In many a little glade along this delightful oasis we saw _paauw_ in

flocks of twenty or more, stalking about just like turkeys, and, given

water--which is never wanting if sunk for--there are few pleasanter

places than this ancient river-bed. A feature of the landscape was the

extraordinary number of dead, bare trees still standing, and showing

that the water, which sinks deeper in the sand every year, no longer

reaches their roots. Many of these trees were loaded with the huge

nests of the small “social bird,” which builds in colonies of hundreds,

constructing nests the size of haystacks, and which often accumulate

to such a size that the huge branch on which they rest breaks with the

weight.

Witdraai consisted then of three small native huts used as store,

living, and sleeping rooms by the trio of camel police stationed there,

and which were comfortable in comparison with the cave in the limestone

of the river-bank which was their only “home” for some months when they

were first sent to establish a post at this out-of-the-way spot in the

desert. However, remote as was the post, it compared very favourably

with the other few stations along the German South-West border. For

here was water in plenty, a borehole sunk deep in the Kuruman River

giving them a never-failing supply; moreover they had trees, grass,

flowers, and birds, and a long oasis stretching for over a hundred

miles towards Kuruman in which to forget the desert.

They had been greatly pestered by troops of wild dogs, which had on

several occasions broken into their kraal and killed and maimed numbers

of their sheep and goats.

As there were Bushmen near the camp at Witdraai, we endeavoured to

arrange a dance for the benefit of the bioscope camera, but the

spokesman of the tribe, when he saw the machine, incontinently bolted,

and we could not get in touch with him again. So far the camera had

been of little use, as it had proved far too heavy to take on the more

distant trips, and we had found it impossible to get it near to big

game in the desert on account of the want of cover.

Whilst at Witdraai I succeeded in killing a snake which I had seen once

or twice in the vicinity, and which I believe to be a new variety, as I

have not seen it described in any book, or a specimen in any museum.

Old Gert called it a _blaauw slang_ (blue snake), and said it was

peculiar to the Kalahari, and that in killing it I must hit it hard,

as it was very tough and difficult to kill. The specimen I at length

obtained was about 6 feet long, and of a light blue colour along its

back and reddish underneath. It was apparently a variety of cobra, as

it extended its hood and struck viciously when I tackled it, and I

found that Gert had been right, for the light stick I picked up made

very little impression on it, and I had to finish it with my rifle-butt.

For some reason I could never get the Hottentots or Bastards to skin

a snake. Several of our “boys” were expert hands at “braying” a skin,

and steenbok, duiker, jackal, lynx, leopard, or in fact any animals we

killed, were soon converted into beautifully soft furs, but when it

came to a snake I had to do it myself.

At the end of a few days of this pleasant break in desert life a

Bushman messenger whom we had sent out brought the news that he had

found a patch of mature t’samma between Aar Pan and a small pan called

“Koma,” where the indications were promising; and as this meant that

oxen could remain in the desert, and we should be independent of water,

we hastened back southward to the waggon and reentered the Reserve. We

also took a light Scotch cart, with which, from this new base, we hoped

to be able to make a flying trip eastward with sufficient tools to test

some of the pans properly.

About a day’s trek into the desert we found the t’samma, a patch of

about a morgen where a vagrant thunderstorm had fallen in season, and

in which the little juicy insipid melons were just about the right

size--that of a cricket-ball.

On them we lived, quite independent of water, eating them raw, or

leaving them in the ashes overnight--in which case they are full of

a clear liquid by morning. Coffee can be made or cooking carried

out with this, but though life can be sustained for an indefinite

period upon this substitute, the craving for water is always present.

Unfortunately, this t’samma did not obviate the real difficulty of

testing the ground, for which an abundance of water was needed, and

after a few days Du Toit and myself, leaving the rest of the party,

inspanned six oxen in the Scotch cart and started eastward. We had

with us a Bastard named John Louw, who knew the desert in that part

better than most men, and believed that with moderate luck we should be

able to trek from pan to pan with a fair amount of tools, etc., where

hitherto we had barely been able to reach as we stood.

Crossing the huge dunes at Aar Pan with a cart was a fair criterion

of what we should be able to do, and by the following evening, so

well had the oxen pulled, that we stood at the big krantz at Koichie

Ka pan, where van Reenen and I had had such a rough time a few weeks

previously. There was no mud in the pan now, however, much less water,

but John, who took the oxen farther east to feed, brought back some

t’samma and said there was plenty in that direction. So our minds were

at ease and we had quite a jolly evening under the krantz, where the

leopards still resided, for traces of fresh “kills” were everywhere.

However, we had a roaring fire, and I slept like a top by it till Gert

woke me at daybreak to witness a sight I would not have missed for

anything. The whole pan was covered with gemsbok, many hundreds of

them, straggling at first, but eventually bunching into a herd that

suddenly thundered across the pan like a regiment of charging cavalry,

and disappeared over the dunes westward. I was delighted at the

spectacle, but both Gert and the Bastard looked anxious.

“If the t’samma east is not a very big patch,” said Du Toit, “we shall

find that what they have not eaten they have trampled to bits!”

The oxen had been brought in and had slept in their yokes all night,

to prevent their straying, and we lost no time in getting underway.

Unfortunately, Gert’s prognostications had been correct, for we found

the whole width of the t’samma zone trampled for miles, and most of the

few remaining t’samma smashed and spoiled. However, the oxen were able

to get a feed that would keep them for a day or so, and as we expected

to find more, we pushed on.

During the three days that followed we had a most anxious and wearying

time, reaching several pans where excellent Kimberlite was obtained

within a foot or so of the surface, but being constantly worried and

baffled by the absence of water to wash it, or t’samma for ourselves

and the oxen.

We were now in the heart of the desert, three long days’ trek from

our waggon and t’samma patch, and simply living from hand to mouth on

the few t’samma we found here and there; and, realising that we were

risking rather too much, we made up our minds to return before the oxen

had begun to suffer from thirst.

There was a small portion of the big t’samma patch that the gemsbok

had spoiled which had escaped with slighter damage, and as the little

melon grows rapidly, we hoped to find refreshment at this spot; but our

bad luck held, for a troop of big baboons cleared out of it as we drew

near, and we found that the destructive brutes had torn up and smashed

most of those they had not eaten, and so both man and beast had to be

content with very short commons.

By the time we reached the vicinity of Aar Pan we were suffering rather

badly; each stray melon we found had to go to the oxen, and it appeared

doubtful whether we should be able to get them out with the cart. Most

of the heavier samples were thrown away to lighten the load, but even

so they could scarcely be got to drag the cart, and when we got to the

huge dunes at Aar Pan we could get them no farther.

We had seen thunder-showers falling in this direction, and had hoped

that there might be water in the pits again, so Du Toit and myself took

a billy-can and some cord and hastened across the dunes, leaving John

to watch the exhausted cattle.

I said to Du Toit, “In any case there is bound to be a little in the

deep pit, enough for us! Animals can’t reach it there.”

“But the puff-adder! Did van Reenen kill it outright?”

“The bullet cut it nearly in half. It would be sure to get into its

hole in the rock to die!”

Du Toit thought otherwise. “If it could crawl at all it would go to the

water--and if it died in it, the water will be _giftig_ (poisonous).”

I stuck to the opinion that the snake would have died in its hole--the

wish being father to the thought--for I was half dead with thirst. But

it needed no canful of water to show that I was wrong, for the stench

that rose from that pit was too awful for words, and I could not face

it long enough even to peer down. But Gert told me that the bloated

body of the big snake lay almost wholly in the water, of which, by a

strange irony of fate, there was quite a large pool in the pit, enough,

had it been drinkable, to have satisfied not only ourselves, but the

oxen. So that the puff-adder had a grim revenge for van Reenen’s

bullet. There was no water whatever in the other pit, and there was

nothing to do but to struggle through to the waggon, which we did by

abandoning the cart and with the loss of two of the oxen _en route_.

We found t’samma there almost exhausted, and a day or two afterwards

were forced to retreat again to the Molopo.

Here, after revelling a day or two in good water, we separated,

van Reenen and Telfer to enter the Reserve still farther south,

whilst I made an attempt to reach the far north-eastern pan known as

“Wolverdanse,” where emeralds were supposed to exist, and which Telfer

had searched for in vain. From the heights of a pan known as “Kei

Koorabie,” which we had reached on our last trip, John the Bastard had

pointed out this “emerald pan” on the far horizon to the north, a long

blue ridge of a very distinctive shape; but we had realised that the

only way to reach it was by striking south from the Kuruman River.

[Illustration: TEACHING CAMELS TO EAT T’SAMMA.]

[Illustration: BUSHMAN AT BOOMPLAATS, SOUTHERN KALAHARI.

With native musical instrument.]

I had therefore arranged with a camel police trooper, when on his next

patrol in that direction, to give me a lift as far as Tilrey Pan, which

is the extreme eastern limit of the patrol, and which is very rarely

visited even by them.

The meeting-place was to be at a small group of pans known as “Drieling

Pannen” (Triplet Pans), a few hours’ journey east of the Molopo and

south of the Kuruman, but where I had never been. I was told to

bring nothing but what I stood in, not even a rifle; but this latter

stipulation I did not carry out, as I could not quite risk ten days in

the desert without it, and before the camels reached me I had come to

be thankful I had brought it! I left Molopo at a spot called Lentland’s

Pan one Sunday afternoon, alone, finding myself in an abundant grass

country, through which an old waggon track still showed, though no

vehicle appeared to have passed there for years, and by sunset had

reached what I supposed to be the pan; but naturally there was no one

to ask, and I had an uncomfortable feeling that the road had misled

me, and that I might be at the wrong spot. The pan was small and was

literally covered with a big flock of _paauw_, which cleared at my

approach. There was mud enough, but no water, and I foresaw a thirsty

walk back should it be the wrong spot and the camels fail to turn up.

I found that there was a big pack of wild hunting-dogs in the vicinity,

for their fresh spoor lay everywhere, and I was glad I had brought

the rifle. Somehow the conviction gained upon me that I was in the

wrong place, and as night was approaching, I set about making a small

_scherm_ and gathering wood for a fire. There was very little near

the pan, but on the crest of some high dunes near I saw some big dead

stumps, and as I should need a fire all night, I went to try and get

them. The biggest one was very firmly rooted, and in my efforts to

uproot it, I fell and sprained my ankle so severely that I was hard

put to it to get back to the _scherm_. I immediately realised that,

should this prove to be the wrong rendezvous, I would be in rather a

serious predicament. I had only a little water and a piece of biltong,

and although I had walked from the Molopo in an afternoon, it would

take me two days to drag myself out with a badly-sprained ankle.

The sun was setting, and there was no sign of the camels, but as I

looked across the pan, I saw a dog come down over the dune to the edge

of it.

“Hooray!” I said to myself. “Police dog.” And I whistled to it,

expecting the camels to be just behind it. It stood looking at me from

about a distance of a hundred yards, a tall brindled thing almost the

size of a mastiff, but with a queer long neck, and as I looked others

followed it till nine of them stood there looking at me--a pack of wild

dogs. If ever man was thankful for a rifle it was I, at that moment,

for though they seldom attack an armed man, they seem to have an

uncanny sense which tells them when a man is maimed or without weapons,

and have torn many a helpless traveller to pieces.

I fired a shot at them immediately, and they made off for a time,

but by dark they were back again, apparently with reinforcements. I

had only a tiny fire which would certainly not last all night, and

altogether I did not exactly fancy my chances. However, an occasional

shot kept them from rushing me, and about eleven o’clock, just as

the moon rose and I could see them plainly, to my intense relief a

rifle-shot answered my own, and my friend the trooper and his Bushman

with two camels came upon the scene, and the dogs vanished.

Next day we turned eastward, passing a number of pans I had not seen,

and entering a region where t’samma was now abundant. Here the dunes

were so steep and high that they resembled huge walls of sand set close

together, and crossing them on camel-back was a thing to be remembered.

The camel is a bad climber, and after tediously toiling up the steep

slopes diagonally, and with a gait like a mule with the staggers,

my mount would make up for it by taking giant plunging strides down

the other side at a frantic pace, each one of which would threaten to

throw me over the next dune, like a stone from a sling. It is not only

the great height of the perch on a camel’s back that causes such a

feeling of insecurity, but rather the want of a sturdy crest like that

of a horse in front of one to cling to in case of need. With the camel

the place of the maned crest is taken by an aching void, a deep gap

falling away from the pommel, on the far side of which, and at a great

distance, rises the long, sinuous neck, apparently quite detached from

the animal you are riding on, and the thin reins, made fast to little

pegs in the nostril, have to be used so lightly that it is no uncommon

occurrence for the camel to turn his supercilious face right round and

gaze into your own, emitting a veritable “breath of the tombs” into

your face as he does so.

Altogether camel-riding in the dunes is a queer experience: at the

same time it enables one to be free of the haunting anxiety of thirst,

and to reach spots otherwise unapproachable. Unfortunately, my mount

met with a misadventure when but two days out, as in trotting along

a narrow _straat_ between the dunes, which were here waist-deep in

magnificent grasses, he put his foot into a hidden ant-bear hole

and came down, throwing me almost out of the Kalahari. Luckily--in

a way--he was too lame to run away, and when I succeeded in getting

my head out of the sand he was still there. As the other camel was

several dunes ahead, my friend the trooper saw nothing of my having

dismounted, and kept on; so that I had to walk the whole day and

lead the lame camel, who groaned and grunted in a most astonishing

manner the whole time. To enable the animal to rest and replenish our

water-tanks we turned towards a place in the Kuruman River known as

“Visch-gat” (Fish-hole), where there was usually water, but in this

case our luck was dead out. The pit was about 20 feet deep, sunk in

hard shale, and there was plenty of water, but it was quite putrid

and undrinkable even for the camels. A bucketful that I drew was full

of the decomposed fragments of small birds--bones, feathers, etc.--and

there were a number of them still fluttering around the surface of the

water, apparently too stupid to fly straight up and regain the open

air. A contributory cause to this phenomenon may have been the owl that

sat in a little niche about half-way down, screwing his head round and

blinking up at us as we peered down. We had to stay here three days

till the camel was fit to carry me again, and as time hung very heavily

on our hands, we rigged up a wire noose on the end of a branch and

fished for the owl in turns, making bets as to the time it took to hook

him and haul him out. Each time we succeeded, he flew wildly round in

the glaring sun for a minute, and came right back to the pit.

There were traces of Bushmen in the vicinity, and it transpired there

were ladies amongst them, with the result that our police-boy was

always stealing away, and had to be remonstrated with in the usual

manner. Two days later, when we were deep in the dunes near Tilrey Pan,

he retaliated by deserting, and leaving us to tend the camels ourselves.

This region was a vast grass-field, in which gemsbok swarmed in numbers

incredible, troops of five and six hundred together being met with

every day. Ostriches were also very abundant, but the short-legged

variety which I had heard rumours of as existing in this part of the

country was conspicuous by its absence. None of the pans contained

any water, though many of them were still full of wet mud, stirred

and trampled up by the herds of gemsbok, who appear to have a great

partiality for the cool mud, though it is doubtful if they ever

drink. I also noticed in this country that the duiker--which was also

extremely abundant--appeared to be a much larger variety than usual,

beside being of a bright rufous colour, and the female as well as the

male being horned.

There were signs of the destruction caused by the extremely numerous

feræ: half-eaten bodies of the smaller buck, and also of young gemsbok,

being found in great abundance amongst the dunes. On several occasions

we came across tiny gemsbok kids, apparently only a week or two old,

lying in the dunes at some distance from the old ones, but, although so

young, capable of travelling at a great pace.

We were soon short of water, but as t’samma was now abundant, we were

not worried on our own account. Unfortunately, however, the camels were

recent importations from Arabia, and unused to them, and at the end

of a week they were beginning to feel the thirst. As we had seen rain

falling south of us, we turned in that direction, and one evening came

into dunes where the vegetation was still drenched with heavy rain.

Here, to our joy, we at length found an open space with a small pan

full of water. The camels grunted and chuckled, and shuffled towards

it eagerly, and we promised ourselves a good long drink, and plenty of

coffee, and a bath! We got the last, but not the others.

The water, freshly fallen as it was, was salt as brine and of a

horribly putrid taste, and quite undrinkable even for the camels.

We were a long way from any other water, and it began to look serious,

for they would not touch the t’samma. At length, however, we hit upon

a plan which kept them alive and allowed us to search a little longer.

Making them “koos” (kneel, which they are taught to do at the word of

command), we cut up a big waterproof sheetful of the melons, crushed

them into a pulp, and actually ladled it into their mouths; and once

having got a taste of it, we found they would eat it when prepared in

this manner, though these particular camels would never touch the fruit

as it grew.

But, search as we would, “Wolverdanse,” the pan of the “bright green

stones,” eluded us. Pans in the vicinity were many, and the peculiarly

shaped dune we had seen from the far south was not recognisable from

these new aspects.

My good friend the trooper had also to return within a certain period,

and so we had at length reluctantly to turn towards Aar Pan, where I

was to be dropped to find my way south to rejoin my comrades.

As the camels, as yet unused to their new substitute for water, were

still suffering from thirst, we trekked through the night as we neared

the big pan, for I was now on ground I knew, and able to steer an

accurate course. Crossing the pan in the dark, we found no rain had

fallen there, and we off-saddled in the western dunes, anxious for the

morning to get on again, for the camels were now in a bad plight, and

had still a long day’s journey before them before they could drink.

Usually they were hobbled with huge straps and chains before letting

them loose to graze, but this night my friend said, “Let ’em loose

to-night; they’re too tired to go far.” We slept like logs, and in the

morning the camels had gone! We made tracks for the highest dune--no

sign of them. Then we separated and made for two other dunes. Still no

sign. At last we circled to cut the spoors, and found they led north.

After an hour’s running and walking, and with the spoor still making

north, we stopped for breath.

I said, “They’re making for Witdraai!”

He said, “Not they. They’re making for Arabia!”

At last, when I had given up all hope of catching them south of the

Equator, the spoor turned off at right-angles, and after a few more

dunes, turned directly back towards the camping-place of last night,

where we found them quietly feeding within a hundred yards of their

saddles, just hidden from our sleeping-place by a small dune.

A few hours from Aar Pan my good Samaritan dropped me, and turned

towards his camp with the two camels, having done everything in his

power to help me, and acting the man and the sportsman in every way.

[Illustration: THE HUGE NESTS OF THE “SOCIAL BIRDS.”

These birds, although only the size of sparrows, build in colonies, and

the resultant nests are often so huge that the limbs break with their

weight.]

I was more than sorry to lose his cheery company, and toiled on through

the terrible loneliness of the dunes, feeling rather down in the mouth.

I had about six hours’ walk before me, and knew the route, and there

was no hurry, so, finding a few t’samma, I sat down and ate some and

chewed a bit of biltong. Now, for a long time I had been on the lookout

for a variety of “truffle” which grows in the Kalahari after rain,

and which not only the Bushmen eat, but which white people esteem a

great delicacy. It is called by the Bushmen name _naba_, and though

I had never seen it, I had often had it described to me. It does not

appear above ground at all, but is detected by a slight swelling and

cracking of the soil under which it is growing. Enthusiastic friends

had told me that it was not only a true truffle, but that it knocked

spots off anything ever produced in Perigord. Well, as I sat in the

dunes munching t’samma and biltong of the consistency of an old boot,

and thinking of all the nice things I would have when once I got into a

town again, I noticed that the earth quite close to me had several of

these little, gentle swellings, and, scraping away the sand, I found

about half a dozen little fungi about the size of a small potato--which

could be nothing but _naba_. I had no means of cooking them then, and

put them in my haversack, resolving to test them the moment I reached

a frying-pan. However, about an hour later, still trudging along, I

took one out to have a better look at it. It certainly smelt nice, just

like a young, fresh button mushroom. Perhaps it would be nice raw? I

nibbled a bit--it was! So I ate it, and two others followed.... I got

no farther, for quite suddenly the dunes began to spin round, a deadly

nausea seized me, and I realised that I had been poisoned. There was

nothing to be done--I could not even find a t’samma to eat, and within

a few yards the Kalahari seemed to get up and smite me violently, and

down I went, the whole universe swaying round me in a most unpleasant

manner.

However, after about an hour of excitement I got the better of it, and

was able to walk again, though I felt like a chewed rag, and did not

get out of the desert and into the old Molopo till well after dark. I

have tasted _naba_ since then, and enjoyed it--but cooked!

Turning south, I plodded on till about nine, when a tiny glimmer told

me that I was again in the vicinity of human beings. It proved to be

a canvas _huis_ about 10 feet square, in which were living two white

men, a woman, and several children. They were smoking and drinking

coffee when I turned up out of the desert half dead with fatigue, but

they made no offer of the coffee (usually proffered even by the least

hospitable in these lonely regions), and I had to ask for water twice

before I got a cup of even that. They wanted to know whether I had

found diamonds, however, but feeling hipped at their boorishness, I

said “Good night” and walked about another hour, when I struck a tiny

border farm called “Wit Puts,” belonging to a Boer named Engelbrecht,

where I found an elderly man and a youth still awake and reading the

Bible aloud. Here I was given a very kind reception, plenty of real

bread and warm milk, and for the first time for months slept under a

roof.

I could get no horse, however, and the next day had to walk on to

Witkop, a distance of nearly thirty miles, to rejoin my companions,

who, I heard, were anxiously awaiting me, as I was some days overdue. I

did not get in till almost midnight, thoroughly knocked up.

Our time was now getting short, and we had still a great desire to

reach a pan in the southern portion of the Reserve, where several

diamonds had been picked up, so after a bare breathing-space, we again

turned into the desert at a place called “Zwart Puts,” this time with

a strong Scotch cart and eight oxen, and two Bastards who knew the

district. Two days’ trek eastward we struck both t’samma in abundance,

and most steep and difficult dunes, amongst which we came upon a small

tribe of Bushmen, who had not time to get out of our way. Their tiny

shelters of branches were extremely rudimentary, mere windbreaks

without roof, and they had seen no water for over eight weeks, living

entirely upon the abundant t’samma, roasting it for water, mixing

its pulp with the blood of animals as a tit-bit, grinding the dried

pips between two stones and making a most palatable meal of them, or

parching them in the fire first, and making a beverage not unlike

coffee. With the exception of a very highly prized and badly battered

old oil-can, their utensils were all of earthenware made by themselves,

their arrow-heads were of chipped flint and agate, and their t’samma

knives of the hard, ivory-like shin-bone of the ostrich.

They had digging-sticks of fire-hardened wood, near the point of

which was fixed the _kiwe_, a heavy, rounded, perforated stone, of

which I had often seen specimens in museums, and had myself found in

shell middens along the beach near Cape Voltas, but had never before

seen in actual use.

The men spent a good deal of their time in hunting, which they did

principally by pursuing the quarry--jackal, wild-cat, and especially

the _rooi kat_ (lynx)--till they got it surrounded or “cornered,” and

killing it with knobkerries. They “bray” these skins to perfection,

using the fat of the animal, and rubbing and working it into the hide

till it becomes as soft as silk. These skins they bartered eagerly

for tobacco or coffee, for either of which they have an inordinate

liking. They are the most omniverous of beings, for not only do they

eat the flesh of every animal they kill, cats, jackals, and baboons

not excepted, but lizards, locusts, ants’ eggs, larvæ, and carrion and

insects of the most loathsome description.

I have already referred to their stone implements, etc., and indeed so

little was metal of any kind used by them that they might be classed as

a survival of the Palæolithic Age.

Except for our meeting with these primitive sons of the desert, this

latter part of our trip in the Kalahari was tame and uninteresting.

T’samma was plentiful, and we moved from pan to pan in comparative

comfort, finding several spots where a species of Kimberlite was

exposed directly beneath the superficial mud or sand of the surface,

and at least one incontestable “pipe,” where the “blue ground” was

almost identical with that of the “Premier Mine.” But we were never

able to obtain water for the proper testing of these possibly rich

mines, and before we left the Reserve had arrived at the conclusion

that, if ever such a test was made, the first step towards it would

have to be the opening of a water-route. This would entail no very

great expense, as there are numerous places in the desert where water

undoubtedly exists at no very great depth below the surface, and a

series of boreholes would be almost certain to produce a plentiful

supply. Indeed, these Kimberlite occurrences, either pipes or fissures,

would themselves provide the likeliest place for such boring, as it

has long been a recognised fact that shafts sunk in them rarely fail

to obtain satisfactory supplies. Up to the very last day in the desert

we had strong hopes of being able to bring out diamonds wherewith to

prove that ours had been no wild-goose chase, but unfortunately this

luck was denied us. At the same time, so good were the samples of

Kimberlite we had obtained in more than one spot, and so convincing our

photographs and other data as to these spots being undoubted pipes,

that we considered our “proof” as required by the Government amply

sufficient to allow us further facilities; and with the knowledge

that finances would be readily forthcoming for the opening up of a

water-route such as we intended suggesting, we came out of the Reserve

at the end of our time considering that we were made men. We were

ragged, burnt to the colour and consistency of biltong, our boots

patched and cobbled with _voorslag_ past all reasonable belief, half

our teeth gone through living on t’samma (its worst effect), and

altogether as desperate-looking a gang of tramps as ever graced the

north-west border; but we were happy, for there was going to be an end

of poverty--we had found the pipes!

Moreover we had thousands of feet of entirely novel bioscope films--the

Great Falls of the Orange, the actual pans in the heart of the desert,

Bushmen hunting, dancing, preparing t’samma; the huge nests of the

“social bird” with their swarming inhabitants: in short, enough new

“pictures” alone to repay us for the trip, even without the diamonds.

For not one of the party was pessimistic enough to imagine for a moment

either that the Government would refuse to allow us a chance of opening

up a water-route to the pipes, or that the intense heat of the desert

had--in spite of all precautions--utterly spoilt every foot of our

films.

CHAPTER XVIII

TRIP IN SEARCH OF “EMERALD VALLEY”--FEVER AND FAILURE--BACK TO

GORDONIA--SECOND TRIP TO BAK RIVER--“SOME GUN!”--THE PACK-COW--SURLY

NATIVES--“ROUGHING IT.”

One of our greatest disappointments in the Kalahari had been our

failure to reach the pan of “bright green stones,” which we believed to

be emeralds, and when on my return to Cape Town I found a man awaiting

me who claimed to have found a rich deposit of them in Portuguese East

Africa, I decided to fill in the time of waiting the Government’s

decision as to my desert discoveries by making a dash for “Emerald

Valley.”

Rumour as to the existence of this valley has for many years been

current amongst prospectors and mining men in the Barberton district,

and many a man has heard the tale in Johannesburg. It is alleged

that a party of Boers, hunting on the Portuguese side of the Lebombo

Mountains, which form the boundary between Portuguese territory and the

North-Eastern Transvaal, came upon some ancient workings which they

failed to penetrate, owing to noxious gas; but that at the mouth of one

they found skeletons, and with the bones a small skin bag full of rough

emeralds. They got away with the stones, which fetched a large sum in

Europe, but for some unexplained reason were never able to reach the

spot again.

My merchant, who had a small rough emerald to help his tale, claimed to

have found the spot again, and wanted to make a dash for it from the

Transvaal side of the Sabi Game Reserve; but as it was in Portuguese

territory, I would only undertake the trip with a proper licence

from the Portuguese. As the upshot of negotiations, within a month

of leaving the desert I was on my way to Delagoa Bay, accompanied by

Telfer, another white miner from Johannesburg, and the “discoverer.”

We had been prepared for a certain amount of delay, as all must expect

in dealing with Portuguese officials, but it was only after three most

exasperating months of expense and waiting that we eventually crossed

the Incomati River, a fully equipped expedition, armed with a “Special

Mining Licence” and all the necessary permits for carrying out our

purpose. And two months later three of us staggered out of the swamps

more dead than alive, the fourth, the “discoverer,” having utterly

failed us early in the search, and having made his way back into

British territory after a terrific carousal, and when he found there

would be no more liquor as long as he remained with us.

We had been some months too late, and the rains had caught us in the

swamps, whence native women eventually carried out the remnants of our

once fine equipment. We were full of fever, bitten nearly to death by

the swarms of mosquitoes, and practically penniless; and altogether

the trip was one long disaster. Yet, though the man who took us there

was a drunkard and utterly unreliable, I still believe that there was

some foundation for his tale, and that “Emerald Valley” may yet make

the fortune of a better planned and luckier expedition. Telfer, who had

had a rough time in the Kalahari, collapsed with fever as soon as we

reached Delagoa, and had to remain there. Shadford, my other companion,

and I got back to Johannesburg, where he developed blackwater fever,

and lay in a hotel for days in a desperate state, whilst I tramped from

office to office in an attempt to raise the necessary finances for the

opening of a water-route to the Kalahari pans--when once Government had

made up its mind to allow of such a thing!

Meanwhile I found a large accumulation of letters awaiting me--several

of them months old--and amongst them a number urging me to return to

Upington, where several options on supposed diamond properties were now

obtainable. More, a wire reporting my return from Portuguese territory

elicited the news that a new and reliable guide to “Brydone’s diamonds”

had materialised at Upington, and that if I did not secure him pretty

quick, others would do so, and “jump” the rich mine near the Bak River,

for which I had already had a try (see Chapter XII).

Altogether there were a good many reasons why a rapid return to the

vicinity of the Kalahari was desirable, for in spite of the delay in

obtaining the fruit of our desert trip, we could not conceive that we

should eventually be “turned down” by the Government. Ministers and

Secretaries were away stumping or holiday-making, and I could not wait

in Johannesburg till their return. I had obtained the promise of the

requisite finances for the water-route when the time came; meanwhile,

however, it would be better not to neglect new opportunities, and,

thanks to the help of certain staunch friends, I was soon on my way

once more to the region of sand and t’samma.

This was on November 1st, 1913. Ever since early in June I had been

living a life of constant worry, anxiety, and hardship which had made

me look back with regret to those lonely dunes of the Kalahari, where

at least there were no crocodiles, few mosquitoes, and less fever, and

where the absence of water seemed rather an advantage when fresh from

the sodden, steaming marshes of the Incomati and Lebombo.

Telfer was still down with fever at Delagoa Bay, and Shadford, a wreck

of the strong man he had been, in a like case in Johannesburg, whilst

even I, fever-salted as I had considered myself, had turned yellow

to the whites of my eyes, shook periodically with fits of ague that

threatened to lose me all the teeth the t’samma had left, and had to

live principally on quinine. A week later I was back in Gordonia,

where the dry air and glorious sunshine of the finest climate in the

world soon drove away the effect of the “emerald picnic.”

At Upington I found that the “guide” who claimed to know the way to the

cave and hollow mountain of Brydone’s story near the Bak River was a

certain trooper in the C.M.P. named Trollip, a gigantic chap of about 6

ft. 3 ins., who had been through the country in question at the latter

end of the Hottentot rebellion. Trekking back from German territory, he

had passed through a celebrated gorge known as “Oorlogs Kloof” (Battle

Kloof), and thence through the wild hills I have described in Chapter

XII, and a Hottentot guide had pointed out a certain mountain as being

the place “where the diamonds were.”

This was by no means the precise information I had been led to expect

from the wires and letters I had received; still, I was convinced that

I had been hot upon the trail on my previous trip, and jumped at the

chance of following up this additional clue.

The native who had showed Trollip the spot could not be found, though

we rode over half Gordonia looking for him, but a Bastard who had been

also one of the party with Trollip in the mountains was induced to

accompany us; and, the police trooper himself having obtained leave of

absence, on November 22nd I again set out for the Great Falls and the

German Border.

In addition to Trollip and the Bastard (Carl van Rooy by name), I had

with me a young half-breed Hottentot named Gert, who had been with

me in the Kalahari, and a friend from Upington named Ford-Smith, who

wanted to see the Falls, try a new-fangled American repeating shot-gun,

which acted like a pump and was almost as elegant, and incidentally

bring back a few diamonds himself.

By a variety of conveyances, horses, Cape cart, ox-cart, etc., we

got to the Great Falls, which I looked at with more interest than

ever since I had heard that the Union Government intended utilising

their enormous power in the near future. We stayed a day near the

Great Cataract, partly to further explore its terrific gorges, and

partly because our horses had got away in the night and gone into

the mountains to look for grass, and whilst waiting for them, Carl,

the guide, gave us an exhibition of fancy shooting which I would not

have missed for anything. He first of all asked me if I had Martini

cartridges, which I had. He then produced from the bottom of the cart

the weirdest weapon I have ever seen, which is saying a good deal;

for in this wild part of South Africa it is no uncommon thing to find

rifles and guns of ancient make that, having been broken and patched

and cobbled with raw hide, nails, tacks, wire, and solder, in the most

extraordinary manner, are yet capable of doing excellent work in the

hands of their owners, who know their little peculiarities.

But van Rooy’s was the limit! It had been a Martini, one of the old,

long, straight-stocked ones, that kick like a mule; but one day it had

fallen off a waggon and a wheel had passed over it, breaking the stock

and bending the barrel almost double. Thrown away as beyond repair, it

had been rescued by Carl, who had long coveted a rifle (as every man

on the Border does), and who had determined to repair it. The stock he

had carved from an old ox-yoke, and the barrel was fastened to it with

a combination of all the home-made devices mentioned above; but the

crowning feat had been the straightening of the barrel, which he had

accomplished by making it red-hot and hammering it.

The result was startling, for not only was it battered and dented badly

by the hammer, but the foresight was a good eighth of an inch out of

alignment with the back; in fact it curved to such an extent that it

suggested an attempt at a weapon designed to shoot round corners.

I could not conceive that anyone would have the temerity to try and

shoot with it, but Carl was immediately on his dignity when I said

so, and wanted to know what was the matter with his gun. He said,

moreover, that the hills were full of _tijgers_, and unless he could

have cartridges for that gun he wouldn’t go a step farther; moreover

he wanted some practice, as he had rarely tried the gun since he

“straightened” it.

It appeared like aiding and abetting suicide, but at last I gave him

them, and we scattered for cover, whilst he lay down and let her go.

There was a most terrific bang, and I wondered what the coroner would

say, but Carl was still there, though at least three yards back from

where he had first fired, rubbing his shoulder thoughtfully. But he

was no funk, and with half a dozen shots had found out what allowance

to make for the kink, and could hit a bottle at a hundred yards. And

Ford-Smith, himself a “weapon fancier,” and usually festooned with all

sorts of weird shooting-irons, thereupon recognised him as a kindred

spirit, and was soon swapping shooting yarns with this valiant gunner.

He told Smith, if I remember rightly, that at a hundred yards he had

to aim two yards to the right and two feet below the object, and I

wondered how he would figure it out if a leopard charged him from a

quarter that distance!

Next day, at Wag Brand, we had again to abandon our carts, packing

sheer necessities upon two of the horses, and carrying a heavy load

ourselves as we pushed forward along the pathless and precipitous

slopes of the gorge, through which ran the Orange, and scarcely

expecting to get the horses through. Within a few hundred yards of the

start we had already come to grief, though luckily the accident was

more ludicrous than serious.

For in negotiating a granite shoulder smoothly sloping into the water,

the old white horse that was leading missed his footing, scrambled

wildly as though on skates, reared up and fell with a terrible splash

into the muddy water. His pack had been roped on with a long coil of

Manila, and in his frantic struggles this came loose and he was soon

tangled up like a fish in a net, and it looked like losing both him and

our precious pack. I jumped in with a knife and slashed his pack away,

and we got both out farther down. And then we stood and laughed till

the baboons came out on the rocky peaks and hooted us, for the poor old

horse was the most ridiculous-looking object imaginable. He had been

white before he fell in, now he looked like an equine rainbow.

Part of his multitudinous load had been a bag of yellow sugar from

Upington. I do not pretend to know what it was dyed with, or why it

should have been dyed at all, but all one side of him was a deep

mustard yellow; a box of permanganate of potash crystals had tinted

most of the rest of him from rose pink to deep purple; and a ball

of washing-blue, which the only fastidious member of the party had

brought, to be able to wash his shirts a nice colour, had completed the

picture.

Of course a good deal of our scanty stores were utterly spoiled, and

it meant short commons for the trip, but we were lucky to have saved

anything, and were thankful for small mercies.

With great caution we successfully negotiated the rest of the bad

places, and came to the mouth of the Molopo, whence the going was easy.

Lower down, by a lovely stretch of placid water, and opposite the huge

red mountain known as “Zee-coe-stuk,” we found a number of Hottentots

and _Beeste Damaras_ with sheep, goats, and cattle, which Trollip

shrewdly suspected had been stolen, for the few natives amongst these

wild hills are vagrants and thieves, mostly descendants of the old

free-booters who made this part of the Orange their fastness during

the last century, or fugitives from justice. They were surly and

suspicious, and would undoubtedly have liked to plunder the lot of us,

but we were all well armed, and when they saw the quick-firing section

and heavy artillery of Smith and Carl, they became quite civil. From

them we succeeded in hiring a pack-cow, which lightened our load

considerably, the old dear trotting along ahead of us in the most

willing manner, climbing like a cat over rocks and stones, and with a

half-grown calf running behind her.

[Illustration: A BREAKDOWN ON THE ROAD FROM PRIESKA.

Showing washing-machine, sieves, stores, etc. Note the canvas

water-bag.]

[Illustration: WASHING FOR DIAMONDS AT THE BASE OF THE ESCARPMENT AT

NAKOB.

The rotary washing-machine is in the background.]

A day later we were in the deep gorge of the Bak River, where we

succeeded in getting both horses and cow to our old camping-place of

Chapter XII. Apparently no human foot had trod those wild ravines

since last I had been there with Paul and Borcherds, though higher up,

where the German patrol-path crossed into our territory, there were

signs that these gentlemen visited this remote part of the border more

frequently than of yore. And the very next day we saw two troopers

cross the ridge a mile or so away from us, and a tiny watch-fire in

the mountains that night made us surmise that we had been seen, and

that Hottentot police trackers had been left to watch us. So we did our

searching with great circumspection, though we had often to penetrate

German territory for some distance.

It soon became evident that neither van Rooy nor Trollip knew as much

about the region as I did myself, and the only result of bringing them

was to have a mountain pointed out that the other native had said that

he had heard was the place where the diamonds were to be found (for

here on the spot the precise information of both of them boiled down to

that extent), and the identification of a huge gorge leading north-west

into German territory as the famous “Oorlogs Kloof” of which I had

heard so much.

Meanwhile, I acknowledge, both men made up for lack of knowledge

by willingness to be of assistance, and from daylight till dark we

clambered precipitous peaks, groped in caves and cañons, sifted the

sand of gullies and gorges, till our hands were torn almost as badly

as our boots and clothes. But still the place we sought could not be

found, although there was proof forthcoming that somewhere in the

vicinity pipe Kimberlite existed. The complexity of the ravines,

and the sand-choked nature of many, made the following-up of these

indications extremely tedious work, especially as many of the ravines

led into German territory, and we had to keep a sharp lookout in case

we were observed. My friend Smith, whose feet gave in after a few

excursions, usually stayed about the camp with a gun handy; for one

day, when he had accompanied us along a sandy ravine for some distance,

he found, in turning back, that a big leopard spoor had covered his own

for most of the distance, the wily animal having evidently followed

him, barely keeping out of sight! By the number of spoors in some of

the ravines, the place fully merits its reputation for these _tijgers_,

who are, however, so wily, and whose tawny coats harmonise so well with

the red and yellow sandstone and deep shadow of the rocks, that, when

standing motionless even a short distance away, it is almost impossible

to see them till they move. We were well off for water, but soon ran

short of supplies, and lived principally on klip-springer and rock

rabbits (dassies).

At last Trollip’s leave was up and he had to return, and with him

went Ford-Smith and Carl, leaving the boy Gert and myself alone. As

the horses went with them we sent most of our heavy stuff back, and

retained the barest necessities: but with rifles, water, and a box

of matches we were perfectly independent of everybody. And then the

search really began, for we were both far more active than the men who

had left us, willing as they had been, and we worked northward into

what had once been tributary streams for long distances, until I had

proof positive that at no very great distance higher up a diamond pipe,

probably a whole group of pipes, did exist.

Whether the “long arm of coincidence” alone was responsible for the

writer Brydone having placed a rich mine in these hills many years

before, or whether, as I still believe, the yarn had been founded upon

an actual happening, I still cannot say; but I repeat there was now no

doubt that in the near vicinity there was a mine.

We were not sure whether it would prove to be on British territory or

German; certainly, however, it would be perilously near dwellings and

on private property, and could only be searched for and located by a

further expedition having permission to search such private lands.

When we arrived at this conclusion we were absolutely at the end of our

stores, a small tin of Symington’s Pea Flour, a pot of jam, and two

tins of sardines being all that was left of the edibles. However, there

were rope, tools, pots, and various gear, and Gert left me to go back

to the Hottentots up the river, to bring back the pack-cow that had

brought us there.

He brought it back a day or two later with the owner, who was surly

when he found our tobacco and coffee were finished, and who wanted to

clear off again and leave us to hump the things ourselves. However,

he was “persuaded” not to do so, our things were packed on the cow,

and we started our long walk back. My boots were literally in shreds,

and my feet badly cut and bleeding, and as nearly the whole of the

journey was over sharp rocks, I was in a terrible state by the time

I got to “Zee-coe-stuk,” where the Hottentots’ encampment was. These

people were now insolent to a degree; they demanded tobacco and coffee,

and would not believe we had none. Gert showed them our kit, and the

cow was unpacked and led away to rest and feed, but they were still

derisive, and as there were a round dozen of them, and we were two, it

looked as though there might be trouble. We were on a high, well-wooded

bank, above a very deep part of the river, and Gert (who of course

spoke Hottentot) said that they were openly discussing rushing us, and

throwing us into the turbulent, rushing torrent. On the opposite bank,

on the lower slopes of the mountain, which came almost sheer into the

water, were a troop of big baboons, and this gave me an idea which

probably saved bloodshed.

They--the baboons--were about 300 yards away, four of them on a big

rock at the edge of the water, and I gave them a magazineful in rapid

succession. The second shot hit the rock in the centre of the group,

and, “mushrooming,” flew into flinders, which knocked all four of

the big _baviaans_ into the river, but I sent the remaining bullets

amongst the others higher up, just for effect. I got the effect all

right, for turning, I saw Gert, who had my short Martini carbine and

was watching the Hottentots, almost doubled up with laughter, and the

Hottentots running towards the rocks as fast as their legs would carry

them. And in the rocks they stayed, and when the hour came for us to

trek, there was neither Hottentot nor pack-cow. Gert went and parleyed

with the women in the _pondhoeks_, but they could do nothing except

demand coffee and _tabaki_, and the gentlemen up in the rocks evidently

thought they had the whip hand, as we could go no farther without the

cow. I got Gert to shout to them that if the cow was not brought back,

we would go, and they merely laughed, doubtless thinking that the pack

we should have to abandon would fall into their thieving hands. But

I was determined otherwise. We made all essentials into two packets

of about 60 lb. each, principally samples of ammunition and expensive

prospecting gear, and the pots, tools, cords, and heavy impedimenta we

very reluctantly but determinedly flung into the water.

As we were hidden by the thick trees, this procedure could not be seen

by the Hottentots, and humping the remainder of our gear, we stole

quietly away.

I suppose, with our rifles, etc., we had each about 60 lb. only, but

the heat was very great, the silt beside the river, where our path

lay, was heavy and intersected by numerous gullies, and within an hour

I was quite prepared to throw the remainder into the Orange; but just

as I had put the load down for about the twentieth time we heard a

shout, and the old cow came lumbering along with several of our late

friends behind it. I ordered them back, except the driver, and as they

saw me ram a magazineful of cartridges into my Mannlicher, they again

performed “Home to the Mountains.”

The rest of that day I walked as I had never walked before,

occasionally tearing up a fresh strip from my scanty garments to bind

afresh my feet, which were jagged and torn by sharp stones and pricked

with thorns till every step was anguish. By night we were at Wag Brand,

the old cow having made light of the bad rocks where our old horse had

fallen in on the outward journey.

We had hoped to find a few natives here, but the _pondhoek_ was empty,

and we could not even borrow a pot to make a little mealie pap from

the tiny remainder of our meal and pea-flour. We made a few cakes on

the embers, and slept like logs. In the morning we were desperately

hungry, and though we had set night-lines, there were no fish on them.

We could hear guinea-fowl and pheasant calling everywhere in the dense

wood, but could not see them. At last Gert put a bullet through a

pheasant, blowing it to bits, which we managed to roast on the embers,

and a very tough _hors-d’œuvre_ it proved. The Hottentot demanded

food--not without reason; and on our telling him he would get some

at Waterfal that night, if there happened to be any people there, he

demanded his money and proposed returning. He had had more than his

share of the pheasant, including the liver wing, and as I did not wish

to be unjust, I gave him the only handful of meal left. This left me

with about a tea-cup of pea-flour and a fragment of rusty bacon about

2 inches square to last us two days’ hard trek to Miller’s store at

North Furrow, Kakamas, should we fail to shoot anything _en route_. But

that Hottentot was a perfect Oliver Twist. He made _asch-kook_ of the

meal and devoured it, whilst we sat and partook of the smell. And then

he demanded more! I told him to pack the cow and trek, and if he were

lucky he would get something at Waterfal that night. Then, being full

of good hot meal, he got cheeky and thrust his Mongol face in mine in a

way that could have but one ending. So I knocked him down, three times

to be exact, whereupon he became most cheerful, and drove the old cow

towards the Great Falls in fine style. We were there by sunset, and I

took the boy Gert to see the Cataract, being a bit dubious of the first

stream, but traversing it quite safely. The Great Fall itself was more

awe-inspiring than ever at sunset, and Gert was so impressed that I had

great difficulty in getting him to cross the stream on our way back--he

could not swim.

There was not a soul at the Falls, and we could shoot nothing, and

short as was the distance, what with the heat and the state of my feet,

it took us all next day to get to the store at Krantz Kop, Kakamas

North Furrow. We had an alleged meal at midday by the river, where

Gert caught a small barbel the size of a herring. It was full of bones

and tasted vilely, but with the aid of the pea-flour, and the bacon

frizzled on a prospecting shovel, we ate it, bones and all.

We got to the store in the evening. I was literally in rags, and with

barely enough of my _veldtschoen_ uppers left to hold together the

blood-stained rags on my feet.

At the store I found friends, the magistrate, bank manager, and lawyer

from Upington, who were on their way to the Great Falls; though I still

believe they had a sneaking idea of making a desperate dash into the

Noup Hills themselves to try and get hold of my mine!

Anyhow, there they were, prepared for “roughing it” in great style.

They had a waggon crammed with provisions, on the top of which they

had stretched several mattresses and at least one feather-bed.

They had several riding-horses as well, and the capacious vehicle

was overflowing with every kind of eatable and drinkable. They had

immaculate white suits and big pith helmets, and altogether quite put

my poor old cow and myself in the shade.

I was most anxious to get back to Upington, but they inveigled me into

returning with them to the Falls, and so for a few days I played at

“roughing it” with them, and found it far from unpleasant after so much

of the real thing. I paid my cow-driver exactly what I had agreed to,

which astonished him, and he there and then declared his willingness to

take my pack right on the 200-odd miles to the railway at Prieska, or,

for the matter of that, to Cape Town if needs be! And he was quite hurt

when I refused, but soon recovered under the stimulating effect of a

visit to the store, where he bought tobacco, and sugar, and coffee, and

golden syrup, and “Pain Killer” to his heart’s content, leaving on the

home track with a pack almost as big as he had brought out.

CHAPTER XIX

RESULT OF KALAHARI TRIP--NAKOB--LACK OF POLICE ON FRONTIER--WORKING A

KIMBERLITE PIPE--UKAMAS--DRUNKEN GERMAN OFFICERS--SLOW TREKKING--A BAD

SMASH.

At Upington I took the preliminary steps for obtaining the right

to prospect the lands to which the indications on the border had

pointed, a task which proved both long and tedious. And meanwhile,

whilst negotiations were still pending with the scattered and absentee

owners of these huge desert farms, I at last received the Government’s

decision as to the Kalahari. And it was an adverse one: admitting

the interest of my report on this “unexplored” region, and even of

its scientific value, but refusing to take my samples of Kimberlite,

etc., as proof of the existence of diamond pipes in the Kalahari Game

Reserve, and refusing me any further facilities in that direction.

So we had risked our lives and our money in vain, and all the castles

we had built on those desert pipes met the fate at any time likely to

overtake such edifices based upon the sand--of a Government promise.

However, it was no good squealing, and as soon as the right to

prospect my newly found area was forthcoming, I started again for the

border. This was on March 17th, 1914, when I left Cape Town with a

full equipment of diamond-washing gear, to thoroughly test the region

north of the Noup Hills, and in the immediate vicinity of the German

South-West Border.

Handicapped by a heavy equipment, my progress from the railhead at

Prieska was maddeningly slow, and it was not until April 8th that I

at length reached my destination, Nakob, a tiny police post on the

border, and the “port of entry” into German territory.

In spite of its comparative importance as the customs “port” for the

southern trade-routes, this post at Nakob was one of the loneliest,

most isolated habitations in South Africa.

It was simply a little shanty of corrugated iron so small as to barely

afford shelter for the three troopers stationed there, and who, having

no stable, tethered their horses amongst the thorn-trees near by. South

of them stretched the wild country I have described, the Noup Hills

and Bak River, with not a single inhabitant for the whole difficult

day’s ride to the Orange, and more days beyond it. North of them, and

wellnigh fifty miles away, was the similar post of Obopogorop where two

other troopers were marooned, and thence a similar stretch of awful

dune country had to be crossed to reach Rietfontein--the northern post

of the camel police which I have already described, and where there

were about a dozen men.

This represented the whole police force guarding (?) the long desert

frontier of Gordonia and German South-West Africa--less than twenty men

isolated and separated from each other by great distances of desert and

difficult country, in many places cumbered by huge dunes of loose sand,

through which transport was impossible, and which rendered long detours

necessary. And these difficult, devious, and waterless paths were the

only means of communication between them, for neither telephone nor

telegraph-wire existed! Between them and their headquarters at Upington

stretched a good eighty miles also of wellnigh uninhabited country,

whilst their nearest store was at Zwartmodder, a tiny place in the bed

of the Molopo, forty miles due east, and therefore that distance from

the border.

Except for a few miserable Hottentot _pondhoeks_ and the mud houses of

a couple of Bastards, there were no other inhabitants of this important

boundary post. They had got water in a well at a little distance from

the post, and I soon found that my sphere of action would be limited

to a radius within reach of this water, for there was none other for a

very great distance in either direction.

A few days after my arrival I was snugly encamped some miles north of

the police post, and within a stone’s throw of German territory, my

tents being pitched in a deep ravine running into an escarpment of

higher land. These deep, abrupt ravines honeycombed the country in

all directions, and in them there was a certain amount of vegetation,

though the surface of the plateau or tableland above was principally

a stone-strewn wilderness over which one could ride for days without

seeing a human being or the trace of one.

One of these ravines was, I found, the upper part of the Bak River, in

which I had discovered my indications farther south; and within a few

days I had confirmed my original conviction that hereabouts was the

source of the Kimberlite I had found. Much of the country was hidden by

a huge accumulation of sand, but on the higher land I soon found, not

one but a whole group of pipes.

On the most accessible of these I began work in earnest, though even

there the difficulties were very great. First of all a road had to

be made through rock, bush, and débris over which to bring stores,

and, above all, the large quantity of water necessary for a rotary

washing machine; and part of this track had to negotiate the almost

perpendicular part of the escarpment, for the pipe lay on the top of

the plateau. And at this rise, in spite of all precautions, barrels,

tanks, and every other water-utensil I possessed were smashed in turn.

I soon gathered a miscellaneous gang of about a dozen “boys,” Young

Gert, who had stuck to me in many a tight corner, “bossing” them very

efficiently. There were Hottentots, Bastards, Damaras, and Ovampos

from near the Kunene River in the north of German territory, and two

Bushmen. Altogether a wild and polyglot lot, clad mostly in rags and

tatters, and most of them “wanted” by the Germans over the border.

However, they did not work badly, though they took a lot of feeding.

Of course we were entirely self-supporting, for I had brought a large

supply of meal, coffee, sugar, tobacco, and other necessities, dry wood

was plentiful in the ravines, and the camp, with huge fires burning

and a savoury smell of roasting buck or hot _roster-kook_, was a most

pleasant place to return to after a long day in the pipe or the veldt.

I had a terrier for companion, and was far from lonely, and once in a

while rode down to the police camp and saw the troopers, and heard the

news brought in by the rare waggons or wayfarers from Upington and the

far-distant world beyond. And day after day, once the gang knew their

work at the pipe, I explored every gully and likely spot for many miles

around, generally on foot, but occasionally, for the longer distances,

taking an old nag who was as surefooted as a goat and from whose back I

could shoot without fear of being bucked off. Much of this prospecting

was in German territory, which to the north was as wild and pathless as

our own, and where the rare patrols could be avoided with ease. Buck

and the magnificent _gom paauws_ were plentiful, and kept the camp

fairly well supplied with meat: any little deficiency for the “boys”

pot being usually made up by giving Gert two cartridges (at most) and

my short Martini-Enfield carbine--his favourite weapon--and telling him

that his shooting must be done in German territory. His weakness used

to be for ostrich meat, thick luscious steaks of it usually forming the

“boys’” Sunday dinner, looking exactly like rump-steak and cooked in

the thick breast-fat of the huge bird, which swarmed in the locality.

The pipe I had chosen to test was peculiarly situated, on the top of

the plateau and right upon the extreme edge of British territory; so

close indeed to German soil that the international beacon marking the

actual twentieth degree of east longitude (the boundary-line) stood

within a few yards of the well-defined western wall of the pipe, and in

full view of the shafts we were sinking.

From the edge of the escarpment, a few hundred yards from this beacon,

a magnificent view could be obtained of both British and German

territory, south-east, south, and south-west, the irregular peaks

that penned the lonely Orange River being visible along the whole of

the horizon in that direction. Over the whole vast space, one tiny

habitation alone was visible, the little police post at Nakob, at the

foot of the escarpment, and barely two miles away. From this beacon

post the experienced observer could pick up several of the other

signposts dotted here and there at irregular intervals amongst wild

bush and rock along the twentieth degree, the actual boundary, which

was, however, pathless and difficult to follow.

The corresponding German police post, also usually known as Nakob,

was not built opposite our own little post, but near a very prominent

granite hill some two miles south of it, where there was water on the

German side, and in the vicinity of which our own post at one time

stood. (These minute and tedious particulars as to the position of the

two posts are necessary to enable the reader to follow what happened at

this spot a few months later, at the outbreak of war.)

We saw little of the German police, who were few, and on excellent

terms with our own men along the border, and whose lot, compared with

that of our men, was a fairly easy one. For they were but eighteen

miles from their base at Ukamas, where a couple of hundred troops

were stationed, and from whence there was telephonic and telegraphic

communication all over German territory. There was a doctor there, a

“hotel” and store, and good roads led to it; in short, compared to

our own side of the border, a measure of civilisation was within easy

reach. These German mounted police belonged to a _corps d’élite_, each

trooper having been a senior non-commissioned officer in the Imperial

German Army, and they were for the most part well-educated men, and

especially expert in cartography. Part of their duties lay in preparing

exhaustive maps of the localities in which they were stationed, and I

have been shown, by them, maps of our own side of the border, showing

minute and accurate detail utterly wanting on our own charts.

For weeks I led a most strenuous life, never idle enough to have a dull

moment, in spite of the fact that, except for my gang of natives, I was

quite alone. Besides the clearing of the sand and débris from the pipe,

the cartage of water and other routine work, there were a thousand

tasks to see to: trees to fell for timbering shafts, or to be hewn into

rough windlasses; charcoal to burn for the sharpening of picks; tanks

to tinker and solder; the obtaining of fresh meat for a ravenous family

of a dozen or more, each of whom, if left to himself, would eat half a

buck at a meal; and in short the whole gamut of “jack-of-all-trades”

tasks that have to be performed by a prospector in such a spot.

There was an occasional break in the routine in the shape of a longer

trip in search of other prospects, and more than one night spent far

away on the wide veldt, with the path lost; but by remembering the

cardinal fact that a line due south on the plateau would always bring

me to the escarpment which could be followed “home,” I always got

back with no worse experience than being half frozen, for the nights

were now very cold, and the days glorious with bright sunshine, and

the air like dry champagne. One day, in trying to make my own way to

Zwartmodder, across the veldt, I got badly out of the path, and night

found me in dunes as wild as any I had seen in the Reserve, and in

which a bitterly cold wind froze me to the marrow as I crouched under a

bush till morning, clad in nothing but a thin shirt and trousers.

I was, as I afterwards found, a bare ten miles from Zwartmodder; but in

these very same dunes, only a few years back, a police trooper lost

his way and died of thirst.

One other trip that will never be forgotten was to the Noup Hills

again, and into the famous Oorlogs Kloof, where, with Gert and a

Bastard named Nicholas Cloete, I made one more bid for “Brydone’s

diamonds,” and, failing them, for the _tijgers_ that infested the wild

gullies there.

But that I have striven all through this narrative to avoid all

shooting yarns, I could let my pen run on for a full chapter over

that particular hunt and the strange things I found there; but I must

leave all that, and pass on to the end of May, when, after six weeks

of systematic work and exhaustive search in all directions, I was in

possession of data that made a trip to the nearest telegraph-station

imperative. This meant Ukamas, the German township I have mentioned,

and which so far I had avoided.

I therefore rode down to our own police post, and reported that I was

taking a horse over the border, for which I had obtained the requisite

permission before leaving Upington; thence I rode on to the German

post, and had to give minute particulars as to who and what I was,

whence from, and whither bound, to the little trooper in charge there.

I had had several chats with the little chap before; he spoke French

extremely well, and was, I believe, an Alsatian. Anyway he was a very

obliging chap, and quite unlike the uncouth, brutal troopers of the

regiment stationed at Ukamas. This ordeal over, and a full description

of both myself and my horse entered in the _Ne Varietur_ kept for

the purpose, I rode the eighteen miles into the little frontier town

over good, well-defined roads laid out by the military, and with a

valuable aid to the traveller at every cross-road in the shape of a

stone signpost giving distance and direction to inhabited places in the

locality.

Ukamas, although but a tiny village, and a very long distance from

the railway at Kalkfontein, was certainly a credit to the Germans,

the post-office, houses, and barracks being attractive-looking,

substantially built edifices, most of them, I was given to understand,

having been built by the military stationed there, many of whom were

artisans.

There was one Englishman in the place, a Jew store-keeper, who had at

one time been in the British Army, and who was on that account baited

in the most intolerable manner by the officers and soldiers who were

the principal customers of his bar. From this little outpost I was able

to send a cable to Cape Town, the post-office operator being, like

every other official in the place, a soldier. Here my horse had to

be handed to the military vet, for the _mallin_ test, and I was kept

kicking my heels for some days in the forlorn little stores, where

every evening the rough troopers, in their long blue-grey greatcoats,

congregated to drink beer and play _scart_, smoking the big cigars that

form part of their rations, and cracking alleged jokes at the expense

of the little Jew landlord and of the rough-looking prospector sitting

so quietly in a corner.

These men, however, rough and overbearing as they were, were harmless

compared with their officers, who drank to excess in front of their

men, and whose intolerable treatment of the Englishman behind the bar

used to compel me to get out and right away from them, lest I should be

unable to control myself and get into trouble.

They picked no quarrel with me personally, for though I was roughly

dressed, I had shown my Foreign Office passport to their superior, and

I suppose they had been told to let me alone. But they talked at me

as I sat there quite quietly pretending to read, talked about what a

poor lot all “Englanders” were, anyway, and how only the worst of them

ever came to Africa, and how they, the Germans, the salt of the earth,

were bound, sooner or later, to take over the whole of it from the Cape

to the Zambesi, and a lot of other balderdash, all in front of their

admiring men. Then, as the beer began to work, they would start on D.

about the British Army, what rank he held in it, if all the officers

were like him, and so on till they got the little man rattled. Their

crowning witticism would come when he dived down beneath the counter

for more beer for them, when at a signal all four of them would bring

their riding-whips down on the rickety counter, with a crash close to

his head, to show their men “how an English officer could stand fire”!

This never failed to bring down the house, and send me flying out

before I got into serious trouble. How the man stood it beat me! It is

true that these officers were subalterns only, but in any other army in

the world they would have been cashiered, for never a day passed but

that they were vilely and blatantly drunk in full sight of their men.

Especially was this the case on the Sunday when they were celebrating

the approaching departure of the veterinary surgeon for Germany, and

when, at eleven o’clock in the morning, they reeled from their quarters

arm-in-arm and staggering drunk. In the bar for the rest of the day

they excelled themselves, and I again heard the toast of “The Day”

being drunk, though I did not imagine, as I sat there with my hands

itching, how soon that “Day” would come.

Altogether, with the exception of the doctor, who was not so bad, they

were a trio of contemptible, bullying cads, and I thanked God when

my horse was at last pronounced to have passed the _mallin_ test,

and I was at liberty to clear back over the border, to bad roads

and tumble-down shacks, it is true, but to free air again, where a

man could go and come as he liked, free from anything even remotely

resembling the detestable junkerdom of this “Kolonial” edition of

Prussianised Germany.

Once back “home” in my gully I had to make immediate plans for a trip

to Cape Town, not only to arrange for further development north, but to

make preparations for working in German territory if needs be, which I

believed could be managed better through the German Consulate-General

in Cape Town than by a personal application in Windhuk.

[Illustration: AN INTERNATIONAL BOUNDARY BEACON BETWEEN GERMAN (LATE)

SOUTH-WEST AFRICA TERRITORY AND BRITISH (GORDONIA).]

Unfortunately, there were no travellers coming through about this time,

and as I had a large amount of samples to take, my horse was useless;

but a few days later a donkey-waggon which had been to Ukamas with

oranges from Upington returned to British territory on its way home,

and I jumped at the opportunity.

It took us eight days to cover the eighty-odd miles to Upington, partly

on account of the scarcity of fodder _en route_, and partly because of

the weak and half-starved donkeys, but principally due to the terrible

sand-dunes that cumbered the path (?) chosen by the driver.

This was an entirely new route to me, partly down the wide sand-choked

bed of the Bak River to an old deserted house called Aries, thence

across pathless, boulder-strewn mountains into an absolute crater

called Noedap, where dwelt a few Hottentots, to whom my driver wanted

to sell the remainder of his oranges, and thence into a weird and

picturesque spot in the Molopo bed known as Cnydas, where there were

fine water-pits sunk in the deeply silted dry river-bed to a depth of

about 40 feet, and operated with a long pivoted pole with a weight at

one end, exactly like those in use in Egypt.

Meanwhile we were having a rough time of it for food, for, relying

on seeing plenty of game, and knowing that I should easily keep pace

with the waggon even when ranging for miles on either side of it, I

had brought no food but a little meal, and when for three solid days I

hunted in vain without pulling trigger, the meal had gone; and as Nicol

the driver was as badly off as myself, we had to live on oranges! Then

we fell in with a _smouse_ (an itinerant trader), whose small waggon

reeked of the illicit _dop_ he had been selling to the Hottentots and

Bastards, but who had little left but the smell. All he could do was

to sell us a few dried apricots full of sand and tough as leather,

and with this addition to our _cuisine_ of oranges and an occasional

Namaqua partridge we “managed” till we got to Upington. By this time

motors had become a regular means of conveyance between Upington and

Prieska, and in about the same time as it had taken us to negotiate a

mile or two of dunes, I had been whisked to the line and Cape Town,

where I made the necessary arrangements for extending my operations in

both British and German territory, and on June 23rd, 1914, I left Cape

Town again for the border.

At Prieska I met Maritz, then a Major, and Commandant of the Defence

Force in charge of the North-West Districts. I had heard much of the

man, of his courage and strength, and his dare-devil exploits when

with the Boer forces during the Anglo-Boer War, also of his doings in

German South-West Africa, whither he had migrated, like many another

“irreconcilable” after Vereeniging. There he had been transport officer

for the Germans during the Hottentot and Herero Rebellion, and had

become far more Germanised than most of the freedom-loving Boers who

had tried to make a home in that country, the majority of whom had soon

been extremely glad to get back once again to British rule.

But the hectoring, bullying manners of the German officers were

apparently much to the taste of “Maanie,” and when at the formation of

the Union Defence Force he returned to the Union and soon blossomed

forth as a Major in command of the North-West District of the Cape

Province (the wild region bordering German territory), he soon showed

the _jongen_ who came under his sway that the days of the old,

easy going commando system of their fathers was a thing of the past,

and that rigid discipline had come in place of it. He soon became a

perfect terror to them, and many a tale had I heard at Keimoos, where

the Upington men had gone for training, as to the shock he had given

many a young Boer who, fresh from the lonely farms of the back-veldt,

had thought to treat him as an equal.

But, martinet as he had become, and feared as he was by them, he

undoubtedly won the respect of these ignorant and impressionable young

fellows, many of whom had never seen a railway or heard anything of

the outside world, except from the biased and embittered lips of the

irreconcilables and so-called “Hertzogites” (or Nationalists) who

formed the bulk of the scattered population in these remote regions.

To his men his great argument was that by discipline alone could they

ever become a fighting force worthy of the name, and that, had the Boer

forces been properly disciplined, the British could never have won the

war.

Whatever may have been his faults, Maritz was no hypocrite; he never

professed to have any other feeling than that of hearty detestation for

the English; and though the Union Jack floated over his training-camp,

there can be no doubt that he hoped from the first that in the Defence

Force he was helping to forge a weapon that would some day be turned

against the _Uitlander_ whose hated symbol it was.

Maritz, then, was in command of the Defence Force training-camp at

Prieska when I arrived there, and as I had some business with him _re_

a motor-car of his which had been burned in Namaqualand, I went up to

the camp to see him. Rebel and traitor as he became, and probably was

at heart then, it would be useless for me to say that he gave me a bad

impression; on the contrary, he impressed me most favourably during the

hour or so I was in his company. An alert, bluff, soldierly man, well

groomed and of medium height, he looked the officer to perfection; but

though sturdily built, he showed little signs of the enormous strength

he was known to possess. His English was good, and his manner that of

an educated man--though I have often heard him described as illiterate

since his defection!

He was full of curiosity as to where I had been in G.S.W., and what I

knew of German doings there; like every other Boer who had seen their

troops in the Herero and Hottentot rebellions, he expressed unbounded

contempt for their fighting methods, and made the same assertion as

most Boer leaders used then to make, that with a commando of 500 Boers

he would take the country, any day!

And I believe he meant it, for at that time the contempt of the German

for the Boer was only equalled by the contempt of the Boer for the

German.

I got through to Upington without mishap--it was something of an

undertaking even those few short years ago--and then, as I was

preparing for great things, luck turned dead against me.

I fell ill, and was laid up for days at the little hotel, and when at

last I got under way again, worse was to follow. I had taken my friend

the orange merchant for the return journey, as he had proved a very

good chap, and I needed a white man for transport at the camp, and by

his advice we had taken the back trail through Cnydas (where Maritz

afterwards turned rebel) and through a mountain-encompassed hollow

called Noedap, where one of the natives had a horse I greatly coveted.

It was nothing to look at, a shabby-looking little blue roan (_blaauw

schimmel_) pony of about 14.2, but a perfect marvel for endurance up

to forty or fifty miles a day, in sand and over mountains, and capable

apparently of living on stones. I intended working two gangs at least

that distance apart, and this pony, if I could get it, would enable me

to run both at once. We got into the crater--it merits the name--and

after a day’s delay I became the possessor of the little nag.

So steep was the climb out of Noedap in the direction we were going

that the donkeys utterly failed to get the waggon up the terrific

slope, and eventually a team of oxen had to be inspanned by the

Bastards to get it to the plateau above. Meanwhile I rode on ahead,

finding the pony all that could be desired. A few hours later I came

to the steep descent into the Bak River near Aries, a most lonely and

desolate place, but with water in the stream-bed. There was no path

down the steep, rock-strewn slope, and my pony was picking its way down

most gingerly when I suddenly spied an old folding stool, strung with

rimpi, and such as the Boers use in their waggons, lying amongst the

boulders a few feet away. How long it had been there it would be hard

to surmise, for there was no path and nothing to tempt a wayfarer that

way, and, feeling curious, I stopped the pony, and tried to dismount

and pick it up. I say “tried,” for my big heavy boots had jammed in the

small stirrups, and as I struggled to clear them, the pony caught sight

of the stool, shied violently and threw me with a sickening crash on

to the sharp rocks. One foot caught, and as the pony sprang forward,

I struck the pointed boulder with my full weight, right beneath my

outstretched left arm, smashing in three of my ribs with a gruesome

crunch, and for the time knocking me senseless. Luckily the pony

dragged me only a yard or two and then stood stock-still on the steep

slope, whilst I hung with one foot still jammed in the stirrup.

I came to still fixed in that fashion, my face and shoulder badly

cut and bruised, and blood running from my mouth, and my broken ribs

apparently pressing into my lung, for my breath whistled like a pair of

broken bellows, and every breath was an agony. I thought I was about

finished, and certainly, if the horse had started again, I should have

been. One arm was helpless, and for what seemed an eternity I tried in

vain to release my foot, fearing every fresh effort would make the pony

bolt. At last I got my hunting-knife under the laces and ripped them

and got my foot free, and fainted. I was in a bad place, the waggon

was an hour or more behind, and would not come within nearly half a

mile of the spot; I was so badly hurt that I could not stand, and might

easily lie there days before I should be searched for. If the driver

did not find me, no one would; and if once he passed me and trekked on

he would conclude I had gone on to Nakob, and I should not be missed

till he got there a day or two later. Anyway I was in such agony that

I thought an hour or two would finish me, but after a bit I remembered

my rifle, and tried to get it from where it had been flung with me from

the saddle. And at last I was able to fire a shot, and felt all the

better for the rifle, for there were four or five vultures already on

the scene--though I afterwards found they had other legitimate business

on hand in the shape of a dead ox about a hundred yards away.

At length, when I had given up hope, and was wondering whether I could

ever crawl to the water about half a mile away, or whether I could

live two or three days where I was till they began to look for me, I

suddenly saw an angel in the shape of a “Bushman,” the little black

urchin of a _voorlooper_, who came creeping through the rocks as though

stalking me. I found afterwards that, hearing the shot, he had left the

waggon and cleared to a high ridge to see what game I had got, and from

it had seen me lying among the rocks a long distance away. Even then

he simply thought I was “creeping” a buck, and it was only when he had

waited a long time that he came along to see what I was about.

However, there he was, and never was angel more welcome. We had no

brandy, but Nicol, my driver, soon made me some tea, and after washing

me and making me as comfortable as possible amongst the rocks, he rode

off on the innocent cause of all the trouble to see if any help could

be obtained at Nakob.

The night was bitterly cold, and in spite of my blankets I was about

frozen by the time he returned at midnight with a young trooper named

Human. Unfortunately, they had no bandages or first-aid appliances,

and could do little, but as my breathing was terribly bad and I was

in great pain, the young trooper galloped off again with the promise

that he would ride into Ukamas, in German territory, and try to get the

doctor. For on our own side of the border there was no medical man

nearer than Upington, and to send a wire there one had in any case to

cross the border to Ukamas.

As it happened, there was no doctor at the little German post when

Human got there, and he wired to Upington, where my old pal and

fellow-adventurer Dr. Borcherds started out to look for me immediately,

and by commandeering cars, laying violent hands on Cape carts and other

vehicles, eventually got to me, in a Scotch cart drawn by six bullocks

and driven by himself, after forty-eight hours of almost incessant

trekking.

So, after being within a few hours’ distance of my mine, I had to be

taken back to Upington by slow degrees, for practically all one side of

me was badly smashed, and I was extremely lucky to have escaped with my

life.

Cooped up in a chair and swathed like a mummy, I made extremely slow

progress in Upington, and feeling that I should never get better unless

I got once more on the veldt, I at length cajoled the doctor into

letting me start again, though I was still bandaged, and so weak I had

to be lifted into the waggon and propped up in a chair. With me came

my old fellow-voyager of the Bak River, Mr. Ford-Smith, anxious to try

still another new gun, and to add to the store of hunting yarns for

which he was already famed.

CHAPTER XX--AND LAST

WAR!--VIOLATION OF BRITISH TERRITORY AT NAKOB--THE END.

We left Upington on Thursday, July 30th, 1914. The bi-weekly post had

just arrived, and papers from the outside world brought the news of

the ominous war-cloud gathering in Europe. It seemed like looking for

trouble to start for the border of German territory at such a time; and

half in jest, I remarked as much to the polyglot gathering at the door

of the hotel who had gathered to see me start.

“It’s quite likely by the time I get to the border we shall be at war

with Germany!” I remarked, and there was a chorus of protest.

England might be--but they? What was it to do with them? They were

willing to make money out of either side of the border, and for many

reasons preferred being British in name, but if it came to fighting,

that was quite another matter!

But in those days most of the “British” in Upington were Russian Jews,

and most of the Dutchmen “Nationalists,” whose conception of their duty

to Empire was to take all they could get and give nothing in return.

There was also a large German element in the village, and a large

amount of German money always _en evidence_; in fact, the “mark” had

the purchasing power of a shilling in every store, and except in the

bank or post-office English silver was never seen. Anyway, I was far

too anxious to get back to my neglected prospects to “wait and see,”

for I had a number of men eating their heads off at Nakob; and so away

we went on one of the bitterest trips I remember. It was an open

waggon, without cover of any kind, and a bitterly cold wind and driving

rain set in within a few hours of our leaving the dorp; the jolting of

the springless vehicle over the rough track shook my half-healed ribs

till I was one big ache from head to foot; it rained nearly all night

as we crouched over the blinding smoke of a cow-dung fire at the bleak

outspan, and altogether I began to think I had been a fool to leave the

shelter of a roof. However, on the third day out the sun shone, and

I climbed into the saddle again. A few hours of trotting and I was a

different man; for there is no medicine like the sunshine and a good

horse. We were too cold to linger by the way, and trekked at all hours

through the lonely and desolate wastes of Van Rooi’s Vley, Rooi Dam,

Lootz’s Pits, and Cnydas, wild and remote places scarce known even in

Upington, but all of them to become prominent a month or two later as

the scene of Maritz’s first open treachery. So cold was it at night

that the hoar-frost gathered thick on our blankets till it looked like

snow, and ice stood in the buckets beside us. I had not been able to

lie down since my accident, but at Longklip I at length ventured to do

so, and had the first real rest for three weeks or more.

Late at night on Tuesday, August 4th, we arrived at Nakob, and in the

morning the police told us that war had already been declared between

Germany and France, and that there had been heavy fighting on the

Belgian border. This news was from the German police over the border,

for we ourselves brought the latest news from our own distant news

centre. Speculation was rife as to whether England would be drawn in or

not, and the three troopers at our lonely little post, relying for news

on a possible enemy over the border, were anxious and uneasy at what I

was able to tell them.

However, war or no war, they had their routine duty to do, and on the

morning of August 6th, Troopers Hall and Green left for Upington with

a prisoner, leaving young Human, a young Dutch trooper from Kakamas,

and quite a boy, in sole charge of the lonely post. For they had no

other means of dealing with prisoners--no lock-up but their own living

and sleeping room, and as one man alone could not guard a prisoner

night and day over the long journey to headquarters, the major portion

of the “garrison” had to escort him.

Meanwhile, having found my gang of “boys” still in existence, I set

them to work in earnest, for I was too near German territory to feel

comfortable, and I this time pitched my camp at the base of the

escarpment about a mile only from the police post, and in sight of it.

Finding it impossible to properly cope with the problem of dragging

sufficient water to the pipe to “wash” the blue ground there, I adopted

the plan of bringing the latter down to the level; but on the 8th

the young trooper rode up to my camp to show me a “dispatch” which a

galloper had brought out the forty-odd miles from Zwartmodder. It was

to warn the police that war with Germany was imminent, and that they

must be on their guard against “covert acts” against their patrols.

Poor boy, he spoke English well, but scarcely understood the official

language of the document; as for the patrols--well, he was absolutely

alone! His nearest mate was at Zwartmodder, over forty-odd miles of bad

road away, and from whence the message had been brought.

He had no other white man near him but ourselves, and we knew that

barely eighteen miles away there was a garrison of two hundred

Germans, not to mention the police along the actual border. The

dispatch appeared to point to a possible raid on him at any moment,

and we offered to stand by him till help arrived, as it surely would.

Meanwhile we were working on the very edge of German territory, and our

camp stood within a stone’s throw of it; our horses and cattle were

in the habit of ranging over it at their sweet will, for there was no

fence or actual boundary, and as the news spread amongst the “boys”

I had hard work to keep them from bolting. We worked feverishly all

the next morning, German patrols passing in full view of us, but not

molesting us. Meanwhile another trooper had arrived from Kakamas with

the news that war had been declared on the previous Thursday. Fugitive

Hottentots were now stealing over the border, and the news they brought

appeared to point to a possible raid by the Germans, who had now forced

their own farmers all along the border to drive their cattle twenty

kilometres inland. Our own “boys,” who had gone to look for the strayed

horses, were chased for a couple of miles into our territory; and as

we now heard that the well-disposed German mounted police who had been

stationed along the border had been withdrawn, and their place taken by

regular troops from Ukamas, we were more on the _qui vive_ than ever.

Still, I kept the gang hard at it, knowing that I could only work a few

days unless the strong reinforcements we naturally expected were soon

forthcoming. Meanwhile Hall and Green returned from Upington, and a

further man came in from Kakamas, so the little garrison was now five

men strong.

They had scarcely enough rations to keep them going, and were in hourly

expectation of the arrival of a force of some kind to hold the line.

The position of the little police hut could scarcely have been worse,

from a defensive point of view. It was commanded on all sides by rocky,

bush-clad ridges, in which ten thousand Germans could have hidden, and

barely a quarter of a mile away, in German territory, rose a formidable

_spitz kop_ (conical hill), from the summit of which every approach to

the British post could have been commanded. The place could have been

rushed at any moment. The trooper in charge told me that his orders

were to do nothing to provoke hostilities, and if attacked, to make no

attempt to hold the post, but to fall back on Zwartmodder--forty miles

away--where there were two men! But he realised only too well that,

should such an attack be made, he would have no earthly chance of

getting away.

But we all fully expected a column to turn up to garrison this

important--though neglected--little post; and day after day one of the

men would ride to the high hills eastward, from which the roads to

Upington could be seen for many miles, but there came no sign--no news;

in fact, Nakob seemed to have been forgotten.

Meanwhile my friend Ford-Smith wandered round with a Remington rifle,

in the gullies along our side of the border, practising at korhaan and

dassies, and wishing they were Germans. He borrowed military buttons

from the police, and put them on his shirt, to save himself from being

shot as a _franctireur_ should it come to a scrap; but--luckily for

us--he had no chance of an outlet for his martial ardour, except one

night when my old horse strayed back into the camp from somewhere over

the German side at dead of night, and narrowly escaped annihilation at

his hands. Those nights were extremely jumpy, for, as I have explained,

we were within a stone’s throw of enemy territory, an attack on the

police camp was believed to be imminent, and that we should have

shared in the trouble was beyond question. However, each morning we

were able to flash “All’s Well” with a mirror to each other, for the

Germans still held their hand. Of course all communication between

the two territories had ceased from the time that the outbreak of war

was notified, but news still filtered through by means of natives,

and spies were constantly coming amongst the Bastard and Hottentot

hangers-on of the police post.

They could not be caught, but their constant inquiry was as to when the

“troops” would arrive, though on this point they could have got scant

information, for we were as ignorant and anxious as themselves! From a

few legitimate stragglers who succeeded in evading the German police

and getting over, we heard of the movements of troops, and it seemed

fairly certain that the border police had been withdrawn from German

Nakob, and that an officer, with twenty-five men and a machine-gun, had

taken their place. The constant rumours of an impending attack made it

impossible to keep the “boys” at their work, and as no news came of

reinforcements, I had at length no alternative but to abandon the work

and clear out.

[Illustration: GRANITE MONOLITH AT “LANGKLEP.”

Afterwards the scene of a fight with Maritz.]

[Illustration: WATER-PITS IN THE DRY MOLOPO AT NAKOB.

Where Maritz broke into rebellion.]

On the morning of Saturday, August 15th, I washed my last load,

dismantled the windlasses, and brought the light tools and gear down

from the mine. As I went up to take a last look round, two of the

troopers rode up from the post, and I took them to the international

beacon on the edge of the escarpment, near where I had been

working, and pointed out to them the whole line of these infrequent

boundary-posts through the wild, solitary, pathless country south,

towards my old prospecting-ground in the Noup Hills, near the Orange.

They were new men, and did not know where the actual boundary lay in

that direction. The day was scorching-hot and clear, and I was able to

pick out many of the actual cairns, but on the whole vast expanse not a

solitary soul could be seen on either territory. We had hoped to locate

the German patrols, but unfortunately their post at Nakob was hidden

by low ranges, as it lay in a sand-river below the general level of

the country, though its position was easily identified by a prominent

and abrupt granite kopje which stood in close proximity to it, but on

British territory--the international beacons being plainly visible

slightly to the westward of its base.

This bold hill was indeed the most striking landmark for many miles,

and though I had never climbed it, I had passed its base often on

either side, and believed that it must command a view of the German

police post. I therefore suggested that we should make our way there

that afternoon, when we could not only find out the strength of the

Germans at the post, but possibly get some photos of them.

The troopers agreed, and later I rode down to the camp with them, left

my horse there, and as none of them would accompany me I went on alone,

promising to flash a signal to them when I got on top. Naturally I had

nothing to fear, for I had no intention of going into German territory

or of letting the Germans see me, and I took care to leave my arms at

the camp, so that, should their patrols catch me, I had nothing more

incriminating than a camera, and a little shaving-mirror to signal with.

I had about two miles to go, making a slight detour to keep in cover of

the thick _melk-bosch_, and aiming at keeping the hill between me and

the Germans. I again noted the beacons; there was no doubt as to the

whole hill being in our territory.

Within about a hundred yards of its base the bush ceased, and there

was that distance of open sand to cross before I could get cover

again; so I lay and watched, but there was no sign of a living being

anywhere, and I scooted across and got among the big granite boulders,

where I felt perfectly safe. Working cautiously upwards, I got about

half-way to the top when, to my astonishment, I came upon a well-beaten

track where horses had been taken up and down, and whilst I was still

staring open-mouthed at the fresh spoors, I found that I was within a

yard of a rough, loopholed schanz of rock, overlooking and commanding

our territory! I knew our men had never been in the hill, and that it

must have been made by the Germans, and I stood stock-still, expecting

rifles to show through the loopholes at any moment. However, there

was neither sound nor sign, and I crept on more carefully than ever,

finding that the whole place had been strengthened with these schanzes,

which were on British territory, and which commanded British territory

for miles. At the top, surrounded by titanic boulders the size of

a four-roomed cottage, there was a Hat space about 40 feet square,

where there was every sign of recent occupation--well-trampled paths,

freshly broken stones, tools, and the still smouldering embers of a

fire; whilst between the huge boulders schanzes had been built or were

nearing completion. There had been a large number of men in the hill

but recently, and they would undoubtedly return--indeed, there were

probably some of them in the hill then! I crept to the edge overlooking

German territory, and could see the top of the police post, with the

German flag flying, about 500 yards away westward, and a number of

men and horses passing between a gap in that direction towards the

water-pits, which, however, were not visible. I had but three films

in my camera, and I took them as quickly as possible, for I felt sure

there was a sentry there somewhere; and sure enough, as I peered over

the rocks down the western slope, I saw a solitary soldier coming up

between the rocks, turning and motioning as though to others behind

him. And I got down and into the bush like a scared klip-springer; for

these men, who had violated our territory, and were strengthening a

position which commanded every approach for miles, were scarcely likely

to show much ceremony to an Englishman found with a camera in the

middle of their schanzes!

And I had hardly got into the friendly _melk-bosch_ the other side of

that awful bare hundred yards of sand at the base of the hill, when

I saw them moving among the rocks at the top, where I had just left,

and the sunshine glinting on rifle-barrels. I got back to the police

camp as soon as I could, and told the police what I had seen, which by

no means lessened their anxiety. They knew already that, failing the

arrival of a strong force, they were simply like rats in a trap, and

this violation of British territory, this seizing and strengthening of

what was naturally the strongest position near Nakob, boded ill for

the forlorn little outpost of five men. Moreover, should a force be on

its way from either Upington or Kakamas, it would be in sight of this

high kopje and the Germans for hours before we knew anything about

it, and might very possibly choose the old route, which led within a

few hundred yards of the schanzes, and would thus walk right into an

ambuscade.

None of the troopers could be spared to take a message, so it was

decided, as soon as I could get my waggon well on the road, I should

ride on to Upington and take the news myself. The garrison (?) of five

slept away from the post, leaving it after dark and bivouacking in the

hills.

On Sunday, there being still no sign of a relief force and no news,

I loaded my waggon and struck camp, making up my mind to ride before

daybreak next day, so that the Germans should not see that a messenger

had left the camp.

That night there was an alarm amongst the Bastards and Hottentots at

the police camp, all of them fleeing to the hills, for a spy who had

been in the camp had warned them an attack was imminent.

The troopers lay on their arms at my waggon all night, but no attack

came; though in the morning the tell-tale sand showed where a patrol

of the enemy had stood awaiting the return of their spy within fifty

yards of our post, and by the spoors one of them had stood listening at

the window. Our poor young troopers were in a most unenviable position.

Their stores were exhausted, the waggon with their monthly supplies was

many days overdue and might probably never arrive at all, they had no

news or means of communication, they knew they were at the mercy of the

Germans whenever they cared to attack, and yet they were bound to stick

to their post. I left them a few spare stores I had, and in return they

gave me the last few pounds of oats they had for my horse; there would

be no time to look for food along the road.

And so we bade them good-bye, and lumbered along with the heavy waggon

till the hills hid us from the watchful eyes of the Germans on that

big granite kopje in British territory, which should have been held by

British troops as soon as possible after war was declared.

Behind the kopjes in Bak River I blew up all my dynamite, just to give

the Germans something to think about, and leaving Ford-Smith and the

remnant of my gang to follow slowly with the waggon, I set the old nag

on the long lonely trail for Upington. For the whole day I rode without

seeing a solitary wayfarer, and night surprised me near the Molopo at

Toeslan, where I had hoped to sleep; so I lay amongst the thorn-trees

by a big fire, roasting and freezing by turns, for the night was

bitterly cold, and I rode light without coat or blanket. Next day I met

one or two people, but no one had heard of troops for the border, and

all I could hope was that, if they had gone by another road, they would

not walk into an ambush at the big granite kopje.

Much of the journey of eighty-odd miles was through heavy sand and

rough, rocky country, and it was nearly midnight of the second night

when I crawled into Upington, both myself and the pony dead-beat, for

he had eaten nothing but a handful of oats all day, and the two days of

hard riding had again loosened my badly glued ribs.

I reported to the O.C. of the “S.A.M.R.,” but he had no reinforcements

to send, and knew no more of what was to happen on the border than did

the poor little “garrison” at Nakob! Meanwhile my sworn statement was

wired to Pretoria, where they took a serious view of the matter.

And so far, for a season, my prospecting ended, for even my humble

little bark, used to floating on lonely seas or in placid backwaters,

had been caught in the maelstrom of the War.

* * * * *

NOTE.--The post at Nakob was never relieved--Maritz and Beyers saw

to that--and a full month later the place was attacked by Andries de

Wet and 300 Germans with machine-guns, the hut riddled with bullets,

Corporal Spencer killed, young Human’s jaw blown away, and the rest of

the “garrison” marched as prisoners into German territory. Rietfontein

and Obopogorop had to be abandoned, and for a time the Gordonia border

was left to the mercy of Andries de Wet and his renegade and German

followers, until, a few weeks later, Maritz broke into open rebellion

at Cnydas, where amongst other civilians he took my friend Ford-Smith a

prisoner, and sent him to a long captivity in German South-West.--F. C.

CORNELL.

_Printed in Great Britain by Hazell, Watson & Viney, Ltd., London and

Aylesbury._

TRANSCRIBER’S NOTE

1. Spellings have been standardised only when a dominant version was

found in the original.

2. Enclosed italics font in _underscores_.

3. Enclosed bold font in =equals=.