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.