CHAPTER XIII
GRAVEL TERRACES AT ZENDLING’S DRIFT—SECOND CHRISTMAS AT RICHTERSFELDT—GERMAN POST AT ZENDLING’S—MAKING A RAFT—HIPPO AT THE LORELEI MOUNTAIN.
It was obvious, however, that such a permit would take a lot of time and patience to procure, and at any rate would be of no use until the long drought broke.
So I made no formal application immediately, but contented myself with taking certain preliminary steps, after which, calculating that at least three months must elapse before I could get any “forrader,” I determined to utilise that period in testing the wonderful gravels near Zendling’s Drift, to which I have already alluded.
They are ancient “terraces” of very large extent, and at some distance from the present bed of the Orange. Fully 50 feet above the open country they stand on they are remarkable in many respects, and their flat surfaces present a most beautiful appearance: agates, jaspers, banded ironstones, chalcedonies, and countless other beautiful pebbles lying there by the thousand tons, and all so clean and polished by the constantly blowing sand that they present the appearance of a vast mosaic. Scarlet and purple jasper, milk-white quartz, opalescent chalcedonies, black and white agates, and, most abundant of all, ironstone pebbles so beautifully oxydised by Nature’s chemistry that their jet-black surfaces exactly resembled the polished gun-metal so much used for watches and other jewellery.
Except for being of a much larger grade, these gravels resembled stone for stone the deposits found at Pomona and other islands and beaches of GermanSouth-West, where diamonds had been found so plentifully, and I was of the opinion (and hold that opinion still) that thorough prospecting would prove them to be diamondiferous. I had had no time to do any systematic work on my previous visit, but having got a friend as enthusiastic as myself to join me, an expedition was arranged, and we left Cape Town early in December (1911). Finance was extremely low, and we fully expected to have to rough it even more than usual. Only actual necessities were taken, but even the modicum of foodstuffs, tent, tools, and the bulky and essential barrels for “washing” the gravel taxed to the very utmost the only vehicle we were able to procure. This vehicle was a Scotch cart owned by a native missionary, and it met us at “28 miles,” a water station on the Cape Copper Company’s line from Port Nolloth. We had expected a waggon, but as vehicles of any kind are as rare as honest men in Namaqualand, we had to put up with what we could get. Naturally the load was far too much for such a cart, on such a road (heavy sand), and before we were out of sight of the lonely railway track we had stuck twice, and finally broken down. The team was the usual Hottentot mixture of cows, heifers, young bulls, and a couple of oxen, and the drivers worse than the team, and our progress was maddeningly slow.
Before leaving Port Nolloth we had heard a rumour that there was some kind of trouble at Zendling’s Drift between the Richtersfeldt Hottentots and a German survey party which was about to cross into British territory for survey purposes, and with the permission of the Union Government. We could get no details, but troopers of the C.M.P. were supposed to be on their way to the spot, and these Hottentot drivers were full of the news. They were inclined to be surly and cheeky too, but as soon as we were well on the road we showed them the error of their ways in the only way a Hottentot can be taught such things, and they became extremely civil. The road was new to me, via Kalkfontein, Lekkersing,and Chubiesses, but a description of it would only weary the reader, almost as much as the journey did us. Where it was not deep sand it was rough rocks, and for the first two days we were incessantly sticking or overturning, unpacking or repacking the cart. On the fourth day, in the middle of a wide plain of heavy sand, we ran into soft dunes in which the wheels sank up to the hubs, and here we stuck hopelessly. The oxen were suffering from thirst and would pull no more, the heat was overpowering, and our own water very short, so we decided to send half the load on and dump the other till the oxen had drunk and returned. Dittmer (my partner) and I tossed to see who should remain with the dump, and I lost, and during the rest of a boiling day I sat under a white umbrella which the missionary had forced on me, and which I was now extremely grateful for.
The team turned up again next day, refreshed, and we got through to Doornpoort, where there was still a gallon or two of water that the oxen had left.
We had fully intended reaching Zendling’s Drift by Christmas, but here we were, still a long distance from Kuboos even, and it was Christmas Eve. At any rate I determined to reach Kuboos for some part of Christmas, for there at least would be clean water and a pleasant tree, where Ransson, Poulley, and I had spent our Christmas Day a year back.
Early in the morning, therefore, I struck out ahead of the cart, on which Dittmer had now made a perch, and by midday had skirted the big granite range and was in sight of the tiny Hottentot church and fewpondhoeksof the little mission. Better, I could see the water andmytree, and pressed forward as men hasten homeward on such a day. Shade, rest, and plenty of water—after all I should be able to enjoy my Christmas! I reached the first little pool amongst the granite boulders; it was crystal-clear and ice-cold, and I drank deep, and did not envy any man stronger Christmas tipple. Then I made for the tree—almost as welcome as the waterin this barren land—and promised myself a pleasant sleep till the cart came along.
But to my intense surprise, there under my tree lay three big troopers of the C.M.P.
I nearly dropped with surprise, for I had never met a white man near this spot before, and considered that tree to be my own particular property. I felt hurt!
They never moved, so I said, “Hullo!”
The nearest one opened one eye—“Hullo!” he echoed; to the others, “Here’s Rip van Winkle.”
Well, I suppose I looked something like it!—a week’s beard, and the grime collected in hauling empty oil-barrels about, greasing cart-wheels, sleeping on Mother Earth, etc., being added to by the blood of a steenbok that I had shot and carried slung across my shoulders.
They turned out to be a party of mounted police under Lieutenant Burgess, which had been hurried through the wild country from Upington to Zendling’s Drift on news of trouble there. They had been to the Drift, found that the Germans had decided not to venture across, and were returning to “civilisation” when I found them under my tree.
They had a waggonful of stores, and we spent a most enjoyable Christmas together.
We found the Kuboos natives extremely surly and suspicious; it was evident that they resented the visit of the police, and we could get no one to take us farther till after Boxing Day, when at an exorbitant price we succeeded in getting a waggon, and reached the Drift on December 28th. Here we pitched camp in a pleasant spot by some trees close to the river, which was in flood and higher than I had hitherto seen it. The waggon turned back to Kuboos, and we were alone.
About a mile downstream, and opposite the German police post, there was a tribe of Hottentots encamped, and from them we expected to get a sufficiency of labour, but we found that they had acquired the Christmas habit and were all drunk, insolent, and inclined to be dangerous.
At length, after a long powwow, I induced two of them to join us for good wages and plenty of tobacco, and we got the camp shipshape, hoping that their spree would not last longer than the New Year.
Meanwhile the river rose rapidly, a brown swirling torrent of some 300 yards separating us from the German bank, whilst downstream the roar of the rapids warned us when bathing to keep out of the main current.
We had hoped to get a certain amount of game, and an occasional sheep or goat from the natives, but their crowd of mongrel dogs had caught or driven away the former, and they demanded an exorbitant price for the latter, so that we had for a time to depend on our tinned stores.
Occasional Hottentots still crossed the swollen river to and from the German camp by means of their swimming-logs, and on New Year’s Eve we received a courteous message from the Wachtmeister in charge asking us to come over and join them. I did not like to leave our belongings to the mercy of the drunken Hottentots, so declined with thanks, but there was no reason why both should remain, so Dittmer sent an answer saying that, though a poor swimmer, he would try. I tried to dissuade him when I found he was a long way from being a strong swimmer, for the water looked very ugly, but later the messenger returned with a more urgent invitation and—a life-belt! I had never expected to see such a thing in Namaqualand, but the Germans are nothing if not thorough, and I found later they had about fifty of them at the post!
So Dittmer went, and I fell to cooking a fine wild goose that I had shot, for he promised to return and dine with me. But, alas! I had to eat it alone. However, he turned up before midnight, in state, accompanied by several natives with mouth-organs, and having had a glorious time. So enthusiastic was he, in fact, that I had great difficulty in preventing him from blowing up the whole of our dynamite to welcome in the New Year.
With its arrival we started work in earnest; a few more natives joined us, and we began our testing of the gravels.
We had hoped to get donkeys, oxen, or horses from the natives, but these had been driven away into the mountains when a rumour had spread that the Germans intended crossing, and nothing would induce them to bring them back. So that the large amount of water necessary even for “hand-washing” diamondiferous gravel had to be hand-dragged from the river to the deposits nearly a mile away, and this handicapped our operations considerably. Still, so promising were the indications that we were full of hope and enthusiasm, and worked from daylight to dark.
Meanwhile the Hottentots kept up their reputation for laziness and deceit; our gang was never full—except of honey beer—which they made from a big haul of wild honey that they had made in the rocks just before our arrival, and on which they got gloriously drunk every day. They plundered our stores in our absence from the camp, and we were obliged to take turn about in remaining there; kind treatment was taken advantage of, and when we simplyhadto sjambok them they ran away. Moreover, those who did work clamoured for fresh meat, and this we could not obtain except from their drunken old headman, Klaas Fredericks, who asked prices out of all reason. Once or twice after a big drink these thieving, poaching scoundrels came to the camp in the evening and demanded tobacco, etc., and became threatening when we refused, but the sight of a couple of rifles always stopped them. Still, there was very little chance of doing much under such conditions, and so exasperated did we become that we should have welcomed an open outbreak by the brutes, which would have given us an opportunity for a lesson in the shape of a few bullets. Our nearest policeman was at least five days away—and we had no horses. To add to our annoyance, the river rose again with startling rapidity, until it threatened to burst through an old channel behindour tent and completely maroon us. That this had happened before was amply evident, as many of the larger thorn-trees showed traces of having been more than once almost completely under water.
CartPACKING THE CART FOR THE JOURNEY.
PACKING THE CART FOR THE JOURNEY.
PACKING THE CART FOR THE JOURNEY.
LuggageDUMPED WITH MY BELONGINGS IN THE DESERT WHILST THE OXEN WERE DRIVEN ON TO SAVE THEM FROM DYING OF THIRST.
DUMPED WITH MY BELONGINGS IN THE DESERT WHILST THE OXEN WERE DRIVEN ON TO SAVE THEM FROM DYING OF THIRST.
DUMPED WITH MY BELONGINGS IN THE DESERT WHILST THE OXEN WERE DRIVEN ON TO SAVE THEM FROM DYING OF THIRST.
Moreover, the intense heat, hard work, and hard living had told on both of us, and on more than one occasion we were down with fever at the same time; and we were deaf and nearly blind with quinine and mosquitoes.
Still, we did not like to strike camp, but one day, after both of us had been queer with fever, it occurred to us that we should be in a very bad plight indeed if we got too ill to get about, for the Hottentots would be more likely to rob us than help us! We therefore attempted to make a raft, so that if need be we could get across the river to the Germans, from whence at intervals there was communication with the outside world.
A boat would have been better, but that was out of the question, so we contrived a curious arrangement in the shape of aTof tree-trunks, at the three extremities of which were lashed a couple of small water-casks and an empty oil-drum. The whole thing was tied together with rope, wire string, andruimpjes, and we also contrived a couple of crutches as rowlocks and a pair of sculls. We found when it was finished that the only way to float on it was with our legs in the water, and the first time we ventured across it appeared highly probable that the current would take us into the rapids before we got to the German bank; but we got across somehow, and felt that we were no longer in danger of being marooned.
Afterwards we went across on several occasions, and always received courtesy and civil treatment from the German police. These police were a military body and were all picked men, only soldiers who had attained the rank of sergeant in the Imperial Army being eligible. Their quarters were extremely comfortable, and they were well and regularly supplied with rations by camel transport from the far-distant railway at Aus. They had all sorts ofqueer pets—baboons, monkeys, and various kinds of wild-cats caught in the dense bush of the river-bank.
The post, built well back from the river, commanded a fine view of all the approaches to the Drift on the British side; they had a deep well close at hand, which made them independent of the latter, and a pleasant feature was an experimental garden, where all manner of plants, both African and European, were being grown in the prolific Orange silt.
A fine fowl-run and an apiary gave additional proof of their industry, and considering their distance from civilisation, and the fact that the post was barely eighteen months old, they had done wonders; but any admiration I felt for them and their work died a sudden death when I walked through that same garden, and found that the work was being done by Herero prisoners working in chains. Not light chains, but heavy manacles on legs and arms, and neck and waist, manacles that were never taken off till they knocked them off when they died. These men, as far as I could gather, were “prisoners of war” only—not criminals in any sense of the word as we understand it. I am no negrophile, but German methods of treating natives are far too heartless for “the likes of me.”
The day after our first visit to German territory, the clan of Hottentots that had proved such a nuisance flitted, taking with them most of our able-bodied men, and we saw them no more. The few that remained worked better without them; but as Klaas Fredericks had taken every goat and sheep with him, we could no longer give our labourers thevleeschthey insisted upon, except by going far afield and bringing back an occasional buck.
Thus, with our difficulties always on the increase, we spent a couple of most arduous months, only deterred from throwing up the venture by a firm belief that the diamonds were there somewhere; often ill with fever, hard up for food, and quite cut off from all news of the outside world. Our only amusement was in trapping animals as the Germansdid, improvising traps from spare sieves, and baiting them with small birds. Scarce a day passed but that the traps were full, and in this manner we caught, alive and unhurt, wild-cats, ratels, iguanas, and several of the beautifully spotted “leopard cats”—or genets, to give them their proper name. On more than one occasion amuis-hond(the South African skunk) got into the traps, and made its presence known by the most appalling smell, and a tree leguaan (iguana) once gave me an awful shock, for he lay so quiet under the leaves covering the sieve that I thought it was empty, and the dart of his head—so like that of a snake—made me fall back in the thorn-bush, for I thought I had bagged a huge puff-adder.
Towards the end of our stay provisions got so low, and game so wild and scarce, that we had to spend most of our time after it, and one day, whilst looking for a square meal, I had rather a peculiar experience.
About two miles above the Drift, and near the Lorelei Mountain, we spotted a flock of ten or a dozen wild geese floating near the German bank, and Dittmer emptied his magazine at them, killing three. The river was still in flood, and with the perversity usual in such cases, the geese floated into the German bank. We wanted them very badly, and as Dittmer could swim but little, it was up to me to go across and get them. Helped by the current, I got across the muddy, turbulent water fairly easily and got the geese, and as I had drifted a long way downstream, I got out with the intention of walking up the bank to opposite where my clothes lay. The thicket on the north bank was dense and teeming with monkeys, baboons, and all sorts of animal life; it was thorny too, and I was as full of spikes as a porcupine, as I picked my way gingerly along the bank upstream, feeling horribly helpless—for, naturally, I had nothing on but a hat—and looking out carefully for snakes.
Seeing an open space with tall reeds, I decided to cut across it, but had scarcely got among the bushvegetation of this swampy place, when at my very feet I saw a huge spoor in the black mud, so freshly made that the water still oozed into it, and at the same time heard an awful snoring grunt close to me, answered by another, and realised that I was right among a herd of hippo. I had seen traces of this small herd before at their favourite haunt, higher up near the Great Fish River. There were but four or five of them, but remnants of the hundreds that swarmed the Orange when Alexander first crossed and described it.
As a rule, of course, hippo are harmless, but at times the huge brutes are mischievous, and I did not stay to inquire what kind of mood they were in, but sprinted back across the river in a manner that left little to be desired. But I brought the geese.
At length food and labour became so scarce that we were compelled to give up; a messenger was sent to Kuboos, and a few days later the waggon made an appearance. We struck camp, filled in our prospecting-holes, blew up our dynamite in a deep pool in the river, as a parting salute to the Germans, and took the home trail, feeling that we had put up a good fight against sheer bad luck. Lack of natives and other adverse circumstances had hampered our work so that, in spite of our own hard labour, the few holes we had been able to make had been no real test of the huge beds of gravel, which, with proper appliances and systematic testing, will very probably some day yield very different results.
Our bad luck lasted us right to Cape Town. The waggon got hopelessly stuck in the Holgat River, and delayed us so that we missed the only decent boat at that time running, had to kick our heels for an interminable week in Port Nolloth, and finally were obliged to take passage in a glorified tug, with several other unfortunates, and take ten long days in coasting round to Cape Town—a trip of 36 hours by the boat we had missed! Moreover, we were loaded from cut-water to taffrail with a cargo of guano, the concentrated odour of which was the only thing wetasted during the whole of the voyage. Dittmer landed ill, and within a few days was down with diphtheria, which was generally ascribed to the rough living and bad water we had to put up with during the trip, but which I put down to that over-generous diet of guano.