Thus, with our difficulties always on the increase, we spent a couple

of most arduous months, only deterred from throwing up the venture by

a firm belief that the diamonds were there somewhere; often ill with

fever, hard up for food, and quite cut off from all news of the outside

world. Our only amusement was in trapping animals as the Germans did,

improvising traps from spare sieves, and baiting them with small birds.

Scarce a day passed but that the traps were full, and in this manner

we caught, alive and unhurt, wild-cats, ratels, iguanas, and several

of the beautifully spotted “leopard cats”--or genets, to give them

their proper name. On more than one occasion a _muis-hond_ (the South

African skunk) got into the traps, and made its presence known by the

most appalling smell, and a tree leguaan (iguana) once gave me an awful

shock, for he lay so quiet under the leaves covering the sieve that

I thought it was empty, and the dart of his head--so like that of a

snake--made me fall back in the thorn-bush, for I thought I had bagged

a huge puff-adder.

Towards the end of our stay provisions got so low, and game so wild and

scarce, that we had to spend most of our time after it, and one day,

whilst looking for a square meal, I had rather a peculiar experience.

About two miles above the Drift, and near the Lorelei Mountain, we

spotted a flock of ten or a dozen wild geese floating near the German

bank, and Dittmer emptied his magazine at them, killing three. The

river was still in flood, and with the perversity usual in such cases,

the geese floated into the German bank. We wanted them very badly, and

as Dittmer could swim but little, it was up to me to go across and

get them. Helped by the current, I got across the muddy, turbulent

water fairly easily and got the geese, and as I had drifted a long way

downstream, I got out with the intention of walking up the bank to

opposite where my clothes lay. The thicket on the north bank was dense

and teeming with monkeys, baboons, and all sorts of animal life; it was

thorny too, and I was as full of spikes as a porcupine, as I picked my

way gingerly along the bank upstream, feeling horribly helpless--for,

naturally, I had nothing on but a hat--and looking out carefully for

snakes.

Seeing an open space with tall reeds, I decided to cut across it, but

had scarcely got among the bush vegetation of this swampy place, when

at my very feet I saw a huge spoor in the black mud, so freshly made

that the water still oozed into it, and at the same time heard an awful

snoring grunt close to me, answered by another, and realised that I

was right among a herd of hippo. I had seen traces of this small herd

before at their favourite haunt, higher up near the Great Fish River.

There were but four or five of them, but remnants of the hundreds that

swarmed the Orange when Alexander first crossed and described it.

As a rule, of course, hippo are harmless, but at times the huge brutes

are mischievous, and I did not stay to inquire what kind of mood they

were in, but sprinted back across the river in a manner that left

little to be desired. But I brought the geese.

At length food and labour became so scarce that we were compelled

to give up; a messenger was sent to Kuboos, and a few days later

the waggon made an appearance. We struck camp, filled in our

prospecting-holes, blew up our dynamite in a deep pool in the river, as

a parting salute to the Germans, and took the home trail, feeling that

we had put up a good fight against sheer bad luck. Lack of natives and

other adverse circumstances had hampered our work so that, in spite of

our own hard labour, the few holes we had been able to make had been no

real test of the huge beds of gravel, which, with proper appliances and

systematic testing, will very probably some day yield very different

results.

Our bad luck lasted us right to Cape Town. The waggon got hopelessly

stuck in the Holgat River, and delayed us so that we missed the

only decent boat at that time running, had to kick our heels for an

interminable week in Port Nolloth, and finally were obliged to take

passage in a glorified tug, with several other unfortunates, and take

ten long days in coasting round to Cape Town--a trip of 36 hours by the

boat we had missed! Moreover, we were loaded from cut-water to taffrail

with a cargo of guano, the concentrated odour of which was the only

thing we tasted during the whole of the voyage. Dittmer landed ill,

and within a few days was down with diphtheria, which was generally

ascribed to the rough living and bad water we had to put up with during

the trip, but which I put down to that over-generous diet of guano.

CHAPTER XIV

PERMIT FOR THE FORBIDDEN GAME RESERVE--VAN REENEN AND THE

SCORPION--SECOND VISIT TO THE GREAT FALLS--OLD GERT, OUR

GUIDE--BUSHMAN ARROWS AND THEIR POISONS--BUSHMAN INOCULATION AGAINST

SNAKE-BITE--ANTIDOTE FOR SNAKE-BITE--TALES OF “THE GREAT THIRST.”

The trip had given time for certain preliminary plans to mature, and

immediately on my return I made a formal application to the Department

of Mines for permission to enter the Kalahari Game Reserve, and bring

out proof of the existence there of certain diamond-mines.

I pointed out my reasons for holding the belief of their existence,

also that the country was badly in need of revenue, and that the

Premier Mine had that year contributed no less than £600,000 to the

Union’s finances.

And, I argued, there might easily be several “Premiers” awaiting

discovery in the Kalahari, and to find them would not cost the

Government one penny; for, given the desired permission, I would find

the necessary finances myself. All I stipulated was “Discoverer’s

Rights” (half the mine) should I bring out the proof--so that the

Union Government stood to win half a diamond-mine to nothing over the

transaction. As I fully anticipated, the Department of Mines didn’t

see how it could be done! The territory mentioned was “forbidden” to

prospectors, no one was allowed to enter it, it was the breeding-place

of Royal game, no one had ever been granted such a permit, etc.--all

of which I had acknowledged in my application. And finally--and best

reason of all--the Mines Department added that in any case the Reserve

was not under its jurisdiction, being still in the hands of the Cape

Provincial Council, and the Administrator; Sir Frederick de Waal. This

gentleman being unfortunately absent on tour, I was again hung up; but

I made another formal application to him, and strove to possess my soul

in patience, what time letters and wires from Upington urged me to

“get a move on,” for heavy thunder rain had fallen in the desert, and

t’samma would soon make the trip possible.

As I firmly believed in my ability to obtain the permit sooner or

later, I made arrangements for waggons, stores, etc., to be in

readiness, and retained the guide I have previously mentioned, and

another one in Upington, whom my energetic friend there had been months

in tracing, and had finally secured.

But alas! “the best-laid plans of mice and men gang oft agley!” as

this one did; for after a long, long wait I received a point-blank

refusal from His Honour the Administrator, who again informed me that

the Kalahari Game Reserve was “closed to prospecting” as it was the

“breeding-place of Royal game.”

Now, I am as good a sportsman as the next man, and a firm believer in

game-preserving, but considering that I did not propose to ever need

more than a square mile or so of the (approximately) ten thousand

square miles given over to the Reserve, this harping on the rights of

a few gemsbok to keep me from a fortune only made me more determined

to get it, and I again went to the Department of Mines--this time with

more success.

At any rate I this time obtained a sympathetic hearing, and finally,

after many rebuffs and months of delay, during which waggons, horses,

oxen, and guides were “eating their heads off,” I had the supreme

satisfaction of obtaining the desired permission. In it the Honourable

the Minister of Mines agreed to allow me to enter the Reserve for a

period of three months, to start from the date I left Upington, to

search for the “supposed pipe,” conditional that I undertook the work

on behalf of the Government, _and at my own expense_, etc. etc.; also

that a policeman should accompany me on the trip, and that I paid half

his salary during the period he was with me.

The latter gratuitously humiliating condition was afterwards withdrawn,

as it was found impossible to arrange for a camel police trooper to

be spared for the work, and I and my assistants were graciously given

permission to proceed without such escort.

By this time it was the end of September 1912; over six months had

been taken in obtaining the permit, the t’samma season had come and

gone, and the torrid heat of a Kalahari summer was at hand. It would

therefore have been madness to attempt the expedition until some months

had elapsed and young t’samma had again made its appearance--for upon

the precarious patches of these little wild melons we should have

to rely for a substitute for water, in this wild stretch of parched

sand-dunes. Anxiously we therefore waited through the long summer days

of October, November, and December, for news of the first rains, and

it was not until January 1913 that news came from Gordonia that the

first t’samma was beginning to make its appearance, and that it was

considered safe for us to start.

One of our guides had most inconsiderately died whilst waiting, but

the other, with waggons and trek animals, drivers, “boys,” etc., still

awaited us, and on January 26th, 1913, our little party left Cape Town

for Prieska and Upington, where lay our transport.

I had two partners, E. Telfer, a young and enthusiastic Scotsman of

many years’ Colonial experience, and W. van Reenen, a still younger

Cape Dutchman. Both were seasoned men, and though the desert would be

new to them, they were both good shots, good horsemen, and thoroughly

versed in farming, transport, and veldt craft, and I had little fear as

to their ability to see the thing through. Our outfit was chosen with

great care, for we knew that, once away from Upington, our waggon would

be the only source of supplies--food, arms, ammunition, clothing,

tools, and above all, medicine. As we hoped to establish a water depot

within transport distance of the nearest well, we had a number of

specially constructed tanks made--designed especially to pack on camel

or oxen--but these, unfortunately, were of no use to us.

At Prieska all this paraphernalia was transferred to transport-waggons,

whilst with our lighter gear we hurried on to Upington to prepare for

the real desert trek.

The monotony of the Prieska to Upington trail has been referred to

before in these pages, and a description of it would be of little

interest. The drought had not broken here for many months; in the tiny

village of Marydale no shower had fallen for two years, and hour after

hour we trotted through a brown, dreary, dusty, verdureless expanse,

where never a blade of grass or a green leaf could be seen as far as

the eye could reach.

Carcasses of horses, mules, oxen, and other animals lay by the road

every mile or so, and spoke rather too eloquently of the toll the

terrible drought was taking upon the transport animals, and the flocks

and herds of the farmer. Our driver gave us gruesome accounts of farms

whose owners had neglected to trek with their livestock whilst the

veldt still held good, but had waited, hoping for the ever-promising

rain, waited until their last drop of water had dried in their vleys,

wells, or pits, and every nibble of herbage had been cleared off the

face of the land, and who had lost every head of stock they possessed.

Transport was almost unobtainable, for every pound of forage for

the animals for the long trek of 150 miles had to be carried on the

waggons, leaving room for little else! Water, even at the regular

watering-places, was so scarce that a heavy charge was made for each

animal drinking, and it seemed that, if the drought did not break very

soon, the route would have to be utterly abandoned.

And day after day the heavy storm clouds gathered, dark, lowering, and

threatening (or rather promising) torrents of the longed-for rain, a

promise that seemed never to be fulfilled. This gloomy state of affairs

was by no means encouraging, and our driver, when he found out where

we were bound for, laughed, and told us that we were mad to make the

attempt. He said that the farmers between Upington and Rietfontein had

suffered worse than any others, and that a bare week ago he had spoken

to a camel policeman from the north, who had told him that not a drop

of rain had yet fallen, and there would be no t’samma! So we were most

anxious to get to Upington, to find out the truth, for this gloomy

account was an entirely different story from the cheery optimism of the

recent letters and wires we had received.

Apparently, however, whatever might have happened in the Kalahari

during the last few months, it was certainly raining there now, for

as we got farther north, the whole horizon in that direction appeared

covered with a dense bank of clouds, from which lightning frequently

flashed. It seemed as though a perfect deluge must be falling there,

and we took heart of grace, and even wished we had brought our

mackintoshes.

The evening before arriving at Upington van Reenen had a nasty

experience. We had outspanned at a spot only a few hours from Upington,

and had made a large fire in order to roast a porcupine van Reenen had

shot earlier in the day. It was nearly nightfall, and the sky was dark

and lowering, whilst distant thunder could be heard northward. As we

sat by the camp fire, a sudden gust of wind scattered the embers in

all directions, and this was but the prelude to a furious gale that

came tearing along at whirlwind speed, bearing with it not only embers,

but hats, kettles, big flaming branches from the fire, and almost

blinding us with a thick cloud of dust. The morsels of porcupine went

flying into the cinders, and thence all over the veldt, as the wind

whisked the heart of the fire away; through the blast of sand and small

stones came a few drops of rain, and a vivid flash of lightning, with

a simultaneous peal of heavy thunder right over us, showed that we

were in for one of the sudden storms peculiar to the place and season.

In a few minutes it was pitch dark, and we were scuttling all over the

place, in a vain endeavour to retrieve all sorts of belongings that

the wind had snatched away even from the shelter of the waggon. In a

quarter of an hour the worst was over, though still the wind howled

across the shelterless veldt, and we began to collect the scattered

firebrands, and built another fire. Van Reenen, determined to sup off

porcupine, crouched down by the embers, and began cooking fresh slivers

of the rank-smelling meat, when suddenly the driver yelled to _pas

op_ (look out), for the scorpions were “trekking.” Rain, or a heavy

dust-storm, will always bring out these little pests in swarms from

the holes and crevices in which they hide, and I knew that in such

cases they simply ran “amok,” travelling with tail erect, looking for

trouble, and lashing out at anything living that came in their way.

But I was hardly prepared for what followed the driver’s warning, for

within a minute or two the veldt was literally alive with the venomous

little pests, numbers of them walking straight into the fire, where

they squirmed and sizzled horribly. Van Reenen, intent on his cooking,

only swore a little as he brushed one or two aside, and took them far

too lightly, for suddenly a big black specimen ran along his bare arm,

and stung him on the big vein on his wrist, causing him to drop the

second lot of porcupine steak, and let off a yell that scared the whole

camp.

There is nothing more painful than a bad scorpion-sting, but as a rule

they are not particularly dangerous. This, however, was an exception,

for the symptoms that followed were alarming in the extreme. As quickly

as possible the sting was scarified and treated with permanganate of

potash, but within a few minutes the arm had swollen to an enormous

size; and although I bound a ligature tightly above the wound, the

glands of the neck, arm-pit, and groin became similarly affected, the

jaw stiffened, and other most alarming symptoms showed themselves. Van

Reenen was almost mad with pain, and, strong as he was, he was soon in

a state almost of collapse.

We had a small bottle of brandy, and this we poured down him at once,

without the least effect, and for hours we walked him up and down, to

prevent him from falling into the deadly stupor that followed the first

effect.

For days afterwards his right arm was quite useless, and the experience

made him extremely nervous whenever scorpions took a hand in our

proceedings, which was pretty often, for the desert swarms with them,

and scarcely a morning passed but we found three or four of the

venomous things snuggled in between our blankets and the sand on which

we had lain.

We found the Orange at Upington extremely low, and even the favoured

river-lands not wholly free from the effects of the drought.

News from the desert was very conflicting. The farmers were suffering

badly, and _veldt_ for transport animals along the route to Rietfontein

was practically non-existent, but most of them seemed to believe that

heavy rains had fallen in the actual reserve eastward, to which we were

bound.

Into this large tract of country no one ever went, except an occasional

camel trooper, and their infrequent patrols did not extend farther than

the large pans known as “Aar Pan,” “Gunga Pan” and “Betterstadt Pan,”

which were said to lie about twenty miles from the western edge of the

desert.

A patrol had passed that way about a month previously, and had seen no

sign of rain having fallen, but Bushmen had reported that t’samma was

flourishing farther east, and the only way to find out if such was the

case was to go in and find out for ourselves.

In Upington we were lucky in finding Lieutenant Geary, the officer in

charge at Rietfontein, who was down on a holiday, and who very kindly

filled in the approximate positions of the above-named pans on my

map, upon which the vast Game Reserve was simply a huge blank space,

marked “Unexplored.” These pans he had visited himself on camel-back,

and he was sceptical of our being able to reach them in any other

manner. But camels, we found, were quite unobtainable in Gordonia, the

Rietfontein police being the only people who had any, and they, it

appeared, being so short that to lend us any was out of the question.

[Illustration: “CANDELABRA EUPHORBIA.”

The Bushmen make arrow-poison from this.]

[Illustration: “OLD GERT.”

My guide in the Kalahari, and for many years a chief of Bushmen

there.]

Meanwhile, as we had hopelessly out-distanced our heavy transport,

and could not start till its arrival, we arranged a flying trip to

the Great Falls, hoping to obtain a successful film of the wonderful

cataract; for with an appreciation of the fact that we should be

visiting places where not even a photograph had been taken before, we

had obtained a cinematograph camera and many thousand feet of film.

Although the volume of water was not so great as on our previous visit,

I was more impressed than ever with the solemn and desolate grandeur

of the place, and above all with the fact of so much potential energy

being absolutely unutilised, and the strange anomaly of a huge body

of water, in a land where it is such a scarce and valuable commodity,

running absolutely to waste.

The views were obtained with considerable difficulty, for, as I have

before described, the Falls are very difficult of access, and to obtain

a frontal view of them we had to operate the machine from a tiny ledge

of rock overhanging the abyss at a great height, and so small that the

third leg of the tripod-stand could find no footing, but hung out over

the precipice, whilst the two of us operating hung on by our eyebrows

to it and to the trembling rock. I was profoundly thankful when it was

all over, and we were back on firm ground again, with what we hoped

would prove a very fine and unique film.

This preliminary canter over, and once again in Upington, we settled

down to preparations for the northward trek, for our heavy belongings

had arrived in our absence, and we were anxious for the road. Both

guide and waggon were ready, the latter belonging to a young Dutchman

named Gert du Toit, who was familiar with the fringes of the Reserve,

and who was himself most anxious to accompany us; for he, too, had

heard of, and believed in, the diamond-mine. And to give him his due

at once, no better sportsman or companion have I ever roughed it with

either in Africa or elsewhere.

Old Gert Louw, my guide, was a most remarkable old chap. Full of veldt

lore, and at one time famed as a hunter, his knowledge of the Kalahari

was unequalled. For many years of his young manhood he had been the

chosen chief of all the Bushmen that wandered there, and knew every

“pan” in the whole vast expanse.

He had no idea of his own age, but must have been well over ninety;

but he was still alert, keen-eyed, and full of intelligence. But

Bushman chief as he had been, old Gert was not a Bushman born. Son

of a Boer father and a Hottentot mother, and born in the Kenhardt

district, he had, whilst still a youth, wandered with other hunters

into the Kalahari in search of ostrich feathers and skins, and there,

joining a Bushman tribe, had eventually become their chief--apparently

by the simple process of eliminating all his rivals by means of the

flint-lock, with which he had been an unerring shot, and against which

the poisoned arrows of the little Bush folk had very little chance.

Not that he despised the arrows altogether, but learned to shoot well

with them, and had many a tale to tell of the myriad head of game that

the little flint-pointed darts had brought down for him. He told me of

the poisons the Bushmen used, poisons so virulent that a scratch from

an arrow dipped in either of them meant death to man or beast within a

few minutes. The huge “baviaan” spider provided one of these. Caught at

a certain season, these venomous insects were pounded between stones,

and the resultant paste exposed to the light of the moon for several

nights before it was fit for the arrow-tips. Another favourite poison

was made from the viscid juice of the _Candelabra euphorbia_, and this

also was prepared with certain rites and observances in which the moon

again figured. Both these poisons were so rapid in effect that the

Bushmen, shooting at game with their arrows thus poisoned, made little

effort to do more than pierce the animal’s skin, nor troubled to pursue

their quarry, leisurely following the spoor in the certainty that the

wounded animal would be found dead at no great distance. Peculiarly

enough, these poisons, though so virulent, had no ill effect upon the

flesh of the animal slain. These arrow’s were never used for war.

For this the favourite poison was obtained from certain portions of

a putrefying corpse, and, according to Old Gert, a man wounded with

a war-shaft poisoned with this awful venom died horribly of lock-jaw

almost immediately.

Even when iron was obtainable, it was rarely used for arrow-heads, the

Bushmen preferring those of flint, agate, or bone, as the poisons were

not so effective on the iron barbs.

The old man’s gnarled and wrinkled body was covered with scars, and he

had a tale to tell of each. The raised tattoo marks upon his chest were

tribal marks, given to him with weird ceremonies when he was admitted

to the “blood brotherhood,” whilst directly over his heart was a circle

of little cuts, showing where he had been inoculated with snake-venom

and made immune from their bite. He described this as a fearful ordeal,

under which men often died, but which, when they survived, “made them

snakes themselves,” as he expressed it. Neither puff-adder, ringhals,

cobra, or night-adder would attempt to bite a man thus transformed;

and he claimed that, if he came near a snake, it would remain rigid,

and allow him to handle it with impunity. Certainly he showed not the

slightest fear of them, though I noticed he invariably carried the

Hottentot antidote for snake-bite about with him. This antidote is a

small low bush with yellow flowers, found in the Kalahari--but nowhere

very plentiful--the parts used being the dried roots and small twigs.

The inoculation is carried out with the venom of the cobra, which is

captured alive, and forced to bite the patient or novitiate over the

region of the heart. Meanwhile he is held by two men, who watch him,

and administer the antidote only in small doses, and when the poison

seems likely to gain the mastery, they rub the perspiration which pours

from him into the bite. In common with every Hottentot and Bushman

ever met, Old Gert believed the sand-gecko to be the most deadly of

all poisonous reptiles, though scientists assert that it is absolutely

harmless!

He showed us a bite on his knee, which he solemnly asserted was made

by one of these little lizards many years before, and which had nearly

killed him, his whole body swelling, and his jaw being locked for days!

For many years the old pagan had been virtually King of the Kalahari

Bushmen, with henchmen and wives galore, hunting the ostrich for its

plumes, and the lynx, leopard, lion, and jackal for their valuable

pelts, bringing in his commodities twice a year to the white men at

Klaas Lucas Kraal, Kheis, or Griquatown, and returning with his waggons

full of Manchester goods, sugar, coffee, and tobacco, and above all

with _dop_ sufficient for a glorious jamboree.

He told me many gruesome tales of the “Great Thirst” (the Kalahari),

where even the Bushman is occasionally unwary enough to stray too far

from t’samma and dies hideously of thirst. He had wandered northward

to N’Gami, and westward to the wild coast near Portuguese territory,

where the Kunene runs into the sea, and long before a German flag was

ever hoisted in that north-western part of Damaraland. Once, after many

days of trekking and half dead with thirst, he shot and wounded a bull

eland, and following it, found water in a pit in a desert pan.

Drinking it, three of his four horses fell dead almost at once. He

and his companions got away, but no less than 43 out of the party of

46 Bastards following them were poisoned, the three who escaped being

young children.

Dop, Hottentots, Bastards, and white men between them had long since

wiped out his tribe of Bushmen, and the old man had settled down at

Upington with a new tribe of children and grandchildren; but his

heart’s desire was the desert, and he was frantically eager to be back

among the dunes. He knew the pan where the other Bushman had picked up

the diamonds; he knew also a pan where the garnets and carbon lay thick

in a soft yellow matrix, which, by its description, could be nothing

but “Kimberlite”; and, more remote than any of them, he knew a similar

pan, where there was a big limestone capping, in which were dotted

bright green stones innumerable.

I showed Old Gert my collection of stones, and he picked out my one

tiny emerald unhesitatingly from among half a dozen others--green gems,

peridotes, green garnets, chrysophrase, tourmalines, etc.--and in

addition described the precise crystallisation that the emerald takes.

Anderson was credited with having found emeralds in the Kalahari; I

myself had picked up beryls--of which they are a variety--in abundance

in German territory, west of where we were bound; and to add to

the likelihood of there being emeralds as well as diamonds in this

“Tom Tiddler’s Ground,” I heard from Mr. H. S. Harger, a well-known

Johannesburg gem expert and geologist, who happened to be in Upington

at the time, that some years back no less than £40,000 worth of fine

rough emeralds had been sold in Hatton Garden--and that it was believed

by all the _cognoscenti_ that they came from the Kalahari!

On Saturday, February 17th, all was at length ready. We had discarded

every bit of superfluous gear, and our waggons were packed with all

that we expected to need during our long trip; our rifles and shot-guns

hung from straps, ready to hand for the game we hoped to kill along

the path, and we were armed with an additional permit from the Resident

Magistrate, authorising us to take these weapons into the Reserve--a

permission which had been omitted in the Government permit, and without

which the first police trooper we met would have promptly hauled us

back in ignominy.

CHAPTER XV

THE “PANS” OF THE KALAHARI DESERT--THE MOLOPO

ROUTE--BOOMPLAATS--ENTERING THE RESERVE--SPOORS--THE WATER

CAMP--THIRST--THE GREAT SALT PAN--LOST!

The first few days of our trek lay through the route referred to in

Chapter V--the post road to Rietfontein and the north. Except that both

grass and water were even scarcer than on that occasion, everything

was exactly the same--the infrequent “homesteads,” naturally somewhat

dirtier and more dilapidated, and the accumulation of dead animals and

similar horrors somewhat increased on account of the drought. This

latter, however, did not appear to be as bad as we had been led to

expect, as water was still plentiful at the usual wells and water-pits.

The veldt was very bare, and Du Toit was often obliged to drive his

tired oxen many miles from the outspan before he could get a mouthful

of grass for them.

So our trekking was of necessity slow, and, on account of the great

heat, most of it was done at night. Thus we crawled through Areachap,

Steenkams Puts, Grondneus, and Zwartmodder, into the old bed of the

Molopo, where there was water in the deep wells, but fodder was

non-existent, and the oxen apparently lived on pebbles. We were now

skirting the south-west extremity of the Reserve, which stretched

east in a vast, dim, featureless, and apparently boundless world of

sand-dunes, but the spot at which we intended entering it was still

days to the north. The few habitations became fewer and wider apart, a

long day’s journey of heavy sand-dunes usually dividing “neighbours” in

this lonely fringe of huge desert farmlands on the Kalahari border, and

water being unobtainable in between them. In fact, numbers of these

vast surveyed desert farms had neither permanent water nor habitation

on them.

Ten days of trekking, and our eyes were gladdened by the most welcome

of all sights in such a country, a large vley of water, in which cattle

stood knee-deep, and over which flew Namaqua partridges in countless

thousands. This was “Abiqwas” Pits, close to the tiny police post

of “Obopogorop,” where two unfortunate young police troopers were

stationed, within a mile or so of the equally desolate German border.

Here we shot partridges to our hearts’ content, browning the big coveys

shamelessly, for cartridges begin to be valued by the time one has

spent a few months in the veldt.

There were several waggons here, Boer families trekking to Upington for

their periodical _nachtmaal_ (communion), which festivity, if it may be

termed as such, appeared to be the one exciting event of their dreary,

monotonous existence. They were incredulous as to our being allowed

into the Reserve--with rifles!

“_Allemachtig!_”--why, then, should we _verdommte uitlanders_ be

allowed in the Reserve, when _they_, who lived on its border, scarce

dare follow a strayed beast a day’s trek into it without the police

being after them?

But there--we should see! The police would take but little notice of

our precious permit, and we had better look out! They were cantankerous

and surly, and evidently wished us all the bad luck they prophesied.

According to them, there was no t’samma in the whole Reserve; we should

die of thirst.

We asked them how they came to know this, considering that they

professed never to have been in the forbidden area. They said they had

“heard so.”

We had no _dop_ to placate them with, though we made coffee all day

long for them. They were living on mutton, or goat, rather, when

their half-bred greyhound lurchers failed to bring down a buck for

them, that is to say; for they were out of cartridges too. And when

I say “mutton”--I mean just that--not with its attendant “fixings”

of potatoes, or carrots, or turnips, or caper sauce, or even bread,

but just _vleesch_ along with every meal, every day! They had been

out of Boer meal for weeks, so there was no bread, or even mealie

pap, to accompany it; the meat was hacked off in shapeless chunks,

and half-boiled in a Kaffir pot, or thrown in the embers, and torn

apart by the teeth as a native would tear it--cinders and all! Coffee

they had not seen for weeks, using as a substitute a vile-smelling

and vile-tasting decoction made from the root of the _wit boom_

(carrion-tree). Yet these men had property, broad farms (even though

of poor land) and plenty of flocks and herds, and undoubtedly a goodly

number of sovereigns tied up in a skin bag, and buried somewhere in or

near the hovel they called a “home.”

The only time they relaxed their sour visages was when, after tobacco

and coffee and the loan of all the meal we could spare had failed

to make them more companionable, we had the happy idea of inviting

them to try our rifles. Then they became quite jocose, and as we had

plenty of rifle cartridges, we had a regular Bisley of it there in the

sand-dunes. They were good shots, but only when they could choose their

own position--that is to say, lying down. This, of course, not only

gives them a better chance at game, but is their normal posture. Stand

and shoot they could not, and their attempts at doing so were weird and

wonderful.

The abundance of water at Abiqwas Pits made us careless, for the next

day, after passing a most desolate little homestead called Klip Aar, we

discovered that each man had left it to the other to see to filling the

water-casks, with the result that they were all empty, and we were in

the middle of a long waterless stretch.

The driver said he knew of an old water-hole a mile or two from the

trail, and that evening late we turned off towards it. Though we had

only been without water since morning we were parched, for the heat

had been at its very height. We found the “pit” all right, a well of

about 40 feet deep, covered with a sheet of galvanised iron, and a

splash from a dropped stone showed we had come to the right place for a

cool, deep drink.

Hastily we lowered a bucket and heard the delightful cool “splash,

splash,” as we hauled it up with thirsty anticipation. I had a tin

beaker in my hand to get first dip, but van Reenen, always the

thirstiest, was not standing on ceremony, but flung himself down and

tilted the whole bucket to his lips, and simultaneously with the yell

he gave as he emitted that long draught came a SMELL! There are no

words to describe it!... Rotten eggs and black powder principally,

perhaps, and scientifically I believe it was only sulphuretted

hydrogen, and rather healthy than otherwise; at the same time I quite

sympathised with the near-side leading ox, who promptly kicked van

Reenen severely when he hopefully offered the innocent animal the

remainder of that bucketful. These aromatic wells are called _stink

water_ or _stink fonteins_ by the Boers, whose language is both terse

and expressive. Fourteen days from our leaving Upington we arrived

at the farm from which we proposed to enter the Reserve, a place

called Boomplaats, where the dry Molopo--which most of the journey

had been bare of trees or any vestige of vegetation--was scattered

with magnificent camel-thorn trees of great age and girth, and shaped

like a very symmetrical oak. Here there was a small homestead and good

water, the owner, a well-to-do Boer named Rauchtenbach, had plenty of

trek animals and waggons, and we hoped to be able to arrange for water

transport to our first camp, as far as practicable eastward in the

Reserve.

Rauchtenbach assured us that there could be no t’samma for months, as

he had entered the Reserve after strayed cattle a few days previously,

and had for a full day’s journey seen no sign of rain having fallen,

without which there would be no t’samma.

Old Gert had wished us to enter a day farther south and make for “Aar

Pan,” where he considered it would be best to work from to locate the

nearest diamond pan, but we had feared to venture with the waggons

until we had spied out the land.

On hearing Rauchtenbach’s report as to the nonexistence of t’samma,

however, the old man again strongly urged his plan, and now claimed

that there was a deep pit at Aar Pan, where water had never failed in

his day, and that there would be no danger in trekking on. However, it

would mean at least two hard days’ trek to reach it with the waggons,

and should there be no water we should scarcely get the oxen out alive,

for though these Kalahari cattle can go that time (four days) without

great inconvenience when simply ranging the veldt, it is quite another

matter when they are hauling heavy waggons through deep sand and over

veritable mountains of sand-dunes.

Were the water there, however, it would make matters easy for us, so to

make sure we decided to send Du Toit in with a native on horseback to

find out how the land lay.

He was gone two days, and came back with the horses absolutely

exhausted. The pit was there, but it was bone dry, there was not a drop

of water between the Molopo and the pan, and although there was an

abundance of grass, the horses had suffered badly: for it too was dry.

Of the various succulent sorrels and other juicy plants and grasses

that spring up immediately after rain there was not a vestige, nor of

t’samma.

This was bad news, and we now for the first time realised what the

failure to obtain camels would mean to us.

Our specially made water-tanks would be almost useless, and our idea of

pack-oxen as bad, for obviously they could not carry water for their

own consumption, and could therefore only work within a very limited

radius of the water base. We were two months too early, the reports as

to t’samma in abundance that we had received before leaving Cape Town

were without foundation; and as we could not afford to wait, there was

nothing else for it but to attempt to arrange a water depot as far in

as practicable, and do our exploring on foot.

Rauchtenbach strongly advised us not to make for Aar Pan, but to camp

at a spot about eighteen hours’ trek due east of his farm, from which

spot we should be within a reasonable distance of the better-known

pans, and which would be the farthest distance to which he would be

able to convey water for our actual need.

As Old Gert knew this spot and approved of the plan, this was agreed

to, and we trekked up to the water-pits at the northern part of the

farm, from which we should in future draw our supplies. For days past

the clouds had hung heavily to the eastward, and it appeared to be

raining in that direction, though so far no drop had fallen near us

during the whole journey; but as we now trekked towards the well, a

violent sand-storm came up behind us, and within a few minutes of

its overtaking us we could scarcely see a yard. We were sitting in

the after-part of the waggon, talking to Du Toit, who was holding on

behind, when suddenly he gave a yell and began dancing and kicking

frantically.

“There’s a snake up my leg!” he shouted, and we jumped down just as

a frantic kick sent it squirming and wriggling into the sand, whence

it made off like greased lightning. We killed it under the waggon.

It was a young _geel capell_ (yellow cobra), about 2 feet long,

quite big enough to have killed Du Toit, who was very lucky not to

have been bitten. All kinds of reptiles and venomous insects seem

to “trek” and run amok during these sand-storms, probably seeking

for shelter from the rain that usually follows. In this case the

rain followed immediately, thunder-clouds rolling up all around with

incredible rapidity, and before we could properly cover the forepart

of the waggon, the longed-for rain was pouring down in sheets. In a

few minutes it was pitch dark, except for the vivid lightning, and we

huddled in the waggon under a big bucksail which covered and half

suffocated us--four white men and half a dozen Hottentots. So heavy

was the downpour, and so near the almost incessant flashes of violet

lightning, that the driver himself crept under the sail, and his weird

screams at the frightened oxen, the roar of the wind and thunder, the

crash and bump of the waggon as the scared animals scuttled along at

their own sweet will, the darkness, heat, and perfume of Araby from the

sweating natives, all combined to make that little joy-ride a thing to

be remembered.

[Illustration: ON THE GREAT SALT PAN, IN THE CENTRE OF THE SOUTHERN

KALAHARI DESERT.]

Eventually a big tree-stump brought the waggon to an abrupt stop, and

the storm ceasing as suddenly as it had begun, we were able to get

a light and disentangle ourselves from the most appalling jumble of

gear imaginable. Guns had fallen from their slings, clothing, boots,

cartridges, food, and Lord knows what, were piled all around and on

top of us; but all might have been well had it not been for young van

Reenen, who had taken advantage of the darkness to abstract a tin of

marmalade from the “scoff-box” and was, as he confessed, making good

going, when the waggon hit a snag, and he lost the run of the tin.

Every blessed thing in the waggon was sticky for days afterwards.

At the pits we left our reserve stores, every available utensil

was filled with water, and in addition two hogsheads belonging to

Rauchtenbach were lashed upon a further waggon; the oxen drank their

fill, and we made our entry into the Reserve.

On leaving the Molopo, in which the well was situated, we immediately

entered the Reserve, the huge sand-dunes here trending in the right

direction, and for a time making the going fairly easy. For in the

long valleys between the wave-like dunes the sand was comparatively

firm, being bound by various stunted roots and grasses, mostly dry,

and showing but little signs of life, but capable of bursting forth

into luxuriant growth with astonishing rapidity at the most meagre

encouragement in the shape of a passing thunderstorm.

The bare-looking little bushes were principally the _drie doorn_ and

_zout bosch_ common all over South Africa, whilst here and there on

the slopes of the dunes were thick _haak doorn_ bushes of vivid green.

These were covered with huge cocoons, the size of one’s thumb and very

firmly attached to the twigs. This cocoon is of the consistency of very

tough, thick cardboard, and contains a large black larvæ which is eaten

by the Bushmen, who utilise the strong case for snuffboxes, etc., also

making bracelets and anklets of them, stringing them together, and

placing small stones inside so that in their favourite “baboon dance”

they give forth a swishing, rattling sound with each movement. They

also eat the huge white maggot which bores so freely into the larger

gum-trees, scorching them on hot stones as they do their other _bonne

bouche_, the locust.

As we got farther into the dunes, the going became more and more

difficult, for the long parallel waves of sand, though trending at

first south-east, soon curved away from our course, and we were forced

to cross them, diagonally at first, but later they lay right athwart

our path. So high were they, so steep and close together, and so soft

the sand near their summits, that our progress became slow to a degree,

and only possible at all by infinite labour and difficulty. Often the

second team had to be outspanned and added to the leading waggon to

haul it over the crest of some sand-mountain, whence it plunged down

a perilous slope, to encounter a similar obstacle immediately. In

addition to this laborious crawling over wall after wall of sand, the

hollows between were now frequently honeycombed with the huge holes of

the ant-bear, or the burrows of large colonies of musk-rats, meer-cats,

jackals, porcupine, and other small animals, amongst which the oxen

fell and floundered, at imminent risk of breaking their legs, and we

were therefore often forced to make tedious detours from our already

difficult course.

Track or path, of course, there was none. We were making our own

waggon-path through country where no waggon had ever ventured within

the memory of Rauchtenbach’s Hottentots who were guiding us. No sign

was there anywhere of a man’s footprint, though the soft sand was as a

closely written page with the spoors of countless animals.

Dainty little _slots_ of steinbok and duiker, quaint little hand-like

paw-marks of the porcupine, dog-like pads of the jackal; here a wide

swath of country trampled and torn up by the sturdy hooves of a vast

troop of trotting gemsbok, proud monarch of these desert wastes--there

the fast trail of a pack of the ferocious wild hunting-dog, most

dangerous and destructive of pests. Huge spoors of the ostrich, like

a grotesque, deformed human foot, and showing by its gigantic strides

where the big bird had flown like the wind before us; tiny, dainty

pads of wild-cat and genet, larger ones of the _rooi kat_ or lynx,

and, too frequently to be pleasant, the big spoors of the treacherous

sand-leopard, which, when wounded, is more to be feared than the lion.

The queer-looking footprints of the _tijger woolf_ (spotted hyena),

with two huge paws and two quite small ones, were often to be seen

covering these spoors of the leopard, showing where the hulking,

cowardly beast had followed the bolder animal, content to eat his

leavings when he had killed and eaten his fill. And prominent among

all these signs of the dune-dwellers were the huge claw-marks of the

giant _gom paauw_, a magnificent game bird of the bustard family,

which attains a weight of 50 lb. or more, and which, superb in spread

of wing, could be seen getting up from the crest of the dunes well in

advance of the waggon. With the exception of these fine and wary birds,

and of the noisy korhaan, whose harsh, warning cackle sounded from all

quarters, no game whatever could be seen, for the yells of our drivers,

the cracking of whips, and the creaking of the waggon gave plenty of

warning of our approach.

Moreover, here, deep in the dunes, our scope of vision was extremely

limited. In the hollows between them nothing could be seen except the

crest of the sand-wave we had passed or were climbing, and the long

narrow _straat_ on either hand, whilst from the crest itself vision was

bounded by the nearest dune a few feet higher than its neighbours, and

rarely could a view be obtained of anything more than a few hundred

yards ahead. Occasionally we climbed one of the most prominent dunes,

and could see an apparently limitless expanse of wave after wave of

dunes, covered with grey-green grass and scrub, monotonous in form

and colour, and with no single distinctive feature, as far as the eye

could see. No landmarks, no paths, each dune the counterpart of its

neighbour, nothing to guide us, nothing to rely upon but the sense of

direction, this waterless wilderness made it easy to understand the

tales of men who had wandered in a circle for days searching vainly for

t’samma or water or a way back, and dying within a mile or so of safety.

With an occasional brief outspan, we trekked all afternoon, evening,

and throughout the night, for the drivers were most anxious to reach

our camping-place before the sun gained power the following morning,

and with the exception of a precarious perch now and again on the

waggon, we walked the whole time. Towards morning the steep and

difficult dunes came to an end, and we entered a _straat_ a hundred

yards or more in width, and trending in the right direction. Here

the going, after the switchbacking of the previous twelve hours, was

easy and pleasant, and we climbed thankfully into the waggon, and had

just fallen asleep, when a chorus of yells and shrieks and the waggon

coming to a standstill woke us all up again. Rauchtenbach’s waggon

with the water-supply, which had been leading, had crashed into a big

ant-bear hole and overturned, and one hogshead lay broached with all

its precious contents spilt in the thirsty sand, whilst several of the

smaller tanks were badly battered and leaking.

We lit fires of dry _toa_ grass, outspanned the oxen, and all hands had

to turn to and worked hard till daybreak before we salved the rest of

our precious water and were ready to trek again; and the sun was high

in the heavens, and both the oxen and ourselves about played out, when,

after negotiating a few lines of extremely steep and difficult dunes,

we came upon a small pan from which stretched a broad straight _straat_

leading due east, and which was the spot Rauchtenbach had recommended

as a camp. His judgment had not been at fault, for the position was

admirable. He had gauged the capabilities of the oxen to a nicety,

for it was quite obvious that they could not have dragged the waggons

farther with a reasonable chance of getting back to water; the _straat_

was open and of firm sand, in which tents could be pitched without

fear of being blown away; there was an abundance of dry firewood in

the shape of old tree-stumps all along the ridges of the flanking

dunes, and the small pan showed traces of having held water, and in the

event of rain would hold it again. And, best of all, in the immediate

vicinity was an exceptionally high dune, from which we were able to

distinguish several of the larger pans eastward, and which would form a

most useful landmark as to our camp’s whereabouts when we wandered far

afield.

There was grass in profusion--dry, but still good food for the cattle,

and barely three dunes’ distance north we found a tract of sand where

a heavy shower had fallen some time before, and where the t’samma was

already beginning to bloom.

So that everything looked _couleur-de-rose_, and we unpacked stores and

tools, pitched our tents, and prepared our camp with a light heart.

In the evening the water-waggon left for the return journey, and not

before it was time, for the hollow flanks and staring eyes of the poor

beasts showed that they were suffering from thirst already. They were

to return in a week with a further supply, meanwhile, in spite of the

loss of one of the hogsheads, we should have sufficient.

The first two or three days were spent in exploring our immediate

neighbourhood. North and south, the dunes were very formidable and

close together, and half a day’s toiling in either direction disclosed

nothing but the same endless succession of long serried lines, ending

in confused and broken country eastward. This preliminary canter was

to enable us to get a general idea of our immediate surroundings, and

gradually we were able to add other landmarks to our friendly big dune,

a solitary _wit boom_ tree, scarcely 10 feet in height, but looming up

like a forest giant, and prominent for miles in this treeless waste,

a clump of _haak doorn_ bush, or a peculiarly bare patch of sand,

all helping us to steer a course without the tediousness of working

by compass, or of having to always follow the return trail over own

our spoor. Gradually, too, the seemingly featureless contours of the

dunes, each at first appearing the counterpart of the adjoining one,

became distinguishable, and we began to gain the faculty of acute and

mechanical observation of trifling differences essential for the long

journeys we were preparing for in this pathless and unexplored waste.

From the “lookout” dune we studied the country eastward. Almost due

east, and apparently only about ten miles distant, a line of pure

white sand-ridges showed the position of a big pan, which Old Gert

recognised as a famous hunting rendezvous of the Bushmen in his day,

and taking his bearings from it, he showed us, several points south of

it, a long humped dune which apparently rose to a great height above

its surroundings, and which towards evening loomed up like a mountain.

This, he said, was “Aar Pan,” and from it he could locate pan after

pan, including those which we were in search of. But the time of all

times to locate these distant depressions was at daybreak, when for

a short period before the sun actually rose, a small, distinct, and

well-defined cloud could be seen floating low down over each of the

larger pans, due doubtless to the moisture evaporating from their

firmer soil, and which was wanting in the loose sand of the surrounding

dunes.

The furnace-like heat continued, though each afternoon storm-clouds

gathered, and apparently heavy rain was falling eastward, especially in

the direction of Aar Pan, where Old Gert assured us water would now be

found.

Our anxiety, however, was not now so much about water, but about Old

Gert himself, for he had contracted rheumatism so badly that he could

scarcely hobble, and it soon became apparent that, until water fell in

the pans, or t’samma made it possible to employ a riding-ox to carry

him, we should have to rely upon his instructions, and search out the

places for ourselves.

Aar Pan we could not miss, and thence the nearest pan where diamonds

had been found was but half a day’s trek. The others were several

days’ journey distant, but this nearest pan appeared an easy task to

find. Gert tried to dissuade us, however, and suggested that we had

better first try to locate a vast salt pan at one time well known to

the natives, and which should be, he considered, about six hours’ trek

due east, and impossible to miss. The locating of this pan would,

he explained, help us greatly in our further operations, and we

accordingly set out early one morning with the intention of finding it.

Du Toit, van Reenen, and myself made up the party, as Telfer was

indisposed. Each man carried only a water-bottle, a little food, and a

rifle, for we fully expected to reach the pan by midday, and be back by

night.

Experienced as I thought myself in the desert, that first walk

eastward, so lightly undertaken, was to provide a lesson never to be

forgotten.

For an hour or so the almost straight _straat_ in which the camp stood

led in the right direction, due east. It ended in broken dunes, very

high and confused; still, we were able to keep the general direction

for another couple of hours, when we had the “luck” to strike another

series of dunes and _straats_ apparently in a beeline with our

objective, and we pushed on, congratulating ourselves that by noon we

should reach the Salt Pan. Unfortunately, however, the rough country

had thrown us a point or two out of our bearings, and this easy, wide,

and seductive-looking _straat_ fooled us nicely. For, as we afterwards

discovered, it not only started slightly in the wrong direction, but

curved so gradually as to deceive us completely, and without even

a glance at the compass we toiled on till the terrific heat of the

blazing sun right overhead showed us that it was noon, and our burning

feet and aching calves urged a halt. There was an abundance of low bush

and thick grass, but not a tree anywhere, and we threw ourselves down

and rested for a while in the blazing sunshine. We had been walking

about six hours with scarcely a breather, and even allowing for slow

progress in the broken dunes, we had, we calculated, come a distance

of at least twelve miles, and should be near the Salt Pan. But the

crest of the dunes showed us no break in either direction, and with a

brief rest we pushed on again for about an hour, when the end of the

_straat_ came in sight, barred by formidable dunes running right across

it. Evidently there was no salt pan in that direction, and a tardy

look at our compass showed us that we had gradually been turning from

our course, and were heading north-east instead of east. Had we been

sensible, we should have turned back to camp, whilst there was still

time to get within sight of it by nightfall, but we were so chagrined

at having neglected to steer a straight course that we wrong-headedly

determined not to return till we had found the Salt Pan. It was a

foolish decision. We had brought only a little water, and most of it

had gone already, for there had apparently been no need to economise,

and we had even given a few precious drops to the two wretched dogs

belonging to Old Gert, which had followed us in spite of all our

attempts to keep them back. The scorching sand had already played

havoc with their feet, and at every short halt we made they scratched

themselves frantically into a hole in the sand.

It was about two o’clock, and there was therefore about six hours’

daylight left to us as we left the _straat_ and plunged into a perfect

chaos of broken dunes, from the crests of which the whole of the

circumscribed expanse from horizon to horizon revealed nothing but a

featureless ocean of ridges.

In vain we swept it for some recognisable landmarks, our big dune near

the camp or the vastly bigger one that marked Aar Pan; but either

they were hidden from view by intervening dunes, or were no longer

recognisable from our new viewpoint.

“Either straight back on our spoors or due south,” said Du Toit, and

as we thought of Old Gert’s sardonic grin when we told him we had not

found such a big space as the Salt Pan, we unhesitatingly turned due

south.

Late in the afternoon, already nearly played out, we crested a

prominent rise, and saw an exceptionally high dune a good deal east

of us, and from its base there seemed to stretch a white flat space,

though but little of it was visible. Evidently this must be the Salt

Pan, and we concluded that Old Gert had been mistaken about the time

needed to reach it, and that we had not been so far out of the course

after all. So we headed for it, thankfully trying to forget that we

had scarcely any water, and that we should have a long, thirsty day’s

trek back on the morrow. The dune was a great deal farther off than it

appeared, and seemed to recede from us; but the pan at its foot showed

more plainly from the brow of every dune we toiled over, and at about

sunset we struggled clear of the sand and stood on the edge of its

flat surface. It was about a mile in width, almost a perfect circle in

shape, and across its broad surface there trotted away from us a fine

troop of at least a hundred gemsbok, which halted every now and then

to stand like statues, gazing back at the intruders. Then, again, a

big bull would give a toss of his four-foot horns, and a stamp, and

instantly the whole body would break into a rapid trot, keeping line

and pace, and wheeling and changing direction as might a well-drilled

regiment of cavalry.

We stood for a minute entranced at the fine sight, then, as they

cantered off, I said, “Well, boys, here’s the pan at last!”

“Yes,” croaked Du Toit, “but not the Salt Pan!”

Nor was it. The white sand which I had first seen, and taken for

granted as salt, only extended round the slopes of the dunes encircling

the pan, which was mainly composed of hard-baked greenish mud, covered

with a glaze and as smooth as a billiard-table. Here and there lay a

few pebbles of jasper and quartz similar to those found all over the

north-west, but there was nothing at all approaching the “indications”

we were in search of, and we had evidently stumbled upon quite a

different pan from any of those described by Old Gert.

Meanwhile it was rapidly growing dark, and Du Toit very sensibly

suggested that, whilst there was yet a little light, we should separate

and search the pan as much as possible, to see if by great luck there

might be a little water in any of the slight hollows. But nothing but

a little still moist mud rewarded us, and we wearily sought a nook

in the dunes and threw ourselves down to sleep. We had biltong and

_roster-kook_ enough, but scarcely a gill of water between the three of

us, and our mouths and throats were already so parched and dry that it

was difficult to sleep.

“Straight back over our spoors, as soon as it’s light enough to see

them,” said Gert du Toit as we discussed the situation. We were a full

day from water, and although in no danger, we could afford to run no

risks.

In the desert the nights are often extremely cold, and before morning

we were awake and shivering, and as soon as the first peep of dawn

appeared we searched the vicinity for dry bush, and soon had a fire,

round which we crouched till daylight. And then we did a sensible

thing which, however, led to our doing an extremely stupid one. For it

struck us to climb the big dune and spy out our surroundings, instead

of turning straight back before the cool of the morning had gone. The

dune towered a good fifty feet above the surrounding ridges, and as we

reached the top, an extraordinary panorama stretched out before us. For

eastward there lay pan after pan, looking exactly like little lakes

left in the sand by the receding tide, their white rims and dark blue

centres showing up clearly among the surrounding wilderness of reddish

dunes and grey-green scrub. At least a dozen of them were in sight,

and the little clouds hanging low over the farther distance showed

where numerous others were situated. On more than one large numbers of

gemsbok could be seen, and the thickness of the vegetation appeared

to prove that in that direction at least there would be t’samma. Our

resolution to return vanished instantly. Probably these were the very

pans of which we were in search, and a few hours might fill our pockets

with diamonds! At any rate these pans were entirely different in

appearance from the one beneath us, and the deep blue colour of several

of them, and their circular shape, were very suggestive. Moreover there

would probably be water!

“Wait a minute,” said Du Toit, as we were making a beeline east towards

them. “This is exactly how men get lost and die of thirst. Suppose we

don’t find water or t’samma? It will take us half a day to reach and

search one or two of them, and we shall never get back! We are thirsty

now, and by noon we shall be half mad. We’d better go back.”

So far we had not looked in that direction at all, but as we turned

reluctantly westward an even more wonderful sight met our eyes. For

there, apparently but an hour or two away and slightly to the south,

lay the Salt Pan, a wide expanse of snowy white, apparently a frozen

lake covered with untrodden snow, and bounded on the far side by

gigantic dunes. And beyond it, unmistakable in size and contour, rose

the huge dune of “Aar Pan,” whose long blue floor could be seen

extending for miles beneath it.

Apparently, then, we had passed within a mile or two of the Salt Pan

about noon of the previous day, though the many dunes we had climbed

had given us no glimpse of it!

Anyway there it was at last, impossible to miss, and we immediately

decided to make for it, for it appeared but a trifling detour from our

homeward track, and we had no fear of not finding our way back that way.

Once down from the big dune, and naturally the pan was lost sight

of, but we were not taking any more chances, and worked by compass.

Terrible work it was too, for we found no obliging _straat_ leading

in the right direction, but had to toil over ridge after ridge of

extremely loose, bare sand, which, as the day advanced, became so hot

that the hand could scarcely be borne upon it.

The dogs were now suffering greatly, for their paws were cracked and

bleeding, and they were half dead with thirst. The few bushes that had

afforded them occasional shelter got farther and farther apart as we

entered country where apparently rain had never fallen. This was indeed

desert, nothing but bare, scorching sand, with the blackened stumps of

the dead _toa_ grass, and here and there a shrivelled salt-bush, alone

showing that vegetation had ever existed there.

By noon we were in an extremely bad plight, our tongues and lips

cracked and parched, and we were each sucking a small pebble to promote

salivation. The dogs dug feebly into each tiny patch of shade from the

far-apart bushes, and lay panting and whining until we were almost

out of sight over the next dune, when, howling with pain from their

bleeding and burning feet, they would scuttle along after and past us,

frantically looking for a little shade to lessen their torture.

[Illustration: ON THIS GREAT SALT PAN, SOUTHERN KALAHARI.

Dogs dying of thirst.]

There seemed little hope of their getting through, and I wished to

shoot the unfortunate animals, but Du Toit dissuaded me, saying that

there was just a chance that we should find fresh water near the Salt

Pan, for he had heard the Hottentots say that in the old days, when

they were allowed access to it, they had pits dug in its margin, where

they got good fresh water quite near to the salt. He said he hoped also

to find traces of the old waggon-road, which would help us get our

bearings properly.

Still we could obtain no further glimpse of the pan, for the dunes

were all of the same dead level; moreover the mirage was now dancing

all round the circumscribed horizon, which ended in every direction in

shimmering sheets of water, in which clouds, dunes, and occasionally

gemsbok and animals were mirrored to perfection. Our feet were

blistered and bleeding, and van Reenen was rapidly getting lame, but we

dared not rest; moreover there was no shade, and to sit or lie on the

burning sand was worse torture than staggering on.

At length the bare dunes ended abruptly, grass and bushes appeared

again, and here and there Du Toit was able to pluck a tiny shoot of

young sorrel to chew, which gave us some small relief from what was now

torture. Then came a small _gar boom_ tree, its scanty greyish leaves

full of long bean-like pods on which buck feed greedily, and capable

of giving us a modicum of shade. We threw ourselves down, panting and

anxious. Du Toit, however, made for the first prominent dune we had

seen for hours, and, climbing it, brought us the welcome news that the

Salt Pan was barely a mile away. So we shuffled on again, and at three

o’clock stood on its margin. It was truly a wonderful sight--circular

in form, a mile or more in diameter, and covered with salt as pure

and white as the driven snow. Across it, and adding to its striking

resemblance to a snow-clad Canadian lake, lay the spoors of gemsbok and

other large animals, the recent ones showing as black as ink, for the

salt is but a few inches deep, and underlying it is a thick black mud.

Into this the poor tortured dogs dug their noses--it was cool, but

pure brine--and with their tails between their legs and howling

dismally they crawled back to the sand and bush.

Meanwhile, in spite of our plight, the wide expanse of clean salt had

proved as irresistible to us as a clean stretch of sea sand usually

does to schoolboys or “cheap trippers,” and we scraped our initials

deep into the black mud, till the lettering stood out as clearly as

black type upon white paper. Van Reenen wished to cool his burning feet

in the wet brine, but was dissuaded, and, separating, we searched the

margin of the pan for a sign of the pits spoken of by the Hottentots.

But we found no vestige of them, though on the southern margin we found

the old waggon-path, plainly visible owing to its thick covering of

_toa_ grass, but useless to us, as it led south-west towards “Aar Pan,”

whilst our camp and water lay north-west.

The big dune at Aar Pan loomed up temptingly; it did not appear more

than an hour’s walk, and remembering the thunder-clouds and apparent

rainfall we had seen in that direction, we were for a moment tempted

to make for it, but sanity prevailed--for to have gone there and found

no water would have meant death; as we afterwards found, the distance

between the Salt Pan and the water-pit there took a good four hours to

negotiate.

We therefore made for the north-west edge and climbed the highest dune,

whence we hoped to distinguish the big dune near our camp, but could

not identify it. It was nearly sunset, we were utterly worn out and

tortured with thirst, and could only talk in a whisper, but few words

were necessary. We had traversed one side and the base of an elongated

triangle, and to find our camp we must complete it, steering so as to

cut, if possible, our spoor of the day before, and the long _straat_

leading to our camp. Had we been able to rest the night and look for

it by daylight, this would have been child’s play, but we could not

disguise the fact that we were almost at the end of our tether, and

unless we did the journey in the cool of the night we should never

live through the heat of another day. It was now nearly sundown, and

we realised that at any rate we could not hope to reach our old spoors

before the light failed. However, we had to push on, and, marking our

course very carefully, we started again.

One dog limped behind, the other poor brute lay dying, and we gave it

a merciful bullet. We calculated that our camp lay about twelve miles

north-east; twelve miles--a trivial distance to a pedestrian on a good

road, but here in the dunes a difficult day’s march, even if we could

make our way to it direct, which was extremely doubtful.

One thing buoyed us up somewhat, and that was the belief that our

non-arrival in camp would cause them to light a beacon-fire on the

high dune, and as night fell, again and again, we were deceived by the

bright stars that came up over the horizon, twinkling so brightly--even

low down and directly over the dunes--in the clear atmosphere, that for

a time they appeared exactly like a blazing fire.

The night was by no means dark, but even so we stumbled terribly

amongst the tufts of _toa_ grass, low salt-bushes, and the numerous

meer-cat holes, and by ten o’clock van Reenen, whose feet were

bleeding, and who was suffering worse than any of us from thirst, threw

himself down and said he would go no farther. He was light-headed and

raving for water, and we could do nothing to help him. So, after an

anxious discussion, we decided to rest for an hour or two and slept

for awhile, dreaming of cool, sparkling water. Du Toit roused me or

I might be sleeping there now. My head was throbbing wildly, and my

lips, tongue, and throat like the dryest of leather; indeed, it seemed

as though every vital organ in me was drying up, and I felt that I

should soon go mad. I could make no articulate sound till Du Toit gave

me a few leaves of sorrel he had found, and which moistened my tongue

somewhat. We had to kick resentment into van Reenen, who lay like a

log, and who was in a very bad way. At last he staggered up, and,

drawing his hunting-knife, cut his boots off and threw them away. This

discarding of clothing is a bad sign with a man suffering from thirst;

many a dead man had been found in the dunes, stark naked, his boots

and clothing scattered along his staggering trail. But van Reenen had

simply done it on account of his bleeding, aching feet, and, in spite

of thorns, got on better without them.

Thus, painfully and with frequent rests, we toiled on, till about

midnight we came to a long _straat_ which led the right way, and which

we fondly hoped might have been the path of our outward journey. But a

patient search from side to side of it showed no spoor; and now began

a heart-breaking period, for we found that a whole series of these

_straats_ lay side by side in this direction, all of them unmarked by

human footprints. Tortured and anxious, we began to doubt whether we

were not out of the track altogether, and whether we had not passed

it, and I remember that I at least was for making due west towards the

Molopo--a good eighteen hours’ trek for a strong man, and which we

should never have reached. But Du Toit persisted: we could not be more

than an hour or two from camp, and he would yet find the spoor. Again

and again we fired our rifles and listened in vain for an answering

shot, again and again we climbed the highest dunes, and gazed into the

night for a fire that never shone there; now one, now the other, would

fall and lie there till pulled up, but somehow we managed to struggle

on a bit farther.

And at length, when despair had absolutely seized us, and van Reenen

lagged behind me and I lagged behind Du Toit, I saw him again light

a match and search the sand, and this time there came a hoarse cry.

He had found the spoor; and revived, and with the terrible fear and

anxiety lifted from us, we threw ourselves down and rested, knowing

that we were saved. By daybreak our terrible thirst had conquered

fatigue and we moved on again, and within an hour our rifle-shots were

answered, and our “boy,” Gert Louw, was on his way to meet us with

blessed, Heaven-sent nectar in the shape of a canvas bag of muddy water.

The fire had been lit, but not on the big dune.

Now, we had only been forty-eight hours away from camp and a bare

thirty-six without water, yet we were nearly dead, and without a shadow

of a doubt should have been dead of thirst before another sunset

without water. Yet I have read of men living four or five days under

like circumstances. The experience taught us several things. In future

no broad, pleasant _straat_ ever tempted us in the wrong direction, we

carried more water, even for short trips, and took compass bearings

more accurately. Moreover we set the “boys” to work collecting dry

wood, and made them stack it on the summit of the big dune, where a

fire would have been seen from the Salt Pan, and where their laziness

had prevented them from taking it before.

CHAPTER XVI

FORMATION OF THE DUNES AND PANS--“KOBO-KOBO” PAN--RAIN IN THE

DESERT--SCORPIONS--AAR PAN--MIRAGE AND “SAND-DEVILS”--KOICHIE KA--THE

PIT AND THE PUFF-ADDER.

The long, parallel, wave-like formation of the sand-dunes of the

Kalahari has been explained by many scientists as the result of the

action of the prevailing wind, but this theory scarcely holds water.

For though the majority of the dunes trend between west-north-west

and east-south-east, this uniformity is broken in the vicinity of

each of the numerous pans, around which the dunes are often formed in

concentric rings, whilst the dried-up river-beds are usually flanked

for some distance with dunes running parallel to their devious courses.

So prominent is this concentric formation near many of the almost

circular pans, that it appears probable that volcanic activity may have

been the disturbing factor which formed both “pan” and dunes. Certain

it is that no “prevailing wind” such as still blows, and still moves

sand, would have formed either “waves” or rings as they lie to-day; and

though science may be able to refute my theory, it is that the former

were formed by successive and severe earth tremors (or earth waves)

passing in the same direction whilst the sand was loose and without

the binding vegetation much of it bears to-day, whilst the upheaval

of volcanic magma similar to that of the Kimberley mine had in many

instances formed the latter.

Many ingenious theories have also been advanced as to the origin of

these pans, which, although such a feature of the desert, are by no

means confined to it. They are generally believed to have also been

formed by the action of the prevailing wind (which seems to have quite

a lot to answer for!), and doubtless in many places, where the sand is

thin, this had been the case. But it can scarcely have been the case

in these numerous pans of the “Game Reserve,” where the sand is at its

deepest, and where many of the circular or oval pans are surrounded and

protected by dunes of well over 100 feet in height, as with a wall.

A learned German scientist (Passarge) has suggested that pans have

been formed through vast herds of animals drinking and wallowing in

the mud at these spots, causing depressions in which rain-water and

sub-surface water collected, and I believe this is generally given as

an explanation of the salt pans such as I have described.

But for animals to “wallow in mud” presupposes water in these spots,

and they must have been free of sand in the first place to allow of

water standing there.

I have visited scores of these pans, and I have found them to differ so

greatly that it is hard to find a theory that would account for them

all. In many the soil is what is known locally as _brak_ alkaline,

spongy, powdery, into which the foot sinks deep at every step; in

others the surface is a hard, sun-baked mud, red in colour and covered

with a shining glaze. Some are salt pans such as I have described,

in others I found several feet of blue or greenish “pot clay,” under

which was a sort of black volcanic mud; still others were filled with

a species of Kimberlite (blue ground) almost identical with that of

the Premier Mine; and though the surface was often the usual blue

shale that underlies most of the desert sand, in very many cases these

depressions--on which the surrounding sand never accumulates--marked an

entirely different “country rock” from that of the region generally.

One useful peculiarity about these pans, and one by which we were able

eventually to locate them, was that their position was invariably

marked by exceptionally high dunes in the immediate vicinity--usually

on the south side; those of Aar Pan, the highest in the Reserve, being

a good 300 feet above the level of the pan they flank.

But to return to our own particular troubles.

Old Gert, when he had been given a very drastically edited account of

our trip, was able to describe minutely how we could take our bearings

from the Salt Pan to find a large pan called “Kobo-Kobo,” whence the

locating of our first diamond pan would be easy, and a day or two later

Du Toit, Telfer, and myself made an attempt to reach it; van Reenen,

with the “boys,” meanwhile testing a small pan about a mile to the

north, where volcanic action was unmistakable, but where we found only

pot-clay and volcanic mud.

As we had a great distance to traverse, we this time took the

precaution to load ourselves well with water, each man starting with

several spare bottles, which we buried at prominent spots along the

route. By midday we were at the Salt Pan, which we skirted, and with

a short rest pressed on, and by evening had reached the big pan,

“Kobo-Kobo.” It is one of the most perfect pans in the desert, as true

a circle as though drawn by a compass, surmounted by extremely high

dunes, and with a perfectly level, spongy, alkaline floor. In common

with most of the pans, it appears to have at some time contained a

large quantity of water, as the margin was covered with a miniature

beach of pebbles of jasper, banded ironstone, etc., identical with

the deposits found along the Orange River. On one of the dunes near

it stood a solitary _wit boom_, a big tree for these parts, about 10

feet high, and in the branches of which was a Bushman’s sleeping place,

composed of a few sticks placed across each other, and on which they

take refuge at night, when leopards or wild dogs are around and they

do not wish to make a fire. It was a very old nest, however, and the

bird had long since flown. Here we rested comfortably, the dry sticks

making a good fire. Towards morning a cold, gusty wind got up and the

morning broke with a sky completely overcast. It had threatened rain

so often that we thought nothing of it, and leaving our food, water,

etc., in the tree, we set out towards the highest dunes on the farther

side of the pan, from which we hoped to see the smaller one we wanted

so badly. Arrived there, however, we found that this time at least the

thunder-clouds were not bluffing, for rain was coming across the desert

in that direction in a perfect sheet, and whilst we stood discussing

plans, the first big drops began to fall amongst us.

We were totally unprepared for it, being dressed in two garments only

of the thinnest khaki: it was quite useless for us to attempt to find

the pan till it was over, and with one accord we turned back towards

the tiny tree--the only bit of “shelter” within a day of us. By the

time we were half across the pan the rain was coming down in sheets,

punctuated with flashes of lightning, and the spongy surface of the pan

was transformed into a quagmire in which we struggled up to our ankles.

So soft did the _brak_ become in a few minutes that I had serious

misgivings as to whether the whole place would not dissolve into a

sort of quicksand and engulf us, and I was extremely glad to be again

amongst the dunes.

The rare phenomenon of heavy rain in this arid spot, where it

had probably not fallen for years, was also responsible for an

extraordinary sight which we witnessed as soon as we had got out of the

mud on to the pebble “beach” and firm sand. Scorpions were “trekking”

in all directions. Driven out of the cracks and holes in the surface

of the pan by the water, they swarmed in such numbers that one could

scarce walk without stepping on them, and all with tail erect, rampant,

ready to sting anything that came along, or, failing that, each other

or themselves. And before we got to the tree, I had killed more of them

than ever I had seen, besides several tarantulas and two snakes.

“The tree will be full of them!” shouted Telfer, and he was right.

Luckily the embers were still alive, and there was a fair amount of

dry wood still, and by making a big fire we smoked and burnt them

out: though through all the hours of that storm, and the whole night

of dreary drizzle that succeeded it, these dangerous, venomous little

pests constantly immolated themselves on the glowing embers of the fire.

It rained all day, and a _wit boom_ was never intended by nature to do

more than afford a modicum of shade from the sun, certainly not to keep

out even a shower. Besides, this tree of ours was not much bigger than

a bush, and as it was impossible to keep dry, we had to try at least to

keep warm, and so the whole tree was gradually burnt piecemeal. Only a

few days back we had nearly died for want of water, and now, right here

in the dryest part of the desert, we were getting too much of it! Each

man had but a thin shirt and pants and a pith helmet, which was soon a

shapeless mass of pulp. Our meal-bag had hung in the tree, and by the

time we remembered the fact most of its contents had run away in thin

paste. We cooked the rest and had a hot meal with the rain pouring down

on us, our only anxiety being not to let the fire out. Towards evening

Gert said, “I never remember a rain like this in the Kalahari! It looks

like keeping on all night. Come, we must search for more wood, and if

possible shoot a buck; if so we can eat all night!”

So we gathered every dead bush within a mile--luckily there were a

fair amount of them--and Gert shot a gemsbok, that stood quite still

and seemed quite stupefied with the rain; and all night long we kept a

fire going, and sizzled buck liver and buck steaks on the embers, and

ate, and shivered, and grumbled, and steamed, as the hot flames drove

some of the moisture out of our dripping clothes. Of course there was

no chance of sleep, and indeed we were too occupied in keeping the fire

alight and killing scorpions to think of it, and we were never more

thankful than when morning at length broke, and we could see our way

for an attempt to reach our diamond pan.

By noon we had found the place, a small circular pan about 100 yards

in diameter, with a well-defined “wall” of tilted shale showing at

the base of the dunes all round it, but alas! like us, it was full of

water, and we could do nothing. The water, though freshly fallen, was

almost like brine, and quite undrinkable; and altogether our cup was

full!

However, about noon the weather cleared and the sun shone, and we slept

for a couple of hours, and then found a new camping-place, where wood

was abundant, made a big fire, and turned in for the night.

Although so much rain had fallen, it had been of no use to us, for all

the pans in this particular vicinity were, we found, either salt or

very alkaline, and whatever water they had caught was undrinkable. We

had therefore to return to camp, there to refit for another trip, fully

resolved that in future a mackintosh would be included in our equipment.

Thunder-showers now became frequent, and in some of the pans small

pools of muddy but still drinkable water could be found; but this

supplement to our supply of water was too precarious to be relied

upon, and we were forced to still keep our base within reach of

Rauchtenbach’s supply.

Meanwhile we tested several pans within easy distance of the camp, but

found they were not what we required, and therefore decided to make

a further reconnaissance eastward, towards where Gert had found the

stones.

Van Reenen and I, therefore, one morning started for Aar Pan, resolved

to climb the extremely high dune there, and from it chart out the

position of as many pans as we could see, and, should we find a

sufficiency of water in the pits described by Gert, to remove part of

our stores, etc., there, and make it the starting place for further

work. Van Reenen, who had been snug in camp during our deluge at

“Kobo-Kobo,” would not hear of a waterproof, and laughed so at mine

that I unslung it and left it behind again. In any case rain looked

out of the question, for it was one of the most incandescent days of

the trip. Starting at daybreak, we found that, though the distance

was not great, this direction led absolutely athwart the dunes, and

progress was extremely slow and difficult. The dunes were mostly

covered with thick grasses, which the recent rain had caused to sprout

in an astonishing manner, and which was every whit as troublesome to

traverse as loose sand. There was an abundance of game, gemsbok in

small clumps of four or six, or in pairs, standing and watching us

curiously till within a stone’s throw; wild ostriches in flocks, and

steenbok and duiker everywhere. Leopard spoor was also very prominent,

and we had great hopes of getting one; but they are the most wily of

beasts, and extremely hard to get at without dogs. By noon we were in

full sight of the pan, and a most extraordinary sight it presented.

Its perfectly level floor of light blue shale, surrounded by hills of

reddish sand, gave it precisely the appearance of a lake, and for some

time after I first came in sight of it, I felt confident that it was

indeed full of water. Then across this flat, unruffled surface came

sweeping what appeared to be a number of waterspouts, tall, perfectly

defined columns, travelling rapidly. But they were not water, but

sand-whorls, a common enough phenomenon in these dry regions, and known

to the Boers as _zand-duivels_ (sand-devils), and which, beginning

with a slight whorl of sand, gather force and velocity as they travel,

picking up small pebbles, sticks, leaves, and every light article that

comes in their path, and bearing it aloft to a tremendous height. Here

on this perfectly flat floor there was nothing to break their symmetry,

and they were as well-defined as the waterspouts I took them for. From

the high dunes from which we first obtained a full view of the pan,

the whole circuit of its flanking dunes was plainly visible, but as

we descended the mirage hid these, and when we eventually stood on

the floor no sign of the far dunes could be seen: we were apparently

standing on the edge of a vast unbroken lake, whose mirror-like surface

reflected the clouds as faithfully as a sheet of water would have done.

And when, after a few minutes, several more “waterspouts” sprang up

and went sailing across the “water,” I had almost to pinch myself; the

whole thing was so real in its unreality. The pan is about two miles

wide by five miles long, but by the time we were half-way the mirage

had puzzled us so that we began to wonder if ever we should find the

pits we were looking for. Occasionally a dune on the far bank loomed

up as though it _might_ be a solid reality, but a few steps in that

direction would see it melt away, dissolving into the hazy shimmer.

It was impossible to judge either distance or proportion; on several

occasions a big pile of rocks came into view apparently as large as

cottages and half a mile away, and, on our making for them, proved to

be boulders the size of a bucket, and barely fifty yards’ distance.

Then a long line of gemsbok came into sight following each other at

perfectly regular intervals. Suddenly they stopped as one, then they

all tossed their heads together, and then the line began to waver

and break up and float away, and lo! there stood a solitary old bull

staring at us, quite alone--the rest had all been tricks of the mirage.

When we were within thirty yards he turned and made off, and was soon

up to his knees in water, apparently, and followed by several of his

spectral attendants. Altogether the place seemed absolutely uncanny,

and in no part of the Kalahari have I ever seen the mirage play such

tricks as at Aar Pan.

We found the pits at length, a shaft of about 15 feet in depth, and a

shallower one of about 6 feet, side by side, and sunk at the side of a

dolerite dyke (“Aar”) bisecting the Dwyka shale of the pan, and from

which it takes its name. There was nearly a foot of muddy water in the

shallow shaft, and a very small pool at the bottom of the other, so we

had no anxiety as to water. Indeed, after having drunk our fill from

the shallow pit, we got fastidious: it was certainly very muddy and

alkaline, and with at least ten mosquito larvæ to the spoonful, not to

mention smaller abominations.

So van Reenen prepared to go down the deeper shaft, where a little

water looked cleaner. An old tree-trunk had been left in it as a

ladder, probably by natives, years before, and he swung himself over

the edge, trying to reach the top of this pole. As he did so a big owl

flew out, brushing past him, and nearly scaring the life out of both of

us. It probably saved his life though, for looking down carefully to

see if there were others, and our sun-blinded eyes getting accustomed

to the gloom, we made out, just gliding lazily away from the water, a

huge puff-adder, fully 4 feet long, and bloated as they always are.

It was so near the colour of the dark rock that, had it not moved,

we should certainly not have seen it, and van Reenen would almost

assuredly have been bitten, and to have been bitten would have meant

death.

The horror of that sluggish, bloated, most deadly of all snakes lurking

there by that tiny pool of water, in a spot where water is so precious

and certain to be sought by the rare wayfarer, and in a confined space

where escape from it would be impossible, appealed to me most vividly,

and we resolved that before we left the desert we would make an end of

that big puff.

Meanwhile we decided that the other water was quite good enough for us.

We had been walking about nine hours, and were dog-tired by the time we

had climbed to the top of the enormous dune, which can be seen for so

far in the Kalahari. It was nearly sunset, the mirage had disappeared,

and the big pan, with a smaller one divided from it only by a narrow

isthmus of dunes southward, could be seen from end to end, a distance

of about eight or nine miles running almost north and south, whilst

eastward a vast expanse of desert stretched to the far horizon, broken

here and there by the prominent dunes we had learnt to associate with

the pans.

In all directions the vast “sandscape” was unbroken by a sign of life,

and, used to the desert as we were, somehow that highest dune to which

we had climbed appeared the loneliest spot in all the Kalahari, and it

was quite a relief, after we had lit a fire on the very top, to see an

answering flame shine out from the signal dune at the camp some fifteen

miles or more away.

Though there was plenty of vegetation on the dune, there was nothing

in the shape of a tree, and later we lay down back to back near the

fire, for we had no blankets, and the night was chilly as the day had

been hot. I woke with a soft rain coming down in dense darkness, and

was already soaked through, thanks to my idiocy in again bringing no

waterproof. The fire was out and the wood hopelessly wet, and after

wasting half my matches in vain, I woke van Reenen up so as to have

someone to swear at.

He said, “That’s right--blame me! Why, you Jonah, don’t you know that

it’s you that brings all these samples of weather we get! Wet through

in the middle of the Kalahari! Why, you’re the sort of man who’d get

sunstroke at the North Pole!”

We walked round a bit in the drenching drizzle, but got tired of

kicking through the _haak doorn_ bushes and pulling out the thorns, and

came back to where the fire had been, kicked the ashes away, and lay

back to back again on the still warm sand.

We had seen numbers of big leopard spoors on this dune, and when, a

little later, van Reenen nudged me violently in the ribs and gave a

“Hist!” I listened for all I was worth. Then I heard him cock his

rifle. All I could hear was a faint scratching, but whether it was

a big scratch some distance away, or a small scratching close at

hand, neither of us could determine. And so we lay in the drizzle and

darkness, with the locks of our rifles huddled under us as much as

possible, waiting and expecting anything. Then suddenly van Reenen

said, “Machtig! why, the damned thing is in my pocket!”

He had on a thin khaki jacket which had been hung on a bush whilst

he collected firewood early in the evening, and there certainly was

something scratching in the pocket. Luckily he did not put his hand

in, but pulled the coat off. I struck a match and he shook the pocket

carefully, and out dropped a big black scorpion, the very counterpart

of the one that had stung him so badly at the beginning of the trip.

Had he put his hand in that pocket...!

He killed it, and walked about most of the rest of the night, though he

came over and woke me up once and said, “Jonah!” and I believe that to

this day he blames me for that scorpion and the puff-adder.

In the morning, however, we found that there had been another visitor

during the night, the wet sand showing the spoor of an exceptionally

big leopard, that had evidently been circling round our bivouac most of

the night, his pad covering van Reenen’s footprint in several places.

From this spot we worked a few days eastward, locating a number of

pans, in one of which we found extremely promising yellow ground, and

we determined to bring tools, etc., to Aar Pan, and make an effort to

properly test some of these places, especially as we found that more

rain had fallen in this locality, and that the t’samma, which would

make us independent of water, would soon be big enough to use. On this

part of the trip, to enable us to cover long distances, we cut our

equipment down to the very lowest: a rifle, twenty-five cartridges,

knife, compass, matches, etc., and a quart water-bottle, carrying

absolutely no food or cooking utensils. We used to shoot a steenbok,

cook the liver and kidneys on sticks over the fire, and the head in the

ashes for breakfast, and bury the legs in the embers till they were

roasted dry, and sling the meat on to our belt. No bread, occasionally

salt--from a pan--a big enough salt-cellar for a glutton! Occasionally

we found a few tiny berries that the Bushmen eat, but mostly these

are aromatic and bitter, and as there are poisonous varieties much

resembling them, we usually left them severely alone. Spiny cucumbers

were also beginning to appear, mostly intensely bitter, but also eaten

by the Bushmen. In this region, too, the grass was very luxuriant, and

would have provided food for thousands of cattle, without deprivation

to the huge flocks of gemsbok that wandered over it. Many of these wide

“desert” stretches were extremely beautiful, being covered for miles

with tall, thickly growing flowers, a species of campanula something

like a fox-glove, growing to a height of three or four feet, and of

beautiful and vivid colours of great variety. The scent of these vast

parterres was faintly sweet in the daytime, but during the night it

became almost overpowering, and I was told by Old Gert that Bushmen

have a great objection to sleeping among them, believing that to do so

means never to wake.

During the whole of our trip, so far, since we had left the border and

entered the Reserve, we had seen no human being, nor even a spoor, but

on the edge of one of these eastern pans we now discovered the remains

of a recent Bushman camp, the small shelters of interwoven branches

being simply constructed to afford a little shade during the hottest

part of the day. They had apparently been gone only a day or two,

trekking eastward, and the remains of full-grown t’samma showed that

the fruit was already to be found in that direction. The little desert

Ishmaels had probably seen our fires, and scented the presence of the

white man, as I put it to van Reenen. He looked me up and down and

said, “Well, yes! the wind’s been blowing from our direction!”

It is quite true that you cannot have many baths out of a quart of

water a day, but I think he might have put it differently.

After about a week of this we trekked back to our camp, where we

revelled in _roster-kook_ and coffee and sugar, and compared notes with

Telfer, who had tested several more pans north, as far as possible,

without water. We had expected a Scotch cart with our next load of

water, and the idea was to endeavour to get the oxen over as far as Aar

Pan with a light load of stores, tools, etc.; but the waggon turned up

without the smaller vehicle, and van Reenen and I decided to go back

again, with as much as we could carry, and try to locate a big pan

known by the Bushman name of “Koichie Ka,” near which was one of the

pans where several diamonds had been picked up, whilst Telfer and Du

Toit would come on with the cart a week later.

I shall describe this trip somewhat in detail, as it was typical of

what happened almost daily afterwards. We carried almost 60 lb., each

taking flour, coffee, tools, etc., and made very heavy going of it to

Aar Pan, where we made for a _wit boom_ tree we had discovered on the

top of one of the big dunes, and worked till late cutting branches, and

making a sort of shelter to which we added our waterproof sheets--for

this time we came prepared for rain, and we got it. By ten at night it

was coming down in sheets, and a terrific thunderstorm burst over us,

keeping us busy till daylight trying to keep the water out and the fire

in, and being pestered the whole time by van Reenen’s pet aversion,

scorpions. This continued well into the following morning, when, as

soon as it somewhat lifted, we made a cache of our stores in the

tree, and started towards the far-distant pan Koichie Ka. About noon

the sun came out, and the whole desert steamed. We passed for hours

through nothing but miles of the beautiful flowers I have described,

and then came to a patch of broken dunes where the vegetation was

scantier, and where we saw more snakes in an hour than I had ever seen

before. Presumably the rain had disturbed them, and they were now

drying themselves; at any rate, there they were, almost at every step,

principally big yellow and brown cobras; but one very striking and,

to me, entirely new variety was a very light yellow chap with round

spots of a brilliant scarlet speckled over him, exactly like spots

of blood. They were in every good-sized bush, in the meer-cat burrows

that honeycombed the hollows, coiled round the tufts of _toa_ grass--in

fact, they swarmed.

We had hoped to reach the big pan by nightfall, as there was a big

krantz there where we could shelter; but it became evident that we

could not do so, and we turned aside towards a small pan where a few

bushes gave promise of a fire at least, for it became evident that we

were in for rain again.

This rain was becoming monotonous, it seemed to follow us about, and

the annoying part of it was that it did not relieve our anxiety as to

water to any appreciable extent: no matter how it poured, the whole

rainfall sank immediately into the sand or, where it was caught in a

pan, became undrinkable brine almost immediately.

Moreover it meant that, to rest at all, we had to encroach on the

precious hours of daylight, to say nothing of lying on the damp

sand. And after another miserable and rainy night, I found to my

consternation that I was in for a bout of fever, here, a day’s march

from our few stores at Aar Pan even, and quite two from the camp! We

started on again as soon as possible, for I argued that, if I was going

to be ill, a krantz such as we expected to find at Koichie Ka would

be a better place to lie up in than the dunes--more home-like, as it

were. Van Reenen was all right, but unfortunately one of his shoes went

wrong through being soaked, and soon the sole began to part company

with the upper. And he had left his _voorslaag_ at Aar Pan. Luckily I

had some fancy native wire-work in my belt which, unravelled, served to

keep sole and upper together, but neither of us was doing Marathon time

that day. We found the pan about midday: one of the largest, almost a

perfect circle, and with the krantz as Old Gert had described it. This

rocky krantz we found to consist of deep red and yellow sandstone,

apparently belonging to the Zwartmodder series. It flanked the northern

edge of the pan, rising abruptly some 60 feet, and was capped with

concretionary limestone, which also covered the dunes behind it. It was

honeycombed with caves, and there was evidence that it had swarmed with

baboons, whose absence was probably accounted for by the fact that a

pair of big leopards and their cubs were its present occupants. Their

spoors showed that they were “at home,” and later we lighted a big fire

and tried to smoke them out, besides firing a few shots into their

cave; but luckily they did not respond to the invitation.

After a few hours’ rest and some quinine I felt better, but water was

getting a pressing matter now, for though the pan was soft mud all

over, we could find none, and our flasks were empty. At last we found

a little liquid mud, so full of lime that it curdled into a sort of

“curds and whey” when we tried to boil it. However, van Reenen shot a

duiker, and we stewed some of its flesh in this semi-liquid, and made

a sort of broth which appeased both hunger and thirst, and saved our

little remaining water.

As no more could be found, however, and I was still groggy with fever

and van Reenen had gone lame, we decided to get back to Aar Pan, if we

could, and leave further exploration for a later day. So, after a night

in the rocks, we turned back, taking the last of the liquid mud in our

bottles, and chewing sorrel and other grasses to allay our thirst. The

journey back was painful to a degree; we could only go slowly, and as

nightfall found us still a long way off Aar Pan and water, we struggled

on most of the night by compass and the stars.

Then we slept an hour or so, but were too anxious to sleep much, and

were wide awake before sunrise, waiting for daylight to show us if we

had kept the path. Luckily we had, and soon were climbing the big dune

at Aar Pan which separated us from water. Suddenly van Reenen stopped

and pointed. “Camels!” he said.

There were two of them, hobbled, feeding close to us, and at our tree

we found quite a party--two police troopers, Telfer, and several “boys.”

The police had been sent from Witdraai, their post on the Kuruman

River, to examine our permits, and their coming was extremely welcome.

Their big shambling mounts carry a big load, besides the rider, with

ease, and their saddle-bags were full of all kinds of luxuries. Soon we

were feasting on coffee and _real_ bread and tinned salmon, and began

to realise that there was something in civilisation after all.

After a few hours they left us to patrol towards Tilrey Pan, through

a country unknown to them, and with them went Telfer, who hoped

thus to be enabled to reach a far-distant pan which Old Gert called

“Wolverdanse” (Wolf’s Dance), where lay the green stones thought to be

emeralds, and which we feared we should never reach on foot.

The patrol dropped him a few miles away from us about a week later.

He had not succeeded in finding the emeralds, but he had a finer

collection of bruises and blisters from sitting on and falling off the

camels than he ever possessed before.

Meanwhile we thoroughly explored Aar Pan and several small pans

near, finding more Kimberlite, but being handicapped by the utter

impossibility of washing the ground. Our food ran short, and we had a

very rough time; but at length our cart turned up with food and tools,

and the first post we had had since leaving Upington. The newspapers

contained the news of Scott’s death, and the story of his heroism and

sufferings made us feel ashamed of having grumbled at our own few

privations.

Unfortunately, the water in the small pit had now shrunk to a few

bucketfuls of bad-smelling liquid, so full of insects as to be almost

undrinkable; and as no rain fell in the pan, and t’samma was not yet

available, we had to make up our minds to abandon the camp, and make

an attempt to establish a new water-base somewhere along the Kuruman

River till t’samma gave us a better opportunity of reaching the

farthest pans.

We therefore filled our bottles, gave the oxen the rest of the liquid

mud, and trekked due west, having first sent a “boy” to the main camp

to warn the water-waggon to take back our belongings there.

Before leaving, van Reenen made up his mind to shoot the big puff that

lay in the deepest shaft beside the little pool of water which we had

not touched--for we feared that some day a passer-by might see the

water and not the snake, and scramble down to his death. So van Reenen

lay peering down the shaft for an hour, till at last the big brute

glided out of his hole to the water, and a bullet cut him nearly in two.

“He’s finished, anyway,” said my pal, and so he was; but that

puff-adder was yet to revenge himself on me in a very decided manner.

We trekked all day through a magnificent grass country, the dunes being

almost waist-high in it, and I could understand the bitter complaints

of some of the border farmers that the gemsbok are given the best part

of the country.

We reached a well in the Molopo the following morning, and at a

border farm near we obtained horses, and rode up to Witdraai, the

nearest police post on the Kuruman River, to get information as to the

prospects of t’samma, etc., eastward of that place.

CHAPTER XVII

THE KURUMAN RIVER--WITDRAAI--AAR PAN AND EASTWARD--GEMSBOK AND

T’SAMMA--DRIELING PAN--WILD DOGS--THIRSTY CAMELS--SEARCH FOR

WOLVERDANSE--“NABA”!--BUSHMEN--END OF THE TRIP.

The old bed of the Molopo River, which farther south has been long

since denuded of timber, is, in the vicinity of its junction with the

Kuruman, both well wooded and interesting. Long, park-like stretches

of grass with fine trees of a variety of _cameel-doorn_, having huge,

bean-like pods, delighted the eye tired of sand and the monotony of the

treeless dunes we had just left, and when we eventually turned into the

Kuruman River the vegetation became even _more_ luxuriant.

Not only the dry and sand-choked bed of this once important river, but

for miles on either side of it, was a vast field of luxuriant grass

almost waist-high, and as thick as a corn-field; indeed, this portion

of the Kalahari, and for a long distance into the Reserve towards

Kuruman, would form an ideal ranching country.

In the fine trees were birds in great variety, hornbills with huge

grotesque beaks, and a most lovely blue jay with a plumage of the most

brilliant Oxford and Cambridge blues, small scarlet finches, and a

number of others less conspicuous.