Altogether there were a good many reasons why a rapid return to the vicinity of the Kalahari was desirable, for in spite of the delay in obtaining the fruit of our desert trip, we could not conceive that we should eventually be “turned down” by the Government. Ministers and Secretaries were away stumping or holiday-making, and I could not wait in Johannesburg till their return. I had obtained the promise of the requisite finances for the water-route when the time came; meanwhile, however, it would be better not to neglect new opportunities, and, thanks to the help of certain staunch friends, I was soon on my way once more to the region of sand and t’samma.
This was on November 1st, 1913. Ever since early in June I had been living a life of constant worry, anxiety, and hardship which had made me look back with regret to those lonely dunes of the Kalahari, where at least there were no crocodiles, few mosquitoes, and less fever, and where the absence of water seemed rather an advantage when fresh from the sodden, steaming marshes of the Incomati and Lebombo.
Telfer was still down with fever at Delagoa Bay, and Shadford, a wreck of the strong man he had been, in a like case in Johannesburg, whilst even I, fever-salted as I had considered myself, had turned yellow to the whites of my eyes, shook periodically with fits of ague that threatened to lose me all the teeth the t’samma had left, and had to live principally on quinine. A week later I was back in Gordonia, where the dry air and glorious sunshine of the finest climate in the world soon drove away the effect of the “emerald picnic.”
At Upington I found that the “guide” who claimed to know the way to the cave and hollow mountain of Brydone’s story near the Bak River was a certain trooper in the C.M.P. named Trollip, a gigantic chap of about 6 ft. 3 ins., who had been through the country in question at the latter end of the Hottentot rebellion. Trekking back from German territory, he had passed through a celebrated gorge known as “Oorlogs Kloof” (Battle Kloof), and thence through the wild hills I have described in Chapter XII, and a Hottentot guide had pointed out a certain mountain as being the place “where the diamonds were.”
This was by no means the precise information I had been led to expect from the wires and letters I had received; still, I was convinced that I had been hot upon the trail on my previous trip, and jumped at the chance of following up this additional clue.
The native who had showed Trollip the spot could not be found, though we rode over half Gordonia looking for him, but a Bastard who had been also one of the party with Trollip in the mountains was induced to accompany us; and, the police trooper himself having obtained leave of absence, on November 22nd I again set out for the Great Falls and the German Border.
In addition to Trollip and the Bastard (Carl van Rooy by name), I had with me a young half-breed Hottentot named Gert, who had been with me in the Kalahari, and a friend from Upington named Ford-Smith, who wanted to see the Falls, try a new-fangled American repeating shot-gun, which acted like a pump and was almost as elegant, and incidentally bring back a few diamonds himself.
By a variety of conveyances, horses, Cape cart, ox-cart, etc., we got to the Great Falls, which I looked at with more interest than ever since I had heard that the Union Government intended utilising their enormous power in the near future. We stayed a day near the Great Cataract, partly to further explore its terrific gorges, and partly because our horses had got away in the night and gone into the mountains to look for grass, and whilst waiting for them, Carl, the guide, gave us an exhibition of fancy shooting which I would not have missed for anything. He first of all asked me if I had Martini cartridges, which I had. He then produced from the bottom of the cart the weirdest weapon I have ever seen, which is saying a good deal; for in this wild part of South Africa it is no uncommon thing to find rifles and guns of ancient make that, having been broken and patched and cobbled with raw hide, nails, tacks, wire, and solder, in the most extraordinary manner, are yet capable of doing excellent work in the hands of their owners, who know their little peculiarities.
But van Rooy’s was the limit! It had been a Martini, one of the old, long, straight-stocked ones, that kick like a mule; but one day it had fallen off a waggon and a wheel had passed over it, breaking the stock and bending the barrel almost double. Thrown away as beyond repair, it had been rescued by Carl, who had long coveted a rifle (as every man on the Border does), and who had determined to repair it. The stock he had carved from an old ox-yoke, and the barrel was fastened to it with a combination of all the home-made devices mentioned above; but the crowning feat had been the straightening of the barrel, which he had accomplished by making it red-hot and hammering it.
The result was startling, for not only was it battered and dented badly by the hammer, but the foresight was a good eighth of an inch out of alignment with the back; in fact it curved to such an extent that it suggested an attempt at a weapon designed to shoot round corners.