And cheered by this fresh proof of Anderson’s accuracy, within an hour of our arrival we again set out on foot, thinking to be able to walk straight to the “valley of diamonds” we had come so far to find. But alas! the map—so correct up to now—failed lamentably upon this most vital point of all, for certain physical features there laid down were utterly lacking in the direction the chart pointed to, and after spending the rest of the day in a vain search we came back considerably discouraged. And day after day the same thing happened. Having failed to find the spot at once, I obtained the services of one or two of the older Bastard inhabitants, as also an old Bushman, and under their guidance I wore out two pairs of strong boots in systematically searching the locality, putting in eight or ten hours of walking each day, and only giving up after ten days of this wearisome search, when I had absolutely convinced myself that no such place existed anywhere upon the ground I was entitled to prospect, or indeed anywhere within many miles of the position marked so clearly upon the map. And so we had come nearly a thousand miles, over three hundred of which had been by trekking through a desert and difficult country, for nothing, simply upon another wild-goose chase!
I do not wish to say that no such spot ever existed. In fact, I have no doubt that Anderson made the discovery much as he described it; but my opinion is that he did not make the map till many years after his visit, and that the locality was wrongly marked by many miles.
Yet Kimberlite existed in the vicinity; indeed, a “blank” variety, containing but few inclusions, was to be seen in many of the dry watercourses that honeycombed the country, and I found garnets and ilmenite in one or two places, but none of the other minerals described and brought back by Anderson and shown me in Cape Town.
The fact having been reluctantly forced upon me that the map was wrong, I had at length no alternative but to abandon the search, our one consolation being that the two would-be “claim-jumpers” who had turned up at a neighbouring farm a day or two after our arrival, and who had laboriously followed me about the wild country ever since, had also had their trouble for nothing, besides being considerably mystified into the bargain. In spite of my failure, I should much have liked to put in a few months’ systematic prospecting in the locality, for there were quite sufficient “indications” to warrant it, and such work might well have led to valuable discoveries.
But I had been instructed simply to verify the existence or otherwise of the place mentioned in Anderson’s map, and there was nothing for it but to turn back on our long trek to civilisation.
During the short time we spent at Rietfontein we were most hospitably entertained by the officer in charge of the few camel police there, and found that he, in common with his men, was perfectly contented with the solitary life they were forced to lead. He said that new-comers sometimes nearly go mad for the first month or two of their lonely and monotonous existence, but that they almost invariably get so attached to the place and the life that they seldom apply for a transfer, and the few who do so are usually anxious to return to the desert within a very short time. Yet the life is both hard and perilous, for their long patrols take them many days’ distance into the desert, and often, in the waterless tracks near the Oup and Nosop “rivers” to the north or the equally thirst-stricken wastes eastward, they are faced with the danger of a death from thirst. With a view to minimising the danger of getting lost in these pathless dunes they usually patrol in couples, and some of their adventures in tracking down Bushman or Hottentot cattle-thieves in the heart of the desert would make most excellent reading.
Most of these chaps pooh-poohed the idea of a mine near their camp. “Pity you can’t go into the Game Reserve,” they all said; “that’s where the diamonds are, out towards Tilrey Pan.” But beyond the assertion and their evident belief, they had no data whatever to confirm what they said. They had all heard vague rumours as to rich mines existing there, tales, too, of Bushmen and Hottentots bringing out diamonds and obtaining cattle and waggons for them; but it was impossible to trace these stories to their source or confirm them, and beyond a flying trip or two when water had been too scarce to allow of any delay, they had seen but little of this forbidden ground themselves. A few of the nearer “pans” in that region lay within their patrol, and their description of the rocks and gravels to be seen there excited my curiosity to an extraordinary degree, whilst they were unanimous in saying that, from the high dunes they had visited there, numerous unknown and unvisited pans could be seen dotting the desert eastward. But this mysterious region, long coveted by prospectors, had for many years been closed against all prospecting, a tract of country half the size of England having been proclaimed a Royal Game Reserve, to the exclusion even of travellers.
The old Bushman who had been my guide knew this district well; in the past he had hunted ostriches there with the bow and poisoned arrow, bringing the feathers in to the rare trading waggons to exchange for tobacco and the like, and he asserted that Bushmen still wandered there, independent of water and living on the tsamma (or wild melon) in lieu thereof. “Bright stones,” yes, some of the “pans” were full of them, and he also had heard that men had obtained many head of oxen and five waggons for these! But which “pans” they came from he could not say; there were many, many of such places. Yes, he knew pans where the soil was blaauw (blue) and crumbled in the hand, and where the rooi blink klippers (bright red stones—garnets) lay by the shovelful, and green stones too. Would he be able to take me to these places? Yes! and to where there was a “fontein” of good water too, but the police would put him in tronk if he went there; no one was there but schelm Bushmen, cattle thieves.
All of which made me more anxious than ever to explore this forbidden stretch of country, and on our way back I took every opportunity that offered to question both natives and farmers as to whether diamonds had ever been found there, and found that the belief that mines existed there was universal.
Few of the farmers cared to acknowledge that they had ever been more than a mile or two into the Reserve (and then always after “strayed cattle”); but as a matter of fact a great deal of poaching is carried on by these dwellers on the border, and many a waggon of gemsbok biltong finds a way to dodge the rare patrols of the few police.