CHAPTER VI
ZWARTMODDER—THE MOLOPO—RIETFONTEIN—THE GAME RESERVE.
On the third day we reached Zwartmodder, a tiny police post and store in the old dry bed of the Molopo, whose course we were now to follow for some days. The two policemen (C.M.P.) stationed at this lonely little spot told us the horsemen had gone straight through without coming near the station, and confirmed us in our suspicion as to what these sneaks were after. Zwartmodder is a weird and desolate little place standing in a deep, narrow, rock-walled valley, whose sandy floor was the bed of the ancient river that once flowed right across what is now the Kalahari Desert from near Mafeking, westward, and then south, for many hundreds of miles, till it joined the Orange below the great falls of Aughrabies. In most places it is sand-choked to the level of the surrounding desert. In others, though still dry, it is filled with vegetation, and indeed many stretches farther north are well timbered, with fine mimosa and other thorn-trees. But, with the exception of one or two melancholy survivors, there are none of these trees left near Zwartmodder, the channel being loose sand where it is not the “black mud” from which the place is named.
Made anxious by this particular “shadowing” by men who kept ahead of us, I consulted the driver as to whether we could leave the track and give them the slip, and for the first time showed him the map old Anderson had made.
Considering the time that had elapsed since it was drawn, we had found it so far astonishinglyaccurate. It showed the old traveller’s road from Griquatown along the northern bank of the Orange to “Klaas Lucas Kraal,” a native stadt in those days, and now Upington; it gave the route northward to the Hygap (the Hottentot name for the Molopo) and Zwartmodder, and thence clearly to Hachschein Vley and the spot we hoped to find a fortune in. And the driver, after perusing it, told us that, whatever we might do when we arrived at the vley, we must follow the present road that far. For eastward stretched the unknown, waterless, and forbidden wastes of the Game Reserve, and westward, and nearer to us each day of our trek, was the frontier-line and German territory, to enter which and trek north would mean endless red tape and obstruction. So there was no help for it but to keep on as we were going, up the dry bed of the Molopo. The following day we struck an oasis in the shape of a clean, comfortable, and well-furnished dwelling, the farm “Bloemfontein,” whose then owners were an object-lesson to their benighted neighbours as to what comfort can be obtained by a little trouble and expense, even here on the fringe of the desert. Here I was shown some very fine-looking “yellow ground” from an adjoining farm near the German border which was being worked for diamonds. It looked extremely promising, and contained plenty of “carbon,” garnets, etc., but the other stones shown me in conjunction with it were zircons and not diamonds, as had been believed. This gentleman also told me of many strange “pans” in the real desert eastward, where diamonds were supposed to exist, but in which direction all prospecting and even trekking was now forbidden, and his experiences so interested me that I resolved sooner or later to explore those “pans” myself.
At Witkop the following day I had further evidence shown me of the abundance of diamondiferous “indications” that are such a feature of Gordonia, for here “yellow ground,” with all its usual inclusions, was to be seen in close proximity to the road, and indeed there is proof everywhere in this localitythat pipes, fissures, or other occurrences of Kimberlite exist, and need but a little systematic prospecting to locate. Whether they are diamondiferous can only be proved by working them, but the fact that at various times diamonds have been picked up here and there in the vicinity certainly makes such a supposition reasonable.
However, we had neither the time nor the right to prospect these places and pushed steadily on, hearing occasionally from the far-apart farms or an infrequent wayfarer that our friends the would-be “claim-jumpers” kept about an hour ahead of us. Meanwhile we were getting deeper and deeper into the dunes, and frequently these now vied with the biggest I had ever seen in the sand-belt of German West. These, however, were different. The sand was redder, and only the crests of them were bare, the long “valleys” between their regular wave-like lines, and much of their slopes, being covered with low bushes and tufts of Bushman grass. They lay right athwart the path, and trekking over them was a most tedious and slow operation. Their usual slope was about 45 degrees up to within a short distance of the summit, where the sand, loose, soft, and unbound by vegetation, was often piled up by the prevailing wind into an apex that fell away on the leeward side almost perpendicularly. 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. Game there was, for we saw spoors in abundance, but unfortunately these do not fill the pot, and in spite of the solitariness of the region both fur and feather were extremely wild.Paauw, thatmost magnificent of bustards, was abundant but almost unapproachable:klompjesof four or five together rising repeatedly a few dunes ahead of us, but always well out of gunshot. Indeed, except at the hottest time of the day, when they, like the steenbok, can occasionally be caught napping in the shade of a bush, they are seldom obtainable with a gun, stalking them and shooting them through the head or neck with a rifle, at 200 yards or more, being the sportsman’s only chance. The larger variety, known as thegom paauw, often weighs from 30 to 40 lb., and has been recorded up to 50 lb. or more. One of the largest I ever saw must have been well over that, for it stood quite five feet in height, and I took it to be a young ostrich when, in the grey light of morning, I one day came silently upon it within 40 or 50 yards. I had a rifle, but never dreamed of firing at an “ostrich,” and stood staring open-mouthed when, after a run of a few yards, the huge creature got up and sailed majestically away.
Most frequent and most annoying among the larger game-birds was thekorhaan, whose irritating croaking cackle could be heard on all sides, and which seemed to take a mischievous delight in disturbing other game of a less suspicious nature, whenever we were engaged in attempting a stalk.
Occasionally a flock of wild ostriches would speed across the path with enormous strides, covering the ground at an incredible speed; occasionally a tiny steenbok fell to the rifle, and once or twice a few gemsbok would be seen for a moment floundering over the crest of a distant dune, or, with heads thrown back and long sabre-like horns sloped in splendid attitude, would stand and gaze at us for a moment before bounding away. Big blue hawks with bright red beaks were plentiful, and I much regretted having one day shot one, for I found its crop full of snakes and lizards, and farmers have told me that this sameblaauw valkdoes infinitely more good in this respect than the much-belauded secretary-bird.
We saw but few snakes, an occasionalgeel capel(yellow cobra) or a lazy and bloated puff-adder failing to get out of our way before we saw him, but scorpions were an absolute pest. They came along with their tails cocked up, rampant and vicious, and pining for something to sting, walking straight at the camp fire of an evening, and stinging at the embers till they sizzled on them, when the cheerful smell that arose would bring others by the dozen. At least, the natives firmly believe this, and certainly our experience confirmed it. In gathering firewood or dry leaves one had to be especially careful of these little pests, and it was no uncommon thing to find three or four nestling between our blankets and the sand in the morning. Often we amused ourselves by catching them and putting two together in a sieve on the ground, when after a little teasing they would fight furiously till both were stung to death.
We passed the tiny police post at Abiqwas Pits, where two forlorn camel police are marooned in a desert of sand-dunes and have to guard (?) a district as big as an English county and watch about forty miles of the German frontier. The police force of this long border of ours is grotesquely inadequate and will be referred to later.
Thence we toiled through extremely heavy dunes, alternating with broad, flat stretches of hard shale, thickly strewn with stones that made our progress both difficult and painful. These stony spaces are known locally asaars, a name given to any feature on the surface which is long compared to its breadth, and the variety of water-worn stones with which they were strewn was astonishing. Fragments of igneous rock predominated, and conspicuous amongst them were many rounded fragments of a peculiar amygdaloid similar to that found near Pniel on the Vaal River, but by no means identical, the tiny steam-holes being filled with nodules of agate, chalcedony, and other forms of silica, or occasionally with a bright green mineral that I could not classify.
Prominent also were numerous lumps of brightscarlet jasper, and the banded ironstone, usually associated with the diamond in the gravels of the River Diggings, was also here in abundance.
This débris, however, though it is found spread over hundreds of miles of country, is usually a very superficial layer thinly strewn over the shale. Where it came from is difficult to imagine, as few of the rocks of which it is composed are to be found locally; but evidence seems to point to its having been brought there by huge floods in the remote past, and at a period prior to the advent of the enormous accumulation of sand that now forms the dunes of the desert and covers up the bulk of the “country rock” of this wide, waterless region.
In the midst of these huge dunes, we one evening met a waggon belonging to a Boer who had for some time past been farming in German territory over the border, and as it was near outspan time we camped that night together. He had twenty-four sturdy oxen yoked to his buck-waggon, on which were piled his few household belongings and his numerous family. He had been one of the many “irreconcilables” who, having fought to the last in the Boer War, had refused to live under British rule, and had trekked to German West and there taken up land and settled down. And now, after years of galling and irksome submission to the German régime of red tape and officialism, he had been exasperated beyond all endurance by some sample of German “justice,” and was trekking back, extremely thankful to be once more under the once despised and hated Union Jack, and full of the wrongs experienced at the hands of theDuitsers.
I met a number of these sadder and wiser men at various times along the border, and almost invariably their experiences of German rule had had a most salutary effect upon them, from a British point of view.
Eventually we emerged from these giant dunes on to a fairly wide, level plain known as Saulstraat, and here by the water-pits found six fine shady thorn-trees that had been planted in a line by somethoughtful old pioneer of the desert; and as we had not seen anything bigger than a bush for some days past, it was most natural that we should seek their shade for our midday outspan. G. smoothed away a place from the fallen thorns and threw himself down, whilst I—much to his surprise—climbed into the cart and prepared to take my siesta in its very cramped space. “Why don’t you come down here?” asked G. I told him there might be insects. “Insects!” he said, in high disdain, “insects! Well, I always thought you were a crank, but that settles it! Here we’ve been roasting for days till we smell like grilled steak, and when you get the chance of a bit of comfort in the shade of nice trees, you’re afraid of insects! Insects! Why, there aren’t any, and if there were they wouldn’t keep me from this! Insects!”
“Be warned in time,” I said solemnly. “These are no common insects.”
“Oh, shut up,” he snorted; “you and your old yarns! I’m going to sleep.” And he did; but not for long. By my watch it took just four and a half minutes before he began to squirm a bit; that meant the first sam-pan had started prospecting. Soon others evidently put their pegs in, and in seven and a half minutes the big rush came. I had always admired, indeed almost reverenced, G.’s ability to sleep at any time, anywhere, and under any conditions, but the way he withstood the combined onslaught of that army corps of sam-pans for fully another three minutes was an eye-opener as to what he could do. At last a big one at work on his nose must have struck it rich, for G. ceased his snores and his squirming, and still half asleep struck himself a violent blow right where the sam-pan was working. He let off a violent yell, and for the next few minutes his demeanour lacked dignity and repose. In the middle of his bad language I told him so, also that it was a pity to forget himself for the sake of a few insects.
“Insects!” he snorted. “You call these blamed calamities insects, do you? Right-oh, wait a bit, my son—I’ll pay you for this.”
And he did, for the next thing I heard was a splash, and there he was, clothes and all, in the water-pit—the only water we had, mind, for drinking purposes for the next twenty-four hours, for our cask and bags were empty when we arrived and we had not yet refilled them. 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. So perfect was the illusion that on looking back to the trees we saw them faithfully mirrored in the placid “water” beneath them, as were the high dunes and every little prominence in sight. However, after toiling through another barrier of high dunes we were cheered by the sight of real water, a fairly wide, shallow vley, with a number of oxen standing in it, showing where recent rains had fallen at Middle Pits. Here there was a substantially built house owned by a Bastard farmer, one of the few remaining original owners of these desert border farms. And here the sand-dunes came to an end. Ahead stretched flat country broken by one or two extraordinary black kopjes, the first sign of any intrusive rock we had seen since leaving Witkop. We had now for the first time an opportunity of giving our advance agents the slip, and turning abruptly from the path, we trekked all night, and in the morning were close to Rietfontein at the north-west corner of Hachschein Vley, and near our destination.
The vley is such only in name, being a wide expanse of flat country which has at one time been a shallow lake or marsh, and into which several small riversformerly ran. Except after rain these are, of course, dry, but in the “pan” itself water can be obtained almost anywhere at a comparatively shallow depth.
In Anderson’s time this had been a noted place for lions, but they do not come as far south nowadays, and it was in this locality that the old traveller met with hostile Bushmen. No such place as Rietfontein then existed, but his map showed a native Kraal called “Quassama,” and it appeared likely that the post at Rietfontein had been built on the site of this old Bushman village, which indeed proved to be the case.
If only on account of its remoteness and isolation, this tiny frontier post of ours merits description. Separated by nearly 150 miles of sand-dunes from a doctor or a telegraph station, or any of the conveniences of life even to be found at Upington, and almost double that distance from the nearest railway at Prieska, it surely vies with the police posts of the Canadian North-West border for loneliness and inaccessibility. Its only connecting-link with the Empire it belongs to is by this wearisome southern route that we had followed, for north of it there is no other post along the whole 600 miles of British-German border where the Bechuanaland Protectorate and German South-West march together to the Caprivi belt and the Portuguese territory of Angola. East stretches the whole breadth of the Southern Kalahari, pathless, waterless, and a forbidden land, between them and the Kuruman district, whilst westward they are bounded by foreign (German) territory.
GorgeA BEAUTIFUL GORGE OF THE ORANGE RIVER (NEAR “AUSENKEHR”)
A BEAUTIFUL GORGE OF THE ORANGE RIVER (NEAR “AUSENKEHR”)
A BEAUTIFUL GORGE OF THE ORANGE RIVER (NEAR “AUSENKEHR”)
The nucleus of this forlorn little settlement was the old mission station belonging to the Rhenish Mission, and dating from the days of the Bushman kraal old Anderson had seen. It was a substantial stone-built dwelling, flanked with a chapel and standing by the all-important water-hole. There was the usual tiny oasis in the shape of a small garden with a few fig-trees, and half a dozen largecameel doornin the sand near showed where the “river” at one time flowed; but other than this there was no sign of vegetation and the surroundings were barren and desolate, even for the desert. A small thatched building that served for Court-house (for Rietfontein is the seat of a magistracy), as well as residence for the magistrate and officer in charge of the police, a fairly well stocked store, and the few miserable hovels that housed the Bastard and Hottentot community of the mission, and the equally tumble-down quarters of the police troopers, constituted the whole of the most important police post along our whole frontier.
Of course the Rietfontein missionary was a German; moreover, although he was a J.P. of the district he had never taken the trouble to learn English, and his flock of coloured ragamuffins were as nearly Germanised as he had been able to make them. He proved to be the possessor of a very old map of the locality which gave all the old native names, and which I covet to this day, and upon which we were able to verify our idea as to Rietfontein and Quassama being identical.
And cheered by this fresh proof of Anderson’s accuracy, within an hour of our arrival we again set out on foot, thinking to be able to walk straight to the “valley of diamonds” we had come so far to find. But alas! the map—so correct up to now—failed lamentably upon this most vital point of all, for certain physical features there laid down were utterly lacking in the direction the chart pointed to, and after spending the rest of the day in a vain search we came back considerably discouraged. And day after day the same thing happened. Having failed to find the spot at once, I obtained the services of one or two of the older Bastard inhabitants, as also an old Bushman, and under their guidance I wore out two pairs of strong boots in systematically searching the locality, putting in eight or ten hours of walking each day, and only giving up after ten days of this wearisome search, when I had absolutely convinced myself that no such place existed anywhere upon the ground I was entitled to prospect,or indeed anywhere within many miles of the position marked so clearly upon the map. And so we had come nearly a thousand miles, over three hundred of which had been by trekking through a desert and difficult country, for nothing, simply upon another wild-goose chase!
I do not wish to say that no such spot ever existed. In fact, I have no doubt that Anderson made the discovery much as he described it; but my opinion is that he did not make the map till many years after his visit, and that the locality was wrongly marked by many miles.
Yet Kimberlite existed in the vicinity; indeed, a “blank” variety, containing but few inclusions, was to be seen in many of the dry watercourses that honeycombed the country, and I found garnets and ilmenite in one or two places, but none of the other minerals described and brought back by Anderson and shown me in Cape Town.
The fact having been reluctantly forced upon me that the map was wrong, I had at length no alternative but to abandon the search, our one consolation being that the two would-be “claim-jumpers” who had turned up at a neighbouring farm a day or two after our arrival, and who had laboriously followed me about the wild country ever since, had also had their trouble for nothing, besides being considerably mystified into the bargain. In spite of my failure, I should much have liked to put in a few months’ systematic prospecting in the locality, for there were quite sufficient “indications” to warrant it, and such work might well have led to valuable discoveries.
But I had been instructed simply to verify the existence or otherwise of the place mentioned in Anderson’s map, and there was nothing for it but to turn back on our long trek to civilisation.
During the short time we spent at Rietfontein we were most hospitably entertained by the officer in charge of the few camel police there, and found that he, in common with his men, was perfectly contentedwith the solitary life they were forced to lead. He said that new-comers sometimes nearly go mad for the first month or two of their lonely and monotonous existence, but that they almost invariably get so attached to the place and the life that they seldom apply for a transfer, and the few who do so are usually anxious to return to the desert within a very short time. Yet the life is both hard and perilous, for their long patrols take them many days’ distance into the desert, and often, in the waterless tracks near the Oup and Nosop “rivers” to the north or the equally thirst-stricken wastes eastward, they are faced with the danger of a death from thirst. With a view to minimising the danger of getting lost in these pathless dunes they usually patrol in couples, and some of their adventures in tracking down Bushman or Hottentot cattle-thieves in the heart of the desert would make most excellent reading.
Most of these chaps pooh-poohed the idea of a mine near their camp. “Pity you can’t go into the Game Reserve,” they all said; “that’s where the diamonds are, out towards Tilrey Pan.” But beyond the assertion and their evident belief, they had no data whatever to confirm what they said. They had all heard vague rumours as to rich mines existing there, tales, too, of Bushmen and Hottentots bringing out diamonds and obtaining cattle and waggons for them; but it was impossible to trace these stories to their source or confirm them, and beyond a flying trip or two when water had been too scarce to allow of any delay, they had seen but little of this forbidden ground themselves. A few of the nearer “pans” in that region lay within their patrol, and their description of the rocks and gravels to be seen there excited my curiosity to an extraordinary degree, whilst they were unanimous in saying that, from the high dunes they had visited there, numerous unknown and unvisited pans could be seen dotting the desert eastward. But this mysterious region, long coveted by prospectors, had for many years been closed against all prospecting, a tract of countryhalf the size of England having been proclaimed a Royal Game Reserve, to the exclusion even of travellers.
The old Bushman who had been my guide knew this district well; in the past he had hunted ostriches there with the bow and poisoned arrow, bringing the feathers in to the rare trading waggons to exchange for tobacco and the like, and he asserted that Bushmen still wandered there, independent of water and living on thetsamma(or wild melon) in lieu thereof. “Bright stones,” yes, some of the “pans” were full of them, and he also had heard that men had obtained many head of oxen and five waggons for these! But which “pans” they came from he could not say; there were many, many of such places. Yes, he knew pans where the soil wasblaauw(blue) and crumbled in the hand, and where therooi blink klippers(bright red stones—garnets) lay by the shovelful, and green stones too. Would he be able to take me to these places? Yes! and to where there was a “fontein” of good water too, but the police would put him intronkif he went there; no one was there butschelmBushmen, cattle thieves.
All of which made me more anxious than ever to explore this forbidden stretch of country, and on our way back I took every opportunity that offered to question both natives and farmers as to whether diamonds had ever been found there, and found that the belief that mines existed there was universal.
Few of the farmers cared to acknowledge that they had ever been more than a mile or two into the Reserve (and then always after “strayed cattle”); but as a matter of fact a great deal of poaching is carried on by these dwellers on the border, and many a waggon of gemsbok biltong finds a way to dodge the rare patrols of the few police.
As we again approached the dry bed of the Molopo (which practically forms the boundary-line between the Reserve and the line of surveyed farms fringing the German border), I took several opportunities of penetrating for a few miles into the prohibited area,to where, from a high dune, it is possible to scan the huge expanse of pathless desert stretching eastward, whilst from the rocky kopjes that here and there rise near the ancient river I was once or twice able to overlook it to even better advantage. And as far as the eye could reach, to where sand and sky met in the mirage and shimmer of the horizon, there was nothing but serried lines of enormous dunes, except where, here and there, flat open spaces, glimmering like lakes with the sheen of the mirage, showed the position of some of the larger “pans.” Near many of these, I noted that the sand, reddish or dun-coloured in general, was snow-white; a feature that also struck me was that the position of each of these sand-encircled spaces was invariably marked by the proximity of an exceptionally high dune, towering well above its neighbours. Seen at sunrise this vast expanse presented a most extraordinary appearance, the position of each “pan” being marked by a dense low-lying cloud of mist, which of course dispersed as the sun gained in power. Altogether it was a most fascinating stretch of country, made doubly so by its being forbidden ground, and by repute a region of great mineral wealth.
And abundant evidence was forthcoming that these stories of diamonds in the desert were not without foundation, for in many places along our more leisurely route homewards we came across carbon, garnets, oblivine, and all the usual accompaniments of the precious stones, whilst in more than one instance well-defined “pipes” were pointed out in which “yellow” and “blue” ground—practically identical with that of the Premier Mine—was disclosed in dry watercourses; and there can be no doubt that a very large number of these Kimberlite occurrences await systematic prospecting.
But as we approached Upington again, the few inhabitants we questioned no longer referred to the “Game Reserve” as being the whereabouts of diamonds; instead, they universally spoke of a spot in quite another direction.
As their tale ran, in substance, an enormously rich mine was discovered many years ago in the wild tangle of almost unknown mountains known as the Noup Hills, which lie on the northern bank of the Orange River below the Great Falls and the Molopo, and which few white men have ever penetrated. In the early days of Kimberley, a Hottentot had told his master there that he knew of a place where the diamonds lay thick, and eventually this digger had undertaken the long trek, and after incredible hardships had found the spot and made himself a rich man in an hour or two. But he barely escaped with the diamonds and his life, and so terrible had been his experiences that nothing would induce him to return.
The tale, though differing in detail, was always substantially the same, and whether true or not it is certainly believed in by the bulk of the inhabitants of the southern part of Gordonia, and indeed I have since had abundant reason myself for believing that it has a foundation of fact. Now, some years ago, Brydone, the well-known writer of South African stories, wrote a most thrilling one around this incident, which he published under the title ofA Secret of the Orange River, and which gives a most accurate description of the little-known region in question; so accurate, indeed, that the author had certainly either visited the spot himself or taken the description first-hand from one who had.
It has been maintained that the story had no foundation of truth and originated solely in the fertile brain of the writer; but this I can in no wise credit, for there are men in the district who had heard it long before Brydone wrote his book, and indeed who had never heard of the latter.
And in Upington, when we arrived there, an enthusiastic friend of mine declared that he could produce a man who knew the actual spot, and who had long expressed a wish to lead a properly equipped expedition to it.
Unfortunately, this man was not to be found atthe time of my return; but even during the few days that I remained in Upington I was able to gather a lot of data that seemed to confirm the story, and my desire to visit the Noup Hills now equalled my longing to enter the Game Reserve.
However, nothing could be done till certain guides were forthcoming and other matters satisfactorily arranged, so, leaving my local friend to hunt up all the information he could about diamonds in either locality, I left Upington for Prieska on New Year’s Day, 1910, consoling myself with the reflection that, though Anderson had led me still another wild-goose chase, it might not have been absolutely in vain.