The night of our arrival was a night of absolute luxury, with soft green sward for a bed, the twinkling stars above reflected in the long mirror-like stretches of the river, and the murmur of the rapids for a lullaby which we didn’t need.
Next morning we started upstream, for the best part of the day skirting the narrow belt of vegetation, clambering over huge piles of débris at the base of abrupt cliffs, where the belt narrowed to a few clinging bushes, and the river swirled directly below us; at other times, when the bed widened, losing sight of the river for miles and miles, and finding it next to impossible to burst our way through the tangled virgin growth. There was no vestige of a path, though here and there we came across a fallen and rotten trunk, or a lopped branch, showing that an axe had once cut a way there. That day we were shown three different spots where shafts had been sunk on prospects many years ago: all within a short distance of the river; indeed, it was obvious that copper was to be found almost everywhere, the blue and green stains showing up in all directions on the rocks bordering the scorching sand-rivers.
A few days in the defiles of the “Tatas Bergen,” and without going far from the water, satisfied us as to the copper prospects, and we returned to !!Ariep!! to locate a further spot which Klaas knew of, and of which we had great expectations. The samples he had shown us were of beautiful bornite, and if the spot only came up to the sample, it would mean something exceptionally good. Alas I we did not then fully realise what a queer mixture of intelligence and stupidity the average Hottentot or Bushman is! For, leading us downstream for half a day’s hard trek, Klaas ultimately landed us at a spot where the mountains receded from the river-bed, and the latter widened out into a boulder-strewn stretch of water-worn débris a mile or more in width. And here, in a patch of alluvial gravel, sand, and pebbles, he triumphantly pointed out two or three small fragments of bornite, the remnant of a water-borne fragment that he had found there, and smashed up on the spot! This was his copper-mine, and he seemed quite satisfied with it. There was nothing to show where it had come from: some bygone flood had brought it down—the veriest bit of jetsam. Words failed, for we had come all the way from Tatas Berg for this! Indeed, it had been one of our principal reasons for leaving the waggon. Meanwhile Klaas sat on his haunches and grinned and clucked, and held his old pipe out for tabaki, and was evidently quite pleased with himself. I started to tell him a little of what I thought of him, but realised that it was a bit beyond me. Then I saw Ransson picking up the rest of the “mine,” and I turned to him. “Oh, don’t be an ass!” I said. “Throw the ... stuff away—throw him away too! What are you going to do with it, anyhow?”
“Make him eat it!” grunted Ransson—and judging by Klaas’s appearance a little later, I believe he did.
“Ou Ezaak,” the other Hottentot with us, now came forward with the information that he knew of another spot where there was an abundance of copper. It would mean a long day’s trek to the south, but we could return to the waggon that way. He assured us that it was a “mine” where, as a boy, he had worked with white men.
With the awful example of what had happened to Klaas well before him, he still persisted in his assurance of what we should find if we followed him, and we therefore turned back upstream without further loss of time, for our stores were wellnigh exhausted. There was a moon, and we trekked late, leaving the river by a side-ravine, winding and twisting between abrupt peaks, and always rising. By midnight we were almost clear of the mountains, and off-saddled for a few hours. There was not a vestige of food for the horses, nor a twig or bush to make a fire with. We were bitterly cold, and after vainly endeavouring to sleep, were glad to be moving again. Crossing a low rocky ridge, we emerged upon an almost level sandy plateau, with a few isolated peaks here and there, and made our way for some hours towards a peculiar-looking kopje, jet black, and looking as though made of shining anthracite coal. Around it lay thousands of tons of titaniferous iron-sand, and, turning its base, we found an entirely new panorama. A wide sand-river stretched away to the south, and the peaks beyond it were quite different in appearance from those we had traversed. They appeared to be tilted quartzite; in places the bedding was clearly defined, in others tossed and contorted in a most fantastic manner. Striking across the plateau, we almost immediately came upon a small herd of springbok, the first we had seen. We needed fresh meat badly, and after about three hours of the chase, in which the buck displayed considerably more knowledge of the locality than we did, we still needed it.
It was terrifically hot, we were dog-tired and thirsty, and the mirage was so strong all around that we could not always tell whether there was one buck or twenty, or whether they were a hundred yards away or five hundred. But that was not our reason for abandoning the chase.
Ransson sat down on a red-hot rock and mopped his brow. “Look here,” he said; “after all, these poor little things have done us no harm—why should we shoot them?”
I agreed, and explained that I had been merely shooting near them, just to see their antics when the bullet struck, and had not dreamed of hitting them; also that we’d better leave off in case we did.
“Yes,” agreed Ransson, “we’ll chuck it—anyhow we’ve no more cartridges!”