Fred C. Cornell

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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 ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ We had passed range after range already, but in most cases the gullies, and even some of the slopes, had been covered with vegetation of a sort—queer, fantastic plants and cacti—but still vegetation! But these queer peaks were stark and bare and of the most startling colours. In serrated lines they stretched out like the teeth of a saw, and their crumbling slopes of rotten schist were of every shade of red, of brick-red, of flaring vermilion, of bright orange-red, in fact of every red-hot gradation of colour. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ From Krantz Kop downstream towards the German border the roads are atrocious for a few miles, and then cease altogether. The only track leads away from the river, crossing stony kopjes where every step tempts a smash-up, and leading directly towards a formidable barrier of red-hot-looking peaks. The surroundings become wilder at every step, and the strange shapes of the peculiar-looking vegetation, koker-boomen (Aloe dichotoma) , thorny candelabra euphorbia, and a variety of melkbosch exactly like gigantic asparagus, lend a weird aspect to the landscape. ”

“ 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 ”

“ Our track led across difficult foothills of granite débris, broken by innumerable ravines, to where a gap in the mountain barrier marked the entrance to the pass. Long before reaching it we struck a dry river-bed, pleasant with cameel-doorn, mimosa, and other greenery, whilst here and there thick beds of reeds showed that moisture was still in the soil. Altogether a very pleasant valley, but gradually the encircling peaks of tilted quartzite narrowed in, and at dusk we entered a gloomy ravine that led us to a narrow point. ”

“ There is no “fern forest” such as lends romance to the Zambesi fall; on all sides nothing but riven, shattered rock, sheer precipice, and giant buttress, a nightmare of barrenness, of desolation so appalling that one might well be standing in some other planet, some dead world from which all sign of life had long since vanished. The vegetation of the side-streams is hidden by the chaos of rocks near the brink of the cañon, and animal and bird life there is none, for all live things seem to shun the spot. ”

“ One thing buoyed us up somewhat, and that was the belief that our non-arrival in camp would cause them to light a beacon-fire on the high dune, and as night fell, again and again, we were deceived by the bright stars that came up over the horizon, twinkling so brightly—even low down and directly over the dunes—in the clear atmosphere, that for a time they appeared exactly like a blazing fire. ”

“ No landmarks, no paths, each dune the counterpart of its neighbour, nothing to guide us, nothing to rely upon but the sense of direction, this waterless wilderness made it easy to understand the tales of men who had wandered in a circle for days searching vainly for t’samma or water or a way back, and dying within a mile or so of safety. ”

“ The pan is about two miles wide by five miles long, but by the time we were half-way the mirage had puzzled us so that we began to wonder if ever we should find the pits we were looking for. Occasionally a dune on the far bank loomed up as though it might be a solid reality, but a few steps in that direction would see it melt away, dissolving into the hazy shimmer. ”

“ On the horizon, westward, a jagged line of fantastic-looking peaks show faintly blue in the shimmering heat, prominent among them being the two pointed spitz kopjes which mark the spot where the Molopo joins the Orange. Away on the left, and across the river, lies a long ridge of queer-looking peaks outlined like a cockscomb, and especially noticeable even in this land of violent colour contrasts, for they are jet-black as though made of coal. ”

“ 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. ”

“ For many years the old pagan had been virtually King of the Kalahari Bushmen, with henchmen and wives galore, hunting the ostrich for its plumes, and the lynx, leopard, lion, and jackal for their valuable pelts, bringing in his commodities twice a year to the white men at Klaas Lucas Kraal, Kheis, or Griquatown, and returning with his waggons full of Manchester goods, sugar, coffee, and tobacco, and above all with dop sufficient for a glorious jamboree. ”

“ And after laboriously straining at our light cart up the rise, the oxen would go floundering down this declivity in a wild scramble, slipping, falling, and dragging each other and the cart in a jumble of confusion till they reached firmer footing below. To ride was impossible; indeed everything on the cart had to be made fast, or it stood a great chance of being thrown out and lost. In any case, however, we rode but seldom, ranging out on either side of the path all day with gun and rifle, hoping for the chance of a shot that seldom came. ”

“ In the morning we found that a dozen or more Hottentots had pitched their mat pondhoeks close to the waggon. They had a flock of goats with them, and appeared to live entirely on the milk. We bought a little of it later, giving tobacco and tea in return. They had a great idea of the value of their commodity, and doled it out very sparingly. Their fondness for tobacco is extraordinary, the women and young girls smoking quite as much as the men, and passing the hollow leg-bone of a buck, which serves them as a pipe, from lip to lip, as they squatted by the fire. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Then—it being late afternoon of a terrifically hot day, and the waggon going smoothly through the soft sand—I stretched out and fell asleep for a bit.
My dreams were interrupted by a terrific blow on the nose, and I awoke with a yell to find a small but extremely odoriferous youngster sprawling across my face, having fallen from a perch which he had evidently taken up on our piled-up belongings behind us; each box or bag or sieve was occupied by others: one of them had on my new pith helmet and nothing else—the whole waggon, in fact, was filled and festooned and overflowing with them. ”