At length I became convinced that, whatever might exist in this wild district, diamonds certainly did not, and I determined to make a flying trip to the north-east, towards the long escarpment of mountains that stretched all along the horizon in that direction, and which was apparently the watershed from which the various rivers and streams of the country (now mostly dry) had had their source.
T’SAMMA IN THE DUNES.
IN THE HEART OF THE SOUTHERN KALAHARI.
There were no roads in the right direction, and the country was too rugged to allow of using the cart, so I determined to “hump my swag.” Leaving one man in camp, I took Sam with me, and we carried food for six days (kookies, biltong, and the like), a small trenching tool, sieve and pan, a canvas bag and water-bottle and a blanket. Even this minimum of necessities meant at least 50 lb. weight for each man, and was more than was comfortable for such rough country and long distances as we were bent on covering; but it was our only chance of visiting a certain valley where again diamonds were supposed to exist, and which I had set my heart on visiting. We found, as is usual in such cases, that the mountains seemed to recede as we progressed, and although we did a good fifteen miles before night, we appeared very little nearer them. During the whole day we saw no human being, though we saw sheep once on the flank of a kopje: nor did we find a drop of water the whole distance, much of which was up the courses of dried-up streams.
About sunset we were lucky enough to find a few trees flanking one of these latter; and, making a wind-break of bushes and a big fire, we tried to make ourselves comfortable for the night. Luckily the spot was sandy, and we scooped a sort of bed in it that looked unpleasantly like a grave, and was within roasting distance of the fire; and with plenty of dry wood at arm’s reach, and my one blanket well tucked round me, I fell asleep almost immediately. I woke up about an hour later with my blanket smouldering on one side of me, whilst my other side was apparently frost-bitten. A wind had sprung up and was blowing sparks and embers all over me, whilst Sam snored peacefully and in safety on the other side. Whilst I was making new arrangements, I was startled by a man stepping into the firelight. He was a poor tatterdemalion of a Hottentot, clothed in nothing but a few rags, and literally blue with cold and famished with hunger. I woke the reluctant Sam, and he made a billy of coffee, part of which warmed the poor shivering wretch enough to enable him to talk. He spoke but a few words of Dutch, but Sam understood his “click” language and interpreted. He said he had been working for a prospecting party a long day’s trek to the north, but had “earned enough,” and was on his way back to Calvinia, where he belonged. He had expected to find trek boeren at some old water-pits an hour or two north of where we were, but found the “pits” dry and the place deserted. And with the usual improvidence of a native, he had eaten all his food and drunk all his water before he got there, and would certainly have had a bad time had he not seen our fire. I questioned him about the prospecting party, who apparently were the men I had heard of in Van Ryn’s Dorp. “Yes,” he said, “they were looking for ‘blink klippers’ (bright stones) in a sand river, and finding them too, lots of them.”
What with this piece of news, and the cold, and the dodging of sparks and embers made necessary by a change of wind about every half an hour, I rested very little that night.
In the morning I gave the Hottentot a plug of tobacco and a little of our precious water, for he informed us we should find some about an hour farther on in the direction we were going, and he set out quite light-heartedly on his eighty-mile tramp “home.” He was literally “as he stood,” an old battered tin water-bottle appeared to be his only possession; but he had some money tied up in his rags, and offered to buy some more of my coveted plug tabaki, which I could not spare him.
Few of these Ishmaelite Hottentots can be prevailed upon to work for any length of time; a week or two, and they want the few shillings due to them, and away they trek to the nearest dorp, be it even 150 miles away, where mouth-organs, tobacco, golden syrup, or other delicacies dear to the native soon account for their little hard-earned cash. Seldom indeed do they buy a blanket or make any provision for the cold weather that they feel so bitterly. And pneumonia and kindred chest troubles carry them off wholesale.