CHAPTER XVII
THE KURUMAN RIVER—WITDRAAI—AAR PAN AND EASTWARD—GEMSBOK AND T’SAMMA—DRIELING PAN—WILD DOGS—THIRSTY CAMELS—SEARCH FOR WOLVERDANSE—“NABA”!—BUSHMEN—END OF THE TRIP.
The old bed of the Molopo River, which farther south has been long since denuded of timber, is, in the vicinity of its junction with the Kuruman, both well wooded and interesting. Long, park-like stretches of grass with fine trees of a variety ofcameel-doorn, having huge, bean-like pods, delighted the eye tired of sand and the monotony of the treeless dunes we had just left, and when we eventually turned into the Kuruman River the vegetation became evenmoreluxuriant.
Not only the dry and sand-choked bed of this once important river, but for miles on either side of it, was a vast field of luxuriant grass almost waist-high, and as thick as a corn-field; indeed, this portion of the Kalahari, and for a long distance into the Reserve towards Kuruman, would form an ideal ranching country.
In the fine trees were birds in great variety, hornbills with huge grotesque beaks, and a most lovely blue jay with a plumage of the most brilliant Oxford and Cambridge blues, small scarlet finches, and a number of others less conspicuous.
In many a little glade along this delightful oasis we sawpaauwin 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 ablaauw 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, thist’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 begiftig(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 oxenen 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 onlyway to reach it was by striking south from the Kuruman River.
CamelTEACHING CAMELS TO EAT T’SAMMA.
TEACHING CAMELS TO EAT T’SAMMA.
TEACHING CAMELS TO EAT T’SAMMA.
BushmanBUSHMAN AT BOOMPLAATS, SOUTHERN KALAHARI.With native musical instrument.
BUSHMAN AT BOOMPLAATS, SOUTHERN KALAHARI.With native musical instrument.
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 ofpaauw, 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 smallschermand 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 washard put to it to get back to thescherm. 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 mulewith 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 narrowstraatbetween 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 hardshale, 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 shapeddune 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.
NestTHE 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.
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.
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 namenaba, 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 butnaba. 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 Igot 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 tastednabasince 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 canvashuisabout 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 ofBushmen, 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 thekiwe, 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 therooi 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 theKalahari 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 withvoorslagpast 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 gracedthe 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.