This drift, mentioned by Alexander as a permanent Hottentot werf, we found to be a most deserted and dreary expanse of flat, barren land, composed of the extremely fine silt brought down by constantly recurring floods; and this deep deposit of alluvial soil has been worn into a labyrinth of channels in all directions, with thousands of little “islands” between them, which are covered with and partly held together by the intertwined roots of dreary-looking tamarisks. Each time I have been to the drift it has been blowing hard, and on this first visit the hurricane was carrying the powdery silt in swirling clouds in all directions. There was no shelter anywhere, for the Hottentots in the past have denuded the spot of all the big trees, and our outspan that night was a most miserable one. A temporary lull led to our attempting to make a fire, which had hardly got fairly going when a most fiendish blast scattered it in all directions, taking with it our pots and pans and half-burying us in clouds of silt. We had to stick it somehow, however, as we had let the cattle away in search of food; it was bitterly cold, and what with being half buried in dust, as well as being half frozen, I was extremely glad when morning broke after a sleepless night and we could trek again. This time we turned south-east, away from the river and across a wide, undulating plain consisting principally of granite débris from the mountains we could now see, and where our waggon waited. Although to all appearances this plain, stretching gently upwards to the mountains, was unbroken, our attempt to cross it soon proved it to be cut into many places by deep, dry watercourses, the banks of which were often so abrupt as to make them worthy of being called cañons, and crossing them meant wide and difficult detours. These watercourses, sand-choked and dry, full of water-worn boulders of rocks foreign to the surrounding country, and all showing the enormous erosion by water that has taken place in the past, go to strengthen the general impression of the traveller that in the very remote past Namaqualand enjoyed a rainfall vastly in excess of that of to-day.
“KOKER BOOMEN” (ALOE DICHOTOMA), RICHTERSFELDT MOUNTAINS
A MOUNTAIN OF LACMATITI NEAR ZENDLING’S DRIFT, RICHTERSFELDT.
At length and after many tedious detours we reached some foothills of the huge granite mountains of Kuboos which formed a barrier in front of us, and here, by a tiny trickle of water beneath two huge outcrops of white quartz, we found the waggon awaiting us, and with it the full complement of “boys,” guides, and oxen to take us into that same barrier. Formidable these mountains looked now we were close to them, so formidable that a careful inspection of them from this “kicking-off” spot made us wonder whether, instead of a waggon, we ought not to have brought an aeroplane!
We spent a day in rest and preparation, during which we visited the so-called “Cave of Hadje Aibeep,” a natural wonder of which I had often heard, and which was situated about half a mile from our waggon at Annisfontein. By the few white men who have visited it this queer hole is sometimes called the “Bottomless Pit,” and the natives certainly have some strange belief about it, and avoid it as much as possible. It is a strange place, this Hadje Aibeep, a deep shaft going down abruptly into the bowels of the earth, about 15 feet in diameter, almost circular and nearly vertical. I had expected to find traces of volcanic origin, but there is nothing of the kind near the spot, though in the valley below there is a large amount of a sort of solidified mud, which may have come from some such blow-hole, which may probably have been the vent of a geyser. The most intelligent Hottentot among our guides, a man who spoke English well, told me that the literal translation of the name “Hadje Aibeep” was “The Unknown Place,” but whether he meant the “unfathomable” place or the “mysterious” place I could not determine. He said it was believed that, long, long ago, men went down the hole and came out on the bank of the Gariep (Orange) River many miles away, and that, in one cavern they passed through, they found many “bright stones.” Students of the Hottentot language, however, give another translation of the term “Hadje Aibeep,” which, they say, relates to a form of ancestor-worship formerly practised among the natives. When any notable died, and was buried, each passer-by was obliged to add to a heap of stones piled upon his resting-place, and such tumuli certainly exist in many parts of the country, but there is nothing of the kind near this deep hole! Of course it may be that the ancestors were thrown down the hole, and the stones on top of them; in fact, this would be rather an obvious thing to do; but in that case there is still plenty of room for a lot more ancestors—and stones. Others believe the shaft is the work of man, and that at some remote period treasure was brought up from it, whilst still another legend connects it with the fabulous dragon-like monster, which the Hottentots still firmly believe emerges from its underground lair at night to ravage the land between the Gariep and Buffels rivers.
We sat round the rim of it and heard all these yarns, and, of course, Ransson wanted to go down it at once. He appeared to have had a lifelong pining to interview a dragon; ancestors, again, had always been his pet hobby. I told him he would probably become an ancestor without undue loss of time, if he insisted on being let down by the clothes-line we had with us; and whilst he was pondering over this dark saying, I quickly sent one of the men back to the waggon, with instructions to hide it.
Returning to the waggon, we found that the horses had arrived; they proved to be three dejected-looking native mares, bosje kops, and were accompanied by a foal and young colt. The whole cavalcade looked more fitted for the knacker’s yard than for hard work, and, knowing we should have to rely upon them solely as a means of transport when once we got among the mountains, I felt extremely dubious about them. However, nothing else was available, and we had to make the best of it; moreover, as events proved, they turned out wonderful little animals for the purpose we required.
Meanwhile the waggon was entirely repacked, for we were now preparing to enter a very different country from the one already traversed. Every available water-barrel and utensil was filled, for henceforth we should have nothing to rely upon but a few precarious rain-water pools for our further supply until the maze of mountains before us was traversed and the Orange River again reached; whilst everything that could fall off, or out, was lashed, strapped, or otherwise secured to the waggon, in view of the awful boulder-strewn stream-beds and rocky tracks that would be our only roads. We trekked next day at noon, straight up the dry boulder bed of the Annis River, the sixteen mountain-bred oxen pulling as one beast and keeping the trek-tow taut in spite of the huge boulders that threatened to overturn it every moment. Then a ravine opened in the mountain flank, and we gladly turned up an incline deep in sand. Up this gradient we trekked for hours between high bare walls of sandstone, shale, and other sedimentary rocks, with numerous outcrops of barren-looking quartz. Winding steadily upwards, we outspanned about sunset on an open plateau covered with vegetation and studded with many of the queer-looking aloes known as koker boomen or “quiver-trees,” and so named from the fact that the Hottentots and Bushmen at one time used the hollow bark of the branches as quivers. There were many kinds of euphorbia and fleshy-leaved plants of varieties new to me. In fact, these plateaux are in every way distinct from the plains from which we had climbed.