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