Although we had passed over a formidable range of mountains, and an open valley widening to a plain lay to the left of us, we soon found that our mountaineering was just beginning. For, emerging into open ground, we turned abruptly to the right and headed straight towards a precipitous range that made the mountains we had lately crossed look like excavations.
Northward the ranges opened out, and across open country we could see through the shimmering heat the long dark line of dense vegetation bordering the Orange at Zendling’s Drift, and again, beyond, many a lofty peak of faint, exquisite blue. And now, rough as it was, we could see that the track we were following had been worn by many a waggon-wheel, and our guides explained that the copper ore from the “Numees” mine in the mountains ahead of us had been brought to the sea over this very road.
As our way led close to the deserted mine, we resolved to visit it, knowing, however, that it was still held under lease and could not be pegged. We hoped to find water there too, but in this we were disappointed, a few reeds growing in a hollow of hard-baked mud being all that remained of the water-hole from which the miners had once drawn their supply. This was by no means encouraging, as it might well be that the water-hole at the spot we were first bound for would also prove a failure; and as we had before us a particularly difficult pass known as “Hell’s Kloof” before we reached that spot, it was obvious that we had better push on without delay. So the waggon was hurried forward and, keeping the ponies back in charge of a “boy,” Ransson and I explored the mine. A considerable amount of development work has been carried out at Numees, adits having been driven into an abrupt mountain of quartzite in and around the dry ravine at its base. The ore is principally bornite and “peacock ore,” beautiful in its bright iridescent colouring, and gorgeous samples were easily chipped off the walls of the dark, cool drives. A great deal of rough ore lies at the mouth of the principal drive. Numees appears to be rich, and will probably add its quota to the world’s copper-supply in the not far distant future. Here I saw for the first time the strange and extremely rare succulent Pachypodium namaquanum, known to the Hottentots as half mense (half men), which is peculiar to the country, and is only found in a few of the more inaccessible parts of the mountains. It attains a height of from 6 to 8 feet, its fleshy, branchless trunk being covered with sharp thorns and surmounted by a crown of green leaves about 9 inches in diameter. The native maintains that this head always inclines to the east, but the plant appears to be something of a girasole, inclining to the sun as the sunflower does. The trunk is often the girth of a man, and the effect of these solitary, erect figures against the bare background of rock is such as to render their Hottentot name of “half men” very appropriate. The plant was first discovered by Paterson, and described by him in his Voyage into the Country of the Hottentots about a century ago. I brought back two of these rare plants on each of my trips. Two were given to Dr. Marloth, the famous botanist, one of which, I believe, he presented to Kew Gardens, and the other to Professor Pearson of the South African Museum. These were, I believe, the first live specimens ever brought to Cape Town.
Having explored the mine, we started after the waggon, and soon found ourselves in the formidable ravine known as “Hell’s Kloof.” Our unshod little native ponies made light of the rugged track, hemmed in on either side by precipitous peaks, and until we overtook the waggon we were inclined to think that the difficulties of this particular part of the trek had been much overrated. But when we came in sight of the waggon we realised that what was fairly easy going to lightly laden ponies which could climb like goats was very heavy work for a long and weighty waggon. In the distance at times the oxen looked like flies crawling up a wall, then they disappeared over a ridge, and shouts, yells, and a fusillade of whips showed the kind of toboggan they had struck on the other side.
In many places the rise was so steep that it had to be taken literally at the run, for once having lost momentum the whole outfit must have gone over and over till it hit the bottom. Still, by great effort and even more luck we managed to get to the top of the Kloof, and I think the oxen and “boys” were nearly as pleased as we were—not quite, perhaps, for they did not know, as we did, that over a hundred pounds of dynamite and box after box of detonators were among the stores in that waggon!
Even at the summit the sun had sunk, but beyond the pass we had just climbed the western sky was still ablaze, and silhouetted against it were innumerable peaks of every shade of mauve and violet grading into deepest purple. It was magnificent, and I sat down on a rock and gazed and gazed, and was still gazing when Ransson, who has no soul, came along and asked me what I was mooning at. I waved my hand to the celestial pageant: “Drinking it in,” I said shortly—I don’t like being talked to when I feel like that. He said, “Yes, I’m thirsty too; but you ought to be kicked for talking about drinking when we’re 200 miles from any beer!” As I said before, Ransson has no soul.
That night we put in three hours’ more hard trekking, starting at moonrise, winding in and out peaks and always keeping at a great height, skirting deep gullies and precipices, floundering over stony slopes where the wheels dislodged big boulders and sent them bounding and leaping hundreds of feet down into the black depths of the Krantzes below. The need for haste was imperative, for the oxen were thirsty, and should we find no water at our destination they would barely get back. A cold outspan in a cloud of driving mist, and we were glad to move on again before sun-up. By eight o’clock we were bumping and skidding down a mountain-slope to where, far below, wound a tortuous silver ribbon of dry sand that once had been a river. On every hand rose mountains, and beyond these more mountains.
I don’t know how the waggon got down, for I took the rifle and cleared on ahead on foot, and I was hard put to it in places to keep my footing.
But get down it did, in a very short space of time, and wonderfully little the worse for wear, considering the battering it had had on Namaqualand “roads.” An hour’s trek beside the sand and we came to our destination, a few brilliantly green willows, rising from the dry river-bed, marking a natural camping-place, and the spot where gold had been found many years before.