The glamour of prospecting

by Fred C. Cornell

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 of paauw, 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 small scherm and 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 was hard put to it to get back to the scherm. 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 mule with 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 narrow straat between 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 hard shale, 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.