“Oh, shut up,” he snorted; “you and your old yarns! I’m going to sleep.” And he did; but not for long. By my watch it took just four and a half minutes before he began to squirm a bit; that meant the first sam-pan had started prospecting. Soon others evidently put their pegs in, and in seven and a half minutes the big rush came. I had always admired, indeed almost reverenced, G.’s ability to sleep at any time, anywhere, and under any conditions, but the way he withstood the combined onslaught of that army corps of sam-pans for fully another three minutes was an eye-opener as to what he could do. At last a big one at work on his nose must have struck it rich, for G. ceased his snores and his squirming, and still half asleep struck himself a violent blow right where the sam-pan was working. He let off a violent yell, and for the next few minutes his demeanour lacked dignity and repose. In the middle of his bad language I told him so, also that it was a pity to forget himself for the sake of a few insects.
“Insects!” he snorted. “You call these blamed calamities insects, do you? Right-oh, wait a bit, my son—I’ll pay you for this.”
And he did, for the next thing I heard was a splash, and there he was, clothes and all, in the water-pit—the only water we had, mind, for drinking purposes for the next twenty-four hours, for our cask and bags were empty when we arrived and we had not yet refilled them. I shall never forget those six thorn-trees at Saulstraat, nor the heat when we left the shade there, for I think that day was the hottest I experienced during the trip. The heat of the sand struck through our boot-soles as though we were walking on red-hot embers, whilst the gait of the poor oxen reminded me of the old saying, “like a cat on hot bricks.” All round this flat plain between the dunes the mirage glittered until it was difficult to realise that we were not walking on the only dry spot in the midst of a wide lake. So perfect was the illusion that on looking back to the trees we saw them faithfully mirrored in the placid “water” beneath them, as were the high dunes and every little prominence in sight. However, after toiling through another barrier of high dunes we were cheered by the sight of real water, a fairly wide, shallow vley, with a number of oxen standing in it, showing where recent rains had fallen at Middle Pits. Here there was a substantially built house owned by a Bastard farmer, one of the few remaining original owners of these desert border farms. And here the sand-dunes came to an end. Ahead stretched flat country broken by one or two extraordinary black kopjes, the first sign of any intrusive rock we had seen since leaving Witkop. We had now for the first time an opportunity of giving our advance agents the slip, and turning abruptly from the path, we trekked all night, and in the morning were close to Rietfontein at the north-west corner of Hachschein Vley, and near our destination.
The vley is such only in name, being a wide expanse of flat country which has at one time been a shallow lake or marsh, and into which several small rivers formerly ran. Except after rain these are, of course, dry, but in the “pan” itself water can be obtained almost anywhere at a comparatively shallow depth.
In Anderson’s time this had been a noted place for lions, but they do not come as far south nowadays, and it was in this locality that the old traveller met with hostile Bushmen. No such place as Rietfontein then existed, but his map showed a native Kraal called “Quassama,” and it appeared likely that the post at Rietfontein had been built on the site of this old Bushman village, which indeed proved to be the case.
If only on account of its remoteness and isolation, this tiny frontier post of ours merits description. Separated by nearly 150 miles of sand-dunes from a doctor or a telegraph station, or any of the conveniences of life even to be found at Upington, and almost double that distance from the nearest railway at Prieska, it surely vies with the police posts of the Canadian North-West border for loneliness and inaccessibility. Its only connecting-link with the Empire it belongs to is by this wearisome southern route that we had followed, for north of it there is no other post along the whole 600 miles of British-German border where the Bechuanaland Protectorate and German South-West march together to the Caprivi belt and the Portuguese territory of Angola. East stretches the whole breadth of the Southern Kalahari, pathless, waterless, and a forbidden land, between them and the Kuruman district, whilst westward they are bounded by foreign (German) territory.
A BEAUTIFUL GORGE OF THE ORANGE RIVER (NEAR “AUSENKEHR”)
The nucleus of this forlorn little settlement was the old mission station belonging to the Rhenish Mission, and dating from the days of the Bushman kraal old Anderson had seen. It was a substantial stone-built dwelling, flanked with a chapel and standing by the all-important water-hole. There was the usual tiny oasis in the shape of a small garden with a few fig-trees, and half a dozen large cameel doorn in the sand near showed where the “river” at one time flowed; but other than this there was no sign of vegetation and the surroundings were barren and desolate, even for the desert. A small thatched building that served for Court-house (for Rietfontein is the seat of a magistracy), as well as residence for the magistrate and officer in charge of the police, a fairly well stocked store, and the few miserable hovels that housed the Bastard and Hottentot community of the mission, and the equally tumble-down quarters of the police troopers, constituted the whole of the most important police post along our whole frontier.
Of course the Rietfontein missionary was a German; moreover, although he was a J.P. of the district he had never taken the trouble to learn English, and his flock of coloured ragamuffins were as nearly Germanised as he had been able to make them. He proved to be the possessor of a very old map of the locality which gave all the old native names, and which I covet to this day, and upon which we were able to verify our idea as to Rietfontein and Quassama being identical.