwartmodder; but in
these very same dunes, only a few years back, a police trooper lost
his way and died of thirst.
One other trip that will never be forgotten was to the Noup Hills
again, and into the famous Oorlogs Kloof, where, with Gert and a
Bastard named Nicholas Cloete, I made one more bid for “Brydone’s
diamonds,” and, failing them, for the _tijgers_ that infested the wild
gullies there.
But that I have striven all through this narrative to avoid all
shooting yarns, I could let my pen run on for a full chapter over
that particular hunt and the strange things I found there; but I must
leave all that, and pass on to the end of May, when, after six weeks
of systematic work and exhaustive search in all directions, I was in
possession of data that made a trip to the nearest telegraph-station
imperative. This meant Ukamas, the German township I have mentioned,
and which so far I had avoided.
I therefore rode down to our own police post, and reported that I was
taking a horse over the border, for which I had obtained the requisite
permission before leaving Upington; thence I rode on to the German
post, and had to give minute particulars as to who and what I was,
whence from, and whither bound, to the little trooper in charge there.
I had had several chats with the little chap before; he spoke French
extremely well, and was, I believe, an Alsatian. Anyway he was a very
obliging chap, and quite unlike the uncouth, brutal troopers of the
regiment stationed at Ukamas. This ordeal over, and a full description
of both myself and my horse entered in the _Ne Varietur_ kept for
the purpose, I rode the eighteen miles into the little frontier town
over good, well-defined roads laid out by the military, and with a
valuable aid to the traveller at every cross-road in the shape of a
stone signpost giving distance and direction to inhabited places in the
locality.
Ukamas, although but a tiny village, and a very long distance from
the railway at Kalkfontein, was certainly a credit to the Germans,
the post-office, houses, and barracks being attractive-looking,
substantially built edifices, most of them, I was given to understand,
having been built by the military stationed there, many of whom were
artisans.
There was one Englishman in the place, a Jew store-keeper, who had at
one time been in the British Army, and who was on that account baited
in the most intolerable manner by the officers and soldiers who were
the principal customers of his bar. From this little outpost I was able
to send a cable to Cape Town, the post-office operator being, like
every other official in the place, a soldier. Here my horse had to
be handed to the military vet, for the _mallin_ test, and I was kept
kicking my heels for some days in the forlorn little stores, where
every evening the rough troopers, in their long blue-grey greatcoats,
congregated to drink beer and play _scart_, smoking the big cigars that
form part of their rations, and cracking alleged jokes at the expense
of the little Jew landlord and of the rough-looking prospector sitting
so quietly in a corner.
These men, however, rough and overbearing as they were, were harmless
compared with their officers, who drank to excess in front of their
men, and whose intolerable treatment of the Englishman behind the bar
used to compel me to get out and right away from them, lest I should be
unable to control myself and get into trouble.
They picked no quarrel with me personally, for though I was roughly
dressed, I had shown my Foreign Office passport to their superior, and
I suppose they had been told to let me alone. But they talked at me
as I sat there quite quietly pretending to read, talked about what a
poor lot all “Englanders” were, anyway, and how only the worst of them
ever came to Africa, and how they, the Germans, the salt of the earth,
were bound, sooner or later, to take over the whole of it from the Cape
to the Zambesi, and a lot of other balderdash, all in front of their
admiring men. Then, as the beer began to work, they would start on D.
about the British Army, what rank he held in it, if all the officers
were like him, and so on till they got the little man rattled. Their
crowning witticism would come when he dived down beneath the counter
for more beer for them, when at a signal all four of them would bring
their riding-whips down on the rickety counter, with a crash close to
his head, to show their men “how an English officer could stand fire”!
This never failed to bring down the house, and send me flying out
before I got into serious trouble. How the man stood it beat me! It is
true that these officers were subalterns only, but in any other army in
the world they would have been cashiered, for never a day passed but
that they were vilely and blatantly drunk in full sight of their men.
Especially was this the case on the Sunday when they were celebrating
the approaching departure of the veterinary surgeon for Germany, and
when, at eleven o’clock in the morning, they reeled from their quarters
arm-in-arm and staggering drunk. In the bar for the rest of the day
they excelled themselves, and I again heard the toast of “The Day”
being drunk, though I did not imagine, as I sat there with my hands
itching, how soon that “Day” would come.
Altogether, with the exception of the doctor, who was not so bad, they
were a trio of contemptible, bullying cads, and I thanked God when
my horse was at last pronounced to have passed the _mallin_ test,
and I was at liberty to clear back over the border, to bad roads
and tumble-down shacks, it is true, but to free air again, where a
man could go and come as he liked, free from anything even remotely
resembling the detestable junkerdom of this “Kolonial” edition of
Prussianised Germany.
Once back “home” in my gully I had to make immediate plans for a trip
to Cape Town, not only to arrange for further development north, but to
make preparations for working in German territory if needs be, which I
believed could be managed better through the German Consulate-General
in Cape Town than by a personal application in Windhuk.
[Illustration: AN INTERNATIONAL BOUNDARY BEACON BETWEEN GERMAN (LATE)
SOUTH-WEST AFRICA TERRITORY AND BRITISH (GORDONIA).]
Unfortunately, there were no travellers coming through about this time,
and as I had a large amount of samples to take, my horse was useless;
but a few days later a donkey-waggon which had been to Ukamas with
oranges from Upington returned to British territory on its way home,
and I jumped at the opportunity.
It took us eight days to cover the eighty-odd miles to Upington, partly
on account of the scarcity of fodder _en route_, and partly because of
the weak and half-starved donkeys, but principally due to the terrible
sand-dunes that cumbered the path (?) chosen by the driver.
This was an entirely new route to me, partly down the wide sand-choked
bed of the Bak River to an old deserted house called Aries, thence
across pathless, boulder-strewn mountains into an absolute crater
called Noedap, where dwelt a few Hottentots, to whom my driver wanted
to sell the remainder of his oranges, and thence into a weird and
picturesque spot in the Molopo bed known as Cnydas, where there were
fine water-pits sunk in the deeply silted dry river-bed to a depth of
about 40 feet, and operated with a long pivoted pole with a weight at
one end, exactly like those in use in Egypt.
Meanwhile we were having a rough time of it for food, for, relying
on seeing plenty of game, and knowing that I should easily keep pace
with the waggon even when ranging for miles on either side of it, I
had brought no food but a little meal, and when for three solid days I
hunted in vain without pulling trigger, the meal had gone; and as Nicol
the driver was as badly off as myself, we had to live on oranges! Then
we fell in with a _smouse_ (an itinerant trader), whose small waggon
reeked of the illicit _dop_ he had been selling to the Hottentots and
Bastards, but who had little left but the smell. All he could do was
to sell us a few dried apricots full of sand and tough as leather,
and with this addition to our _cuisine_ of oranges and an occasional
Namaqua partridge we “managed” till we got to Upington. By this time
motors had become a regular means of conveyance between Upington and
Prieska, and in about the same time as it had taken us to negotiate a
mile or two of dunes, I had been whisked to the line and Cape Town,
where I made the necessary arrangements for extending my operations in
both British and German territory, and on June 23rd, 1914, I left Cape
Town again for the border.
At Prieska I met Maritz, then a Major, and Commandant of the Defence
Force in charge of the North-West Districts. I had heard much of the
man, of his courage and strength, and his dare-devil exploits when
with the Boer forces during the Anglo-Boer War, also of his doings in
German South-West Africa, whither he had migrated, like many another
“irreconcilable” after Vereeniging. There he had been transport officer
for the Germans during the Hottentot and Herero Rebellion, and had
become far more Germanised than most of the freedom-loving Boers who
had tried to make a home in that country, the majority of whom had soon
been extremely glad to get back once again to British rule.
But the hectoring, bullying manners of the German officers were
apparently much to the taste of “Maanie,” and when at the formation of
the Union Defence Force he returned to the Union and soon blossomed
forth as a Major in command of the North-West District of the Cape
Province (the wild region bordering German territory), he soon showed
the _jongen_ who came under his sway that the days of the old,
easy going commando system of their fathers was a thing of the past,
and that rigid discipline had come in place of it. He soon became a
perfect terror to them, and many a tale had I heard at Keimoos, where
the Upington men had gone for training, as to the shock he had given
many a young Boer who, fresh from the lonely farms of the back-veldt,
had thought to treat him as an equal.
But, martinet as he had become, and feared as he was by them, he
undoubtedly won the respect of these ignorant and impressionable young
fellows, many of whom had never seen a railway or heard anything of
the outside world, except from the biased and embittered lips of the
irreconcilables and so-called “Hertzogites” (or Nationalists) who
formed the bulk of the scattered population in these remote regions.
To his men his great argument was that by discipline alone could they
ever become a fighting force worthy of the name, and that, had the Boer
forces been properly disciplined, the British could never have won the
war.
Whatever may have been his faults, Maritz was no hypocrite; he never
professed to have any other feeling than that of hearty detestation for
the English; and though the Union Jack floated over his training-camp,
there can be no doubt that he hoped from the first that in the Defence
Force he was helping to forge a weapon that would some day be turned
against the _Uitlander_ whose hated symbol it was.
Maritz, then, was in command of the Defence Force training-camp at
Prieska when I arrived there, and as I had some business with him _re_
a motor-car of his which had been burned in Namaqualand, I went up to
the camp to see him. Rebel and traitor as he became, and probably was
at heart then, it would be useless for me to say that he gave me a bad
impression; on the contrary, he impressed me most favourably during the
hour or so I was in his company. An alert, bluff, soldierly man, well
groomed and of medium height, he looked the officer to perfection; but
though sturdily built, he showed little signs of the enormous strength
he was known to possess. His English was good, and his manner that of
an educated man--though I have often heard him described as illiterate
since his defection!
He was full of curiosity as to where I had been in G.S.W., and what I
knew of German doings there; like every other Boer who had seen their
troops in the Herero and Hottentot rebellions, he expressed unbounded
contempt for their fighting methods, and made the same assertion as
most Boer leaders used then to make, that with a commando of 500 Boers
he would take the country, any day!
And I believe he meant it, for at that time the contempt of the German
for the Boer was only equalled by the contempt of the Boer for the
German.
I got through to Upington without mishap--it was something of an
undertaking even those few short years ago--and then, as I was
preparing for great things, luck turned dead against me.
I fell ill, and was laid up for days at the little hotel, and when at
last I got under way again, worse was to follow. I had taken my friend
the orange merchant for the return journey, as he had proved a very
good chap, and I needed a white man for transport at the camp, and by
his advice we had taken the back trail through Cnydas (where Maritz
afterwards turned rebel) and through a mountain-encompassed hollow
called Noedap, where one of the natives had a horse I greatly coveted.
It was nothing to look at, a shabby-looking little blue roan (_blaauw
schimmel_) pony of about 14.2, but a perfect marvel for endurance up
to forty or fifty miles a day, in sand and over mountains, and capable
apparently of living on stones. I intended working two gangs at least
that distance apart, and this pony, if I could get it, would enable me
to run both at once. We got into the crater--it merits the name--and
after a day’s delay I became the possessor of the little nag.
So steep was the climb out of Noedap in the direction we were going
that the donkeys utterly failed to get the waggon up the terrific
slope, and eventually a team of oxen had to be inspanned by the
Bastards to get it to the plateau above. Meanwhile I rode on ahead,
finding the pony all that could be desired. A few hours later I came
to the steep descent into the Bak River near Aries, a most lonely and
desolate place, but with water in the stream-bed. There was no path
down the steep, rock-strewn slope, and my pony was picking its way down
most gingerly when I suddenly spied an old folding stool, strung with
rimpi, and such as the Boers use in their waggons, lying amongst the
boulders a few feet away. How long it had been there it would be hard
to surmise, for there was no path and nothing to tempt a wayfarer that
way, and, feeling curious, I stopped the pony, and tried to dismount
and pick it up. I say “tried,” for my big heavy boots had jammed in the
small stirrups, and as I struggled to clear them, the pony caught sight
of the stool, shied violently and threw me with a sickening crash on
to the sharp rocks. One foot caught, and as the pony sprang forward,
I struck the pointed boulder with my full weight, right beneath my
outstretched left arm, smashing in three of my ribs with a gruesome
crunch, and for the time knocking me senseless. Luckily the pony
dragged me only a yard or two and then stood stock-still on the steep
slope, whilst I hung with one foot still jammed in the stirrup.
I came to still fixed in that fashion, my face and shoulder badly
cut and bruised, and blood running from my mouth, and my broken ribs
apparently pressing into my lung, for my breath whistled like a pair of
broken bellows, and every breath was an agony. I thought I was about
finished, and certainly, if the horse had started again, I should have
been. One arm was helpless, and for what seemed an eternity I tried in
vain to release my foot, fearing every fresh effort would make the pony
bolt. At last I got my hunting-knife under the laces and ripped them
and got my foot free, and fainted. I was in a bad place, the waggon
was an hour or more behind, and would not come within nearly half a
mile of the spot; I was so badly hurt that I could not stand, and might
easily lie there days before I should be searched for. If the driver
did not find me, no one would; and if once he passed me and trekked on
he would conclude I had gone on to Nakob, and I should not be missed
till he got there a day or two later. Anyway I was in such agony that
I thought an hour or two would finish me, but after a bit I remembered
my rifle, and tried to get it from where it had been flung with me from
the saddle. And at last I was able to fire a shot, and felt all the
better for the rifle, for there were four or five vultures already on
the scene--though I afterwards found they had other legitimate business
on hand in the shape of a dead ox about a hundred yards away.
At length, when I had given up hope, and was wondering whether I could
ever crawl to the water about half a mile away, or whether I could
live two or three days where I was till they began to look for me, I
suddenly saw an angel in the shape of a “Bushman,” the little black
urchin of a _voorlooper_, who came creeping through the rocks as though
stalking me. I found afterwards that, hearing the shot, he had left the
waggon and cleared to a high ridge to see what game I had got, and from
it had seen me lying among the rocks a long distance away. Even then
he simply thought I was “creeping” a buck, and it was only when he had
waited a long time that he came along to see what I was about.
However, there he was, and never was angel more welcome. We had no
brandy, but Nicol, my driver, soon made me some tea, and after washing
me and making me as comfortable as possible amongst the rocks, he rode
off on the innocent cause of all the trouble to see if any help could
be obtained at Nakob.
The night was bitterly cold, and in spite of my blankets I was about
frozen by the time he returned at midnight with a young trooper named
Human. Unfortunately, they had no bandages or first-aid appliances,
and could do little, but as my breathing was terribly bad and I was
in great pain, the young trooper galloped off again with the promise
that he would ride into Ukamas, in German territory, and try to get the
doctor. For on our own side of the border there was no medical man
nearer than Upington, and to send a wire there one had in any case to
cross the border to Ukamas.
As it happened, there was no doctor at the little German post when
Human got there, and he wired to Upington, where my old pal and
fellow-adventurer Dr. Borcherds started out to look for me immediately,
and by commandeering cars, laying violent hands on Cape carts and other
vehicles, eventually got to me, in a Scotch cart drawn by six bullocks
and driven by himself, after forty-eight hours of almost incessant
trekking.
So, after being within a few hours’ distance of my mine, I had to be
taken back to Upington by slow degrees, for practically all one side of
me was badly smashed, and I was extremely lucky to have escaped with my
life.
Cooped up in a chair and swathed like a mummy, I made extremely slow
progress in Upington, and feeling that I should never get better unless
I got once more on the veldt, I at length cajoled the doctor into
letting me start again, though I was still bandaged, and so weak I had
to be lifted into the waggon and propped up in a chair. With me came
my old fellow-voyager of the Bak River, Mr. Ford-Smith, anxious to try
still another new gun, and to add to the store of hunting yarns for
which he was already famed.
CHAPTER XX--AND LAST
WAR!--VIOLATION OF BRITISH TERRITORY AT NAKOB--THE END.
We left Upington on Thursday, July 30th, 1914. The bi-weekly post had
just arrived, and papers from the outside world brought the news of
the ominous war-cloud gathering in Europe. It seemed like looking for
trouble to start for the border of German territory at such a time; and
half in jest, I remarked as much to the polyglot gathering at the door
of the hotel who had gathered to see me start.
“It’s quite likely by the time I get to the border we shall be at war
with Germany!” I remarked, and there was a chorus of protest.
England might be--but they? What was it to do with them? They were
willing to make money out of either side of the border, and for many
reasons preferred being British in name, but if it came to fighting,
that was quite another matter!
But in those days most of the “British” in Upington were Russian Jews,
and most of the Dutchmen “Nationalists,” whose conception of their duty
to Empire was to take all they could get and give nothing in return.
There was also a large German element in the village, and a large
amount of German money always _en evidence_; in fact, the “mark” had
the purchasing power of a shilling in every store, and except in the
bank or post-office English silver was never seen. Anyway, I was far
too anxious to get back to my neglected prospects to “wait and see,”
for I had a number of men eating their heads off at Nakob; and so away
we went on one of the bitterest trips I remember. It was an open
waggon, without cover of any kind, and a bitterly cold wind and driving
rain set in within a few hours of our leaving the dorp; the jolting of
the springless vehicle over the rough track shook my half-healed ribs
till I was one big ache from head to foot; it rained nearly all night
as we crouched over the blinding smoke of a cow-dung fire at the bleak
outspan, and altogether I began to think I had been a fool to leave the
shelter of a roof. However, on the third day out the sun shone, and
I climbed into the saddle again. A few hours of trotting and I was a
different man; for there is no medicine like the sunshine and a good
horse. We were too cold to linger by the way, and trekked at all hours
through the lonely and desolate wastes of Van Rooi’s Vley, Rooi Dam,
Lootz’s Pits, and Cnydas, wild and remote places scarce known even in
Upington, but all of them to become prominent a month or two later as
the scene of Maritz’s first open treachery. So cold was it at night
that the hoar-frost gathered thick on our blankets till it looked like
snow, and ice stood in the buckets beside us. I had not been able to
lie down since my accident, but at Longklip I at length ventured to do
so, and had the first real rest for three weeks or more.
Late at night on Tuesday, August 4th, we arrived at Nakob, and in the
morning the police told us that war had already been declared between
Germany and France, and that there had been heavy fighting on the
Belgian border. This news was from the German police over the border,
for we ourselves brought the latest news from our own distant news
centre. Speculation was rife as to whether England would be drawn in or
not, and the three troopers at our lonely little post, relying for news
on a possible enemy over the border, were anxious and uneasy at what I
was able to tell them.
However, war or no war, they had their routine duty to do, and on the
morning of August 6th, Troopers Hall and Green left for Upington with
a prisoner, leaving young Human, a young Dutch trooper from Kakamas,
and quite a boy, in sole charge of the lonely post. For they had no
other means of dealing with prisoners--no lock-up but their own living
and sleeping room, and as one man alone could not guard a prisoner
night and day over the long journey to headquarters, the major portion
of the “garrison” had to escort him.
Meanwhile, having found my gang of “boys” still in existence, I set
them to work in earnest, for I was too near German territory to feel
comfortable, and I this time pitched my camp at the base of the
escarpment about a mile only from the police post, and in sight of it.
Finding it impossible to properly cope with the problem of dragging
sufficient water to the pipe to “wash” the blue ground there, I adopted
the plan of bringing the latter down to the level; but on the 8th
the young trooper rode up to my camp to show me a “dispatch” which a
galloper had brought out the forty-odd miles from Zwartmodder. It was
to warn the police that war with Germany was imminent, and that they
must be on their guard against “covert acts” against their patrols.
Poor boy, he spoke English well, but scarcely understood the official
language of the document; as for the patrols--well, he was absolutely
alone! His nearest mate was at Zwartmodder, over forty-odd miles of bad
road away, and from whence the message had been brought.
He had no other white man near him but ourselves, and we knew that
barely eighteen miles away there was a garrison of two hundred
Germans, not to mention the police along the actual border. The
dispatch appeared to point to a possible raid on him at any moment,
and we offered to stand by him till help arrived, as it surely would.
Meanwhile we were working on the very edge of German territory, and our
camp stood within a stone’s throw of it; our horses and cattle were
in the habit of ranging over it at their sweet will, for there was no
fence or actual boundary, and as the news spread amongst the “boys”
I had hard work to keep them from bolting. We worked feverishly all
the next morning, German patrols passing in full view of us, but not
molesting us. Meanwhile another trooper had arrived from Kakamas with
the news that war had been declared on the previous Thursday. Fugitive
Hottentots were now stealing over the border, and the news they brought
appeared to point to a possible raid by the Germans, who had now forced
their own farmers all along the border to drive their cattle twenty
kilometres inland. Our own “boys,” who had gone to look for the strayed
horses, were chased for a couple of miles into our territory; and as
we now heard that the well-disposed German mounted police who had been
stationed along the border had been withdrawn, and their place taken by
regular troops from Ukamas, we were more on the _qui vive_ than ever.
Still, I kept the gang hard at it, knowing that I could only work a few
days unless the strong reinforcements we naturally expected were soon
forthcoming. Meanwhile Hall and Green returned from Upington, and a
further man came in from Kakamas, so the little garrison was now five
men strong.
They had scarcely enough rations to keep them going, and were in hourly
expectation of the arrival of a force of some kind to hold the line.
The position of the little police hut could scarcely have been worse,
from a defensive point of view. It was commanded on all sides by rocky,
bush-clad ridges, in which ten thousand Germans could have hidden, and
barely a quarter of a mile away, in German territory, rose a formidable
_spitz kop_ (conical hill), from the summit of which every approach to
the British post could have been commanded. The place could have been
rushed at any moment. The trooper in charge told me that his orders
were to do nothing to provoke hostilities, and if attacked, to make no
attempt to hold the post, but to fall back on Zwartmodder--forty miles
away--where there were two men! But he realised only too well that,
should such an attack be made, he would have no earthly chance of
getting away.
But we all fully expected a column to turn up to garrison this
important--though neglected--little post; and day after day one of the
men would ride to the high hills eastward, from which the roads to
Upington could be seen for many miles, but there came no sign--no news;
in fact, Nakob seemed to have been forgotten.
Meanwhile my friend Ford-Smith wandered round with a Remington rifle,
in the gullies along our side of the border, practising at korhaan and
dassies, and wishing they were Germans. He borrowed military buttons
from the police, and put them on his shirt, to save himself from being
shot as a _franctireur_ should it come to a scrap; but--luckily for
us--he had no chance of an outlet for his martial ardour, except one
night when my old horse strayed back into the camp from somewhere over
the German side at dead of night, and narrowly escaped annihilation at
his hands. Those nights were extremely jumpy, for, as I have explained,
we were within a stone’s throw of enemy territory, an attack on the
police camp was believed to be imminent, and that we should have
shared in the trouble was beyond question. However, each morning we
were able to flash “All’s Well” with a mirror to each other, for the
Germans still held their hand. Of course all communication between
the two territories had ceased from the time that the outbreak of war
was notified, but news still filtered through by means of natives,
and spies were constantly coming amongst the Bastard and Hottentot
hangers-on of the police post.
They could not be caught, but their constant inquiry was as to when the
“troops” would arrive, though on this point they could have got scant
information, for we were as ignorant and anxious as themselves! From a
few legitimate stragglers who succeeded in evading the German police
and getting over, we heard of the movements of troops, and it seemed
fairly certain that the border police had been withdrawn from German
Nakob, and that an officer, with twenty-five men and a machine-gun, had
taken their place. The constant rumours of an impending attack made it
impossible to keep the “boys” at their work, and as no news came of
reinforcements, I had at length no alternative but to abandon the work
and clear out.
[Illustration: GRANITE MONOLITH AT “LANGKLEP.”
Afterwards the scene of a fight with Maritz.]
[Illustration: WATER-PITS IN THE DRY MOLOPO AT NAKOB.
Where Maritz broke into rebellion.]
On the morning of Saturday, August 15th, I washed my last load,
dismantled the windlasses, and brought the light tools and gear down
from the mine. As I went up to take a last look round, two of the
troopers rode up from the post, and I took them to the international
beacon on the edge of the escarpment, near where I had been
working, and pointed out to them the whole line of these infrequent
boundary-posts through the wild, solitary, pathless country south,
towards my old prospecting-ground in the Noup Hills, near the Orange.
They were new men, and did not know where the actual boundary lay in
that direction. The day was scorching-hot and clear, and I was able to
pick out many of the actual cairns, but on the whole vast expanse not a
solitary soul could be seen on either territory. We had hoped to locate
the German patrols, but unfortunately their post at Nakob was hidden
by low ranges, as it lay in a sand-river below the general level of
the country, though its position was easily identified by a prominent
and abrupt granite kopje which stood in close proximity to it, but on
British territory--the international beacons being plainly visible
slightly to the westward of its base.
This bold hill was indeed the most striking landmark for many miles,
and though I had never climbed it, I had passed its base often on
either side, and believed that it must command a view of the German
police post. I therefore suggested that we should make our way there
that afternoon, when we could not only find out the strength of the
Germans at the post, but possibly get some photos of them.
The troopers agreed, and later I rode down to the camp with them, left
my horse there, and as none of them would accompany me I went on alone,
promising to flash a signal to them when I got on top. Naturally I had
nothing to fear, for I had no intention of going into German territory
or of letting the Germans see me, and I took care to leave my arms at
the camp, so that, should their patrols catch me, I had nothing more
incriminating than a camera, and a little shaving-mirror to signal with.
I had about two miles to go, making a slight detour to keep in cover of
the thick _melk-bosch_, and aiming at keeping the hill between me and
the Germans. I again noted the beacons; there was no doubt as to the
whole hill being in our territory.
Within about a hundred yards of its base the bush ceased, and there
was that distance of open sand to cross before I could get cover
again; so I lay and watched, but there was no sign of a living being
anywhere, and I scooted across and got among the big granite boulders,
where I felt perfectly safe. Working cautiously upwards, I got about
half-way to the top when, to my astonishment, I came upon a well-beaten
track where horses had been taken up and down, and whilst I was still
staring open-mouthed at the fresh spoors, I found that I was within a
yard of a rough, loopholed schanz of rock, overlooking and commanding
our territory! I knew our men had never been in the hill, and that it
must have been made by the Germans, and I stood stock-still, expecting
rifles to show through the loopholes at any moment. However, there
was neither sound nor sign, and I crept on more carefully than ever,
finding that the whole place had been strengthened with these schanzes,
which were on British territory, and which commanded British territory
for miles. At the top, surrounded by titanic boulders the size of
a four-roomed cottage, there was a Hat space about 40 feet square,
where there was every sign of recent occupation--well-trampled paths,
freshly broken stones, tools, and the still smouldering embers of a
fire; whilst between the huge boulders schanzes had been built or were
nearing completion. There had been a large number of men in the hill
but recently, and they would undoubtedly return--indeed, there were
probably some of them in the hill then! I crept to the edge overlooking
German territory, and could see the top of the police post, with the
German flag flying, about 500 yards away westward, and a number of
men and horses passing between a gap in that direction towards the
water-pits, which, however, were not visible. I had but three films
in my camera, and I took them as quickly as possible, for I felt sure
there was a sentry there somewhere; and sure enough, as I peered over
the rocks down the western slope, I saw a solitary soldier coming up
between the rocks, turning and motioning as though to others behind
him. And I got down and into the bush like a scared klip-springer; for
these men, who had violated our territory, and were strengthening a
position which commanded every approach for miles, were scarcely likely
to show much ceremony to an Englishman found with a camera in the
middle of their schanzes!
And I had hardly got into the friendly _melk-bosch_ the other side of
that awful bare hundred yards of sand at the base of the hill, when
I saw them moving among the rocks at the top, where I had just left,
and the sunshine glinting on rifle-barrels. I got back to the police
camp as soon as I could, and told the police what I had seen, which by
no means lessened their anxiety. They knew already that, failing the
arrival of a strong force, they were simply like rats in a trap, and
this violation of British territory, this seizing and strengthening of
what was naturally the strongest position near Nakob, boded ill for
the forlorn little outpost of five men. Moreover, should a force be on
its way from either Upington or Kakamas, it would be in sight of this
high kopje and the Germans for hours before we knew anything about
it, and might very possibly choose the old route, which led within a
few hundred yards of the schanzes, and would thus walk right into an
ambuscade.
None of the troopers could be spared to take a message, so it was
decided, as soon as I could get my waggon well on the road, I should
ride on to Upington and take the news myself. The garrison (?) of five
slept away from the post, leaving it after dark and bivouacking in the
hills.
On Sunday, there being still no sign of a relief force and no news,
I loaded my waggon and struck camp, making up my mind to ride before
daybreak next day, so that the Germans should not see that a messenger
had left the camp.
That night there was an alarm amongst the Bastards and Hottentots at
the police camp, all of them fleeing to the hills, for a spy who had
been in the camp had warned them an attack was imminent.
The troopers lay on their arms at my waggon all night, but no attack
came; though in the morning the tell-tale sand showed where a patrol
of the enemy had stood awaiting the return of their spy within fifty
yards of our post, and by the spoors one of them had stood listening at
the window. Our poor young troopers were in a most unenviable position.
Their stores were exhausted, the waggon with their monthly supplies was
many days overdue and might probably never arrive at all, they had no
news or means of communication, they knew they were at the mercy of the
Germans whenever they cared to attack, and yet they were bound to stick
to their post. I left them a few spare stores I had, and in return they
gave me the last few pounds of oats they had for my horse; there would
be no time to look for food along the road.
And so we bade them good-bye, and lumbered along with the heavy waggon
till the hills hid us from the watchful eyes of the Germans on that
big granite kopje in British territory, which should have been held by
British troops as soon as possible after war was declared.
Behind the kopjes in Bak River I blew up all my dynamite, just to give
the Germans something to think about, and leaving Ford-Smith and the
remnant of my gang to follow slowly with the waggon, I set the old nag
on the long lonely trail for Upington. For the whole day I rode without
seeing a solitary wayfarer, and night surprised me near the Molopo at
Toeslan, where I had hoped to sleep; so I lay amongst the thorn-trees
by a big fire, roasting and freezing by turns, for the night was
bitterly cold, and I rode light without coat or blanket. Next day I met
one or two people, but no one had heard of troops for the border, and
all I could hope was that, if they had gone by another road, they would
not walk into an ambush at the big granite kopje.
Much of the journey of eighty-odd miles was through heavy sand and
rough, rocky country, and it was nearly midnight of the second night
when I crawled into Upington, both myself and the pony dead-beat, for
he had eaten nothing but a handful of oats all day, and the two days of
hard riding had again loosened my badly glued ribs.
I reported to the O.C. of the “S.A.M.R.,” but he had no reinforcements
to send, and knew no more of what was to happen on the border than did
the poor little “garrison” at Nakob! Meanwhile my sworn statement was
wired to Pretoria, where they took a serious view of the matter.
And so far, for a season, my prospecting ended, for even my humble
little bark, used to floating on lonely seas or in placid backwaters,
had been caught in the maelstrom of the War.
* * * * *
NOTE.--The post at Nakob was never relieved--Maritz and Beyers saw
to that--and a full month later the place was attacked by Andries de
Wet and 300 Germans with machine-guns, the hut riddled with bullets,
Corporal Spencer killed, young Human’s jaw blown away, and the rest of
the “garrison” marched as prisoners into German territory. Rietfontein
and Obopogorop had to be abandoned, and for a time the Gordonia border
was left to the mercy of Andries de Wet and his renegade and German
followers, until, a few weeks later, Maritz broke into open rebellion
at Cnydas, where amongst other civilians he took my friend Ford-Smith a
prisoner, and sent him to a long captivity in German South-West.--F. C.
CORNELL.
_Printed in Great Britain by Hazell, Watson & Viney, Ltd., London and
Aylesbury._
TRANSCRIBER’S NOTE
1. Spellings have been standardised only when a dominant version was
found in the original.
2. Enclosed italics font in _underscores_.
3. Enclosed bold font in =equals=.
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