GRANITE RANGE BEHIND KUBOOS, RICHTERSFELDT.
ENTRANCE TO A BAD PASS, RICHTERSFELDT.
Ransson in foreground.
A fog almost every morning, chilly, damp, and all-pervading, mournful surroundings made more mournful by the incessant tolling of the bell-buoy rocking on the dangerous bar, the muffled crash of surf on a sandy shore and the periodical boom of the detonator from the signal-station. Then, when Father Sol has vanquished mist and fog, an hour or two of intense heat, and the glare from white sand and burnished sea and sky sufficient to blind one; this again followed by the uprising of the prevailing wind, which, if kind, may for a time make life tolerable, but which usually means a change infinitely for the worse, a change to sand, whirling and driving in all directions, penetrating every house, every room, every orifice, choking and blinding one and making the bathless “hotel” absolutely unendurable.
The daily event the departure of the miniature train carrying coke to O’okiep for the smelting out of the copper ore, which the return train brings back in the shape of opulent “regulus” which, in pigs, bars, trucks, and stacks, lies near the landing-stage in hundreds of tons, ready for shipment to Europe to help swell the profits of that great quasi monopoly, the Cape Copper Company.
It is not my province to unduly criticise this important corporation, from whose officials, moreover, I have always received the greatest courtesy; at the same time one cannot but deplore the fact that the many millions profit it has made since its inception some forty years ago have done so little towards the general development of Namaqualand, and that their railway-line of nearly 100 miles should have tended so little to open up the surrounding country. Indeed, but for the wharves, tugs, and primitive facilities for shipping copper at Port Nolloth, the mine at O’okiep, and the railway, Namaqualand generally is little the richer for the “C.C.C.”[1]
[1] This was written in 1910, when the mines were in full swing. To-day they are closed, the C.C.C. having ceased operations in June 1919. This closing down of the only industry in Namaqualand caused endless suffering to the wretchedly poor inhabitants, and was followed by a general exodus of the population.
In order to obtain the necessary Hottentot guides for the expedition I had first to proceed to Steinkopf, a tiny mission station some seventy-odd miles up the C.C.C. line from Port Nolloth, and the headquarters of the Steinkopf and Richtersfeldt Mission-lands, upon which most of the copper deposits I wished to locate were situated; and as soon as I possibly could I finished my business in Port Nolloth and proceeded thither. Leaving at 8.30 one morning when the combination of fog, surf, and bell-buoy were more unbearable than usual, the tiny little engine laboriously hauled its long load of coke-laden trucks, together with a few antiquated coupé carriages of fearful and wonderful design and dilapidation, and dignified locally by the name of “specials,” inland across a monotonous and level belt of sand which, arid and destitute of vegetation near the coast, becomes eventually covered with low bush, scanty at first, but after a few miles thick and luxuriant, and apparently excellent for stock-raising purposes. At “Five Miles,” where there is the Namaqualand equivalent for a station, some iron tanks of goodly dimensions show from whence Port Nolloth draws its supply of fresh water, which is taken in in “water cabins” by train, and distributed about the town by a primitive system of water-barrels drawn by mules.