The glamour of prospecting

by Fred C. Cornell

But, martinet as he had become, and feared as he was by them, he undoubtedly won the respect of these ignorant and impressionable young fellows, many of whom had never seen a railway or heard anything of the outside world, except from the biased and embittered lips of the irreconcilables and so-called “Hertzogites” (or Nationalists) who formed the bulk of the scattered population in these remote regions.

To his men his great argument was that by discipline alone could they ever become a fighting force worthy of the name, and that, had the Boer forces been properly disciplined, the British could never have won the war.

Whatever may have been his faults, Maritz was no hypocrite; he never professed to have any other feeling than that of hearty detestation for the English; and though the Union Jack floated over his training-camp, there can be no doubt that he hoped from the first that in the Defence Force he was helping to forge a weapon that would some day be turned against the Uitlander whose hated symbol it was.

Maritz, then, was in command of the Defence Force training-camp at Prieska when I arrived there, and as I had some business with him re a motor-car of his which had been burned in Namaqualand, I went up to the camp to see him. Rebel and traitor as he became, and probably was at heart then, it would be useless for me to say that he gave me a bad impression; on the contrary, he impressed me most favourably during the hour or so I was in his company. An alert, bluff, soldierly man, well groomed and of medium height, he looked the officer to perfection; but though sturdily built, he showed little signs of the enormous strength he was known to possess. His English was good, and his manner that of an educated man—though I have often heard him described as illiterate since his defection!

He was full of curiosity as to where I had been in G.S.W., and what I knew of German doings there; like every other Boer who had seen their troops in the Herero and Hottentot rebellions, he expressed unbounded contempt for their fighting methods, and made the same assertion as most Boer leaders used then to make, that with a commando of 500 Boers he would take the country, any day!

And I believe he meant it, for at that time the contempt of the German for the Boer was only equalled by the contempt of the Boer for the German.

I got through to Upington without mishap—it was something of an undertaking even those few short years ago—and then, as I was preparing for great things, luck turned dead against me.

I fell ill, and was laid up for days at the little hotel, and when at last I got under way again, worse was to follow. I had taken my friend the orange merchant for the return journey, as he had proved a very good chap, and I needed a white man for transport at the camp, and by his advice we had taken the back trail through Cnydas (where Maritz afterwards turned rebel) and through a mountain-encompassed hollow called Noedap, where one of the natives had a horse I greatly coveted. It was nothing to look at, a shabby-looking little blue roan (blaauw schimmel) pony of about 14.2, but a perfect marvel for endurance up to forty or fifty miles a day, in sand and over mountains, and capable apparently of living on stones. I intended working two gangs at least that distance apart, and this pony, if I could get it, would enable me to run both at once. We got into the crater—it merits the name—and after a day’s delay I became the possessor of the little nag.

So steep was the climb out of Noedap in the direction we were going that the donkeys utterly failed to get the waggon up the terrific slope, and eventually a team of oxen had to be inspanned by the Bastards to get it to the plateau above. Meanwhile I rode on ahead, finding the pony all that could be desired. A few hours later I came to the steep descent into the Bak River near Aries, a most lonely and desolate place, but with water in the stream-bed. There was no path down the steep, rock-strewn slope, and my pony was picking its way down most gingerly when I suddenly spied an old folding stool, strung with rimpi, and such as the Boers use in their waggons, lying amongst the boulders a few feet away. How long it had been there it would be hard to surmise, for there was no path and nothing to tempt a wayfarer that way, and, feeling curious, I stopped the pony, and tried to dismount and pick it up. I say “tried,” for my big heavy boots had jammed in the small stirrups, and as I struggled to clear them, the pony caught sight of the stool, shied violently and threw me with a sickening crash on to the sharp rocks. One foot caught, and as the pony sprang forward, I struck the pointed boulder with my full weight, right beneath my outstretched left arm, smashing in three of my ribs with a gruesome crunch, and for the time knocking me senseless. Luckily the pony dragged me only a yard or two and then stood stock-still on the steep slope, whilst I hung with one foot still jammed in the stirrup.

I came to still fixed in that fashion, my face and shoulder badly cut and bruised, and blood running from my mouth, and my broken ribs apparently pressing into my lung, for my breath whistled like a pair of broken bellows, and every breath was an agony. I thought I was about finished, and certainly, if the horse had started again, I should have been. One arm was helpless, and for what seemed an eternity I tried in vain to release my foot, fearing every fresh effort would make the pony bolt. At last I got my hunting-knife under the laces and ripped them and got my foot free, and fainted. I was in a bad place, the waggon was an hour or more behind, and would not come within nearly half a mile of the spot; I was so badly hurt that I could not stand, and might easily lie there days before I should be searched for. If the driver did not find me, no one would; and if once he passed me and trekked on he would conclude I had gone on to Nakob, and I should not be missed till he got there a day or two later. Anyway I was in such agony that I thought an hour or two would finish me, but after a bit I remembered my rifle, and tried to get it from where it had been flung with me from the saddle. And at last I was able to fire a shot, and felt all the better for the rifle, for there were four or five vultures already on the scene—though I afterwards found they had other legitimate business on hand in the shape of a dead ox about a hundred yards away.