Fred C. Cornell

“ They had met after months of lonely wanderings: Sidney and Ransford amongst the mountains of the Richtersfeld, Jason from long and arduous expeditions along the Great Fish River and amongst the trackless sands across the river. The talk had been of the dunes; of men lost and dying of thirst a few miles from camp; of terrific storms that lifted the sand in huge masses, and whirled it across the land, overwhelming all it encountered; of whole dunes that were shifted by the wind, leaving gruesome things disclosed in the hollows where once they had stood; of diamonds, danger and death. ”

“ 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. ”

“ We had had a very successful trip, and I felt at peace with all mankind, as I sat smoking, and watching the setting sun turn the tall rocks from gold to crimson, and thence through a whole gamut of purples, violets and mauves to the cold grey of twilight.
"Pritty, 'aint it?" said a voice at my elbow. It was old Blake. His mahogany face shone with the effects of the first soap and water he had been able to use for weeks, for we had been very short of water; and even his arms showed the tattoo-marks that were usually hidden by the grime inseparable to life in the desert. ”

“ Near this reef, and a few miles lower downstream, there spreads a region of comparatively recent volcanic activity, a gruesome wilderness of scorched scoriæ, calcined shale, and schist, with innumerable outcrops of iron ore, all absolutely barren of any trace of verdure, dead and desolate as one imagines the craters of the moon. And below this the tangle of trees and bush bordering the river was an absolute jungle that we tried in vain to break through, and here in a patch of bare sand I saw more leopard spoors than I had ever seen before. ”

“ Even if the girl who had sent me to this turned away in horror from my hideous disfigurements, there was much that money could bring travel, adventure, sport, a thousand things and, at any rate, the companionship of rational beings, for which I now craved as I had craved for water in the desert. For God knows how long I had seen no human being no living creature indeed but a few birds and I had almost forgotten the sound of a human voice. Sunk in apathy I had become almost as a beast, but the sight of the diamonds had aroused me, and I recalled how poor Inyati had called them "magic stones." ”

“ At length the bare dunes ended abruptly, grass and bushes appeared again, and here and there Du Toit was able to pluck a tiny shoot of young sorrel to chew, which gave us some small relief from what was now torture. Then came a small gar boom tree, its scanty greyish leaves full of long bean-like pods on which buck feed greedily, and capable of giving us a modicum of shade. We threw ourselves down, panting and anxious. Du Toit, however, made for the first prominent dune we had seen for hours, and, climbing it, brought us the welcome news that the Salt Pan was barely a mile away. ”

“ Each yard I crawled was agony to me, but at last I came to a rock-encircled pool in which lay water clear and deep, and into which a tiny stream splashed and gurgled from an overhanging cliff. Sweet and pure the water was, and in great abundance. I peered into its dark depths and could see the white sand glimmering at the bottom, full ten or twelve feet below me as I judged. ”

“ They were the Noup Hills, an almost unexplored maze of low mountains situated below the Great Falls of the Orange and just on the border of German South-West, some seventy miles distant from us. Before reaching the very welcome river, however, we had to toil through a terrible “drift” of the softest, most powdery sand and silt that ever hampered a team even in this country of sand-drifts; it was a sort of sand-quagmire, in fact, if such a thing is imaginable, and in it the waggon sank up to the hubs, and progress was most maddeningly slow. ”

“ Dick had been as lively as any one in making tracks, for he had a horror of snakes, and as he burst from the tent his foot caught in a guy-rope and down he went with the big wachtmeister sprawling on top of him. Both scrambled up in quick time, for each of them imagined he had snakes crawling all over him, but as Dick rose to his feet, out from the bosom of his shirt fell the red handkerchief full of diamonds he had found the day before, and as it fell out rolled a dozen or more of the little brilliants and lay there flashing and sparkling in the sun- light. ”

“ I shall never forget those six thorn-trees at Saulstraat, nor the heat when we left the shade there, for I think that day was the hottest I experienced during the trip. The heat of the sand struck through our boot-soles as though we were walking on red-hot embers, whilst the gait of the poor oxen reminded me of the old saying, “like a cat on hot bricks.” All round this flat plain between the dunes the mirage glittered until it was difficult to realise that we were not walking on the only dry spot in the midst of a wide lake. ”

“ They were the 'bright stones' of the Spanisher they were diamonds! Here was wealth beyond conception wealth beside which the fabled Golconda would be as nought, wealth untold for us all. But on the floor among the flashing gems there lay many white bones the bones of dead men. . . . Wealth, vast wealth for us all, and yet we quarreled there as to the division of the stones, and as to how we were to get them away. 'Get all we can at once and flee this very night!' urged the shipmen. 'And die of thirst in the desert places!' said Alvaro for it was the season of drought! ”

“ Dainty little slots of steinbok and duiker, quaint little hand-like paw-marks of the porcupine, dog-like pads of the jackal; here a wide swath of country trampled and torn up by the sturdy hooves of a vast troop of trotting gemsbok, proud monarch of these desert wastes—there the fast trail of a pack of the ferocious wild hunting-dog, most dangerous and destructive of pests. Huge spoors of the ostrich, like a grotesque, deformed human foot, and showing by its gigantic strides where the big bird had flown like the wind before us ”

“ Sydney, I've found out a bit about you this morning, and if you want a job, I think I can get one for you. We want a straight man for something that's on, and I think you'll do."
"I'm game," said Dick, "if it's a straight deal."
"Straight as a die," replied Solstein or "Solly," as he liked to be called. "Let's get along the beach, we can talk there!"
Pacing along the sands, with no one to hear them but the sea-gulls, and with his old briar again charged with some real God-fearing cake tobacco, Sydney heard what it was that was required of him; and there and then Solly's offer was accepted. ”

“ 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. ”

“ For from an absolutely barren dune, we suddenly looked down upon a thick garden of beautiful flowers; tall, and like a slender foxglove in appearance, they filled the wide hollows between the dunes in all directions. They were of endless variety in color, white, mauve, and an endless gamut of pinks, down to the deepest purple; and a more beautiful sight it would be impossible to imagine. But thickly as they grew for mile after mile, there was nothing else, no t'samma or any other refreshing plant or fruit, and the hungry horses would not look at them. ”

“ The waggon track to Richtersfeldt leads north-east from Port Nolloth, and after a few hours’ trek the sand veldt becomes thickly bushed, melk bosch, zout bosch, and many other fleshy-leaved aromatic and resinous shrubs densely covering the long, undulating slopes of heavy sand, the sad monotony of dark grey-green being unbroken except by an occasional lily-like flower of a brilliant scarlet; no sign of life anywhere, the silence unbroken except for the crack of the whip or the yell of the driver, the sand effectually deadening the sound of the wheels and the tread of the oxen. ”

“ We must cross, master; there on the other side I see thick bush in the dunes, there may be t'samma there, and the way across is easy. Come!"
He led the way down the steep slope, dragging his jaded animals after him. At the edge, where sand ended and salt began, lay many bones, bleached and white almost as the salt itself, and amongst them were the bones of men. Snorting and afraid, the animals stepped gingerly on the smooth, snow-like surface, which yielded but an inch or two to their tread, and was pleasantly cool to their hooves, parched and cracking from their long trek in the burning sand. ”

“ For, with the exception of the tiny police posts at Scuit’s Drift and Ramon’s Drift, not a habitation stands on or near its banks, through all those tortuous reaches that wellnigh encircle the mountains of Richtersfeldt, whose solitary peaks and ravines I have already made shift to describe.
Higher than the Victoria Falls, and more than double the height of Niagara, the Great Falls of the Orange lack the spectacular beauty of either of its famous rivals. Impressive they are, but the impression they leave is of terror rather than of pleasure, of awe rather than of beauty. ”

“ Who shall say it is not magic?"
"Inyati," I stammered, coming back to my senses, and ignoring his extremely doubtful compliments, "speak, man; where did you get this?"
"In my own land, master; a far land, many moons' trek from here, and where there are many. But few dare touch them except indeed the devil- men and they are not men at all, but devils! Though I feared them little even then . . . and now, now that I have a gun (for surely my master will give me the little gun that speaks many times for this magic stone?) I fear them not at all! ”

“ For the land behind us and through which we had passed, though bush-covered and capable of supporting stock, could scarcely be called by any other name, whilst on the other bank the enormous sand-dunes of German South-West stretch back from the belt of willows as far as the eye can reach, dune piled upon dune, into veritable mountains of glaring yellow, with not a vestige of vegetation to relieve their awful desolation. ”

“ Poor chap, it was the first he had ever had, for his shin-bone had served him hitherto, and his delight was unmistakable. An hour later I saw him still at his everlasting polishing, and with the new pipe in full blast; and now he was crooning not only its praises, but my own. Half his improvised song was unintelligible to me, but I understood enough to learn that when the "dogs of Bushmen" had failed, he, Inyati "The Snake" would lead me to a land where there were magic stones in abundance, and by means of which, I gathered, we should both obtain wives galore! ”

“ It was wearying work after a while, when the hope of finding gold became less and less, hard work that tore hands to pieces with the sharp razor-like splinters of the quartz, the scorching sun turning the rocks so hot that they blistered one, and all around a glare of sun, sand, and barren mountain-sides that made one’s eyeballs burn as though they were being slowly roasted. ”

“ The big veins stood out upon his temples, and the hand that still held the magnifying glass was now clenched in a grip of iron, that trembled, not from weakness, but from the violence of his anger and emotion.
Dick saw the man with new eyes: this was no worn-out old scientist, such as he had deemed him; but a man still strong and vigorous, in spite of his three-score and ten years, a man in whom the hot blood of passion could still work wonders. And the younger man realized that if the strong hand were necessary in this affair, he would by no means need to play it alone. ”

“ Thus, riding out each day in a different direction, we spent some time at the drift waiting for our waggon, living on the few things that fell to our guns—bush doves, a hare or two, and a still rarer klipbok, grilling the flesh on the ashes and eating it without bread, salt, or any other sauce but hunger to make it palatable, for the few stores we had brought in our saddle-bags were long since exhausted. Each evening Hottentots came over from the German camp, but we could get neither stores nor news from them of the native we had hoped to find there—the guide to the lost copper mountain. ”

“ The glare from the crimson sunset turned it into a sea of blood, and each moment the forms of the drowned multitude showed more and more distinctly; clasping and clinging to each other in the awful contortions of death, as they had struggled with each other in their frantic fight against that awful cataclysm; heap upon heap, line after line, thousands upon thousands of them a multitude a whole nation overwhelmed and destroyed.
Not white men such as the priests, who alone had been saved upon the pyramid, but brown men of Inyati's type, their bodies nude except for a loincloth. ”

“ Parterres of lovely heliotrope, red-hot patches of scarlet and orange of every shade, of pink, of mauve, salmon, a hundred tints, and all so thickly clustered and luxuriant, so well-defined and separated, that the general impression was that of an enormous garden of wonderful carpet bedding. The veldt flowers of South Africa are justly celebrated for their wonderful beauty, but I doubt if at any other part of the sub-continent they can be seen in such gorgeous perfection as at Klipfontein on the Port Nolloth-O’okiep line. ”

“ I was flattened against the wall, my heels overhanging the abyss, clutching with one hand a projection above me, and feeling with my other for a new grip; but the rock was as smooth as polished marble, and it was evident that I must work back to the ledge I had rested on and try for a new route. And to do this I had of necessity to look down. As I did so the deadly vertigo I feared so much came over me, and it was well that I had good hand and foothold, or I should certainly have fallen. ”

“ In German territory the mountains were higher than upstream, their tops wide spaces of flat tableland covered with koker-boomen.
From the riverwards edges of these plateaux a vast panorama stretched on every side. Upstream the winding Orange lay like a blue ribbon fallen between a wilderness of bare and riven rocks, the only vegetation visible being the thin dark line of trees lining the actual river-banks, and this in many places entirely disappearing where the cliffs that pent in the water gave no footing for even a plant to cling. ”