I told him I should be sorry to, and he appeared annoyed; but I found that, though I could beat him easily on the hard flat, I stood no chance with him in the sand, and what I had always put down to bunions or sore feet was really this “zand-trapping” gait that he had acquired in his youth, and never got rid of. Most men who live among the sand wear low veldtschoens, without socks. These schoen are easily kicked off and emptied of their accumulation of sand periodically; whilst many adopt the practice of cutting a small hole in the sole near the toe, through which they occasionally shake out the dusty contents. Ordinary boots last but very little time, as the sand has an extraordinary abrading action upon the leather, cutting the stitching holding sole and upper together in a few days.
We got back and told Jim about what we had seen, and he put finality to the matter by declaring that if we were mad enough to try to reach the oasis we could walk back to Luderitzbucht with the diamonds, as he’d be “somethinged” if he’d wait for us! Moreover, he’d packed everything on to the cutter, and if we wanted to beat up to Walfish Bay and Cape Cross we’d better get on board at once.
I had hoped for a good night’s rest that night, but instead, like a lamb to the slaughter, I was led to that wretched cutter, where again, to a modified extent, what Jim called my “sleeping-sickness” floored me. However, this time the weather was fine and the breeze was fair, and two days later we ran into Walfish Bay.
A magnificent stretch of water, perfectly protected from the prevailing winds, and capable of accommodating an enormous fleet, it is certainly the key of the huge German hinterland; and it was a very far-seeing policy on the part of England not only to secure it for herself, but to hold tight to it against all the wiles and blandishments of German diplomacy.
For had England given it up, the Germans would have undoubtedly transformed it into a most powerful naval base, which would have been not only a menace to the Cape mail route, but to all British possessions farther south, and would incidentally have forced the maintenance of a powerful fleet at or near the Cape.
Important as the place is strategically, however, England (or rather Cape Colony, of which it forms an integral part) has done little to develop this small slice of territory. A fairly good pier and a few forlorn-looking corrugated iron buildings looking as though they had been dumped down, forgotten and deserted, constitute the settlement, which stands forlornly on the bare sand.
A resident magistrate, a few born-tired officials, a “hotel”- and store-keeper—in all a handful of the slackest white people I ever saw—constituted the population. The condensing gear on which they relied principally for water was out of repair, which (according to Jim’s remarks about it) appeared to be its normal state; and here we had to wait four days before we could fill our miscellaneous collection of water “tanks.”
CHAPTER III
THE NAMIEB DESERT, “SAM-PANS”—CAPE CROSS—SWAKOPMUND—WINDHUK.
Meanwhile a local acquaintance of Jim’s asked Du Toit and me to go with him a day’s journey up the Khuisiep River, to a place in the Namieb Desert, where he believed that tin existed, and I jumped at the opportunity. We had good horses and travelled light, with a few roster-kooks and some biltong by way of provisions, and a water-bottle each. Riding south from the forlorn-looking settlement, we followed the thin line of vegetation denoting the river-bed, which, when it contains water, empties itself into the lagoon terminating the southern extremity of the bay. Thence, striking inland, the bed widens till it becomes a long stretch of wooded country offering the most striking contrast to the barren desert and sandhills that hem it in on either side. But, in spite of the thick verdure and fine trees, there is no water to be met with along the whole route, except immediately after rains, and at one or two spots where pits have been sunk.