Quitting Zeerust on the 19th, we made our way up the valley of the Little Marico. After passing several farms in the main valley and side valleys, and on the slopes, bearing the names of Quarifontein, Quaggafontein, Kaffirkraal, and Denkfontein, we emerged on to the Hooge-Veldt (high field), which is one of the most extensive grass plains on the South African plateau. The Zwart Ruggens (black ridges) were visible on the east. The plain abounds with game, and forms the eastern portion of the high land between the Molapo and the Harts River, where both of them, as well as the Marico and many of their affluents, take their rise; its subsoil consists of the grey limestone which I have so frequently mentioned. We only passed two farms hereabouts, Pitfontein and Witfontein, and these lay in small depressions that seemed to lead down to the Harts River.
On the 22nd we commenced a gradual descent, and entered the valley of the Makokspruit, in which the Makokskraal is situated. In this valley was a farm, the owner of which was a relative of a man whom I had attended in the diamond-fields. Although they were very poor, the people were very anxious to treat us hospitably. Next day we came to the valley of the upper Schoenspruit; the stream was flowing freely, and all along its shores farm followed farm in close succession. Between the Schoenspruit and Potchefstroom we had to cross several low ridges, the south-western spurs of the Hooge Veldt lying parallel to the Mooi and to the affluents of the Schoen.
I discovered an interesting rocky pass on the first ridge on the way to Potchefstroom, with walls of quartzite nearly semicircular, and rising almost perpendicularly. The farm shut in by them was called Klip-port; another, a little further on, was called Klipfontein, the quartzite veins in the ferruginous slate being here also quite apparent.
Arrived at Potchefstroom, I carried out my intention of selling two of my bullocks, as I had come to the end of my resources. Here, too, I said goodbye to my three companions, two of whom, Eberwald and Boly, went off to the Lydenburg gold-diggings, trusting to be rewarded with better fortune than they had found in the diamond-fields.
I travelled thirty-four miles the next day, meeting on my route a large number of waggons containing emigrants, merchants, and canteen-keepers, all on their way to Lydenburg, their thirst for gold being now as ardent as once it had been for diamonds. I halted at Klerksdorp only till evening, when I hurried on to the Estherspruit. On the 1st of April I forded the Bamboespruit, and after crossing the Vaal, seventeen miles below Christiana, at Blignaut’s Pont, I arrived in Dutoitspan on the 7th.
Of all my curiosities, of which I brought back forty cases closely packed, I considered my ethnographical specimens, 400 in number, the most valuable; but in addition to these I had a great collection of insects, horns, plants, reptiles, skins of quadrupeds and birds, minerals, skeletons, spiders, crustaceans, mollusks, and fossils.
Although I had succeeded somewhat better than during my former journey in making a cartographical survey of the route, many obstacles with which the reader has been made acquainted in the previous pages, prevented me from making a map as complete as I desired.
My pecuniary position was now very much what it had been on my first appearance in Dutoitspan; to say the truth, it was rather worse, for immediately on my arrival, an attorney called upon me to fulfil my obligations with respect to the bond into which I had entered on behalf of the young man who absconded; and very shortly afterwards I was obliged to pay off the 117l. which had been advanced to me before starting. My necessities compelled me forthwith to dispose of the greater portion of my skins and ostrich feathers, and I had to part with my waggon and team for whatever prices they would fetch. For a time my difficulties seemed to increase, as it was at least a month before I could work up anything like a remunerative practice.
I took the smallest of houses, consisting only of a single room, in one of the side streets: it was built of clay, and had a galvanized iron roof; there was a shed of the same materials close to its side; and the whole stood in a little yard containing a well, two sides of which were blocked up by a stable. For this accommodation I had to pay a rent of 5l. a month.