Higher than the Victoria Falls, and more than double the height of Niagara, the Great Falls of the Orange lack the spectacular beauty of either of its famous rivals. Impressive they are, but the impression they leave is of terror rather than of pleasure, of awe rather than of beauty. There is no “fern forest” such as lends romance to the Zambesi fall; on all sides nothing but riven, shattered rock, sheer precipice, and giant buttress, a nightmare of barrenness, of desolation so appalling that one might well be standing in some other planet, some dead world from which all sign of life had long since vanished. The vegetation of the side-streams is hidden by the chaos of rocks near the brink of the cañon, and animal and bird life there is none, for all live things seem to shun the spot. This absence of vegetation and of life makes it additionally hard to realise the stupendous height of the main fall; the enormous smooth cliff opposite, the giant boulders, all confusing one’s sense of proportion.
Discovered by the traveller George Thompson in 1824, they were named by him the “Falls of King George,” but are generally known as the “Great Falls”; whilst to the writer’s way of thinking, their native name of “Aughrabies” is far more fitting than either of the others.
Gloomy and terrifying as was the spot, it fascinated us and we could not tear ourselves away, but sat and watched the thunderous, ever-changing chaos of falling foam, speculating on what sight it would present in flood-time; and with the thought came the reflection that the Orange often rises 20 feet or so in an hour or two, and that we had been sitting there some hours already, and that a couple of feet would maroon us beyond all hope! I mentioned this great thought to the others, and the “time” we did back to the first and worst side-stream would, I am sure, have done credit to any athletic meeting’s records.
Some day, when civilisation shall have spread so far, there will of course be safe bridges over these side-channels, and mankind will be given an opportunity of seeing what no man yet can possibly have seen at close quarters and lived, the Orange River in flood, filling not only its self-worn channel, but spreading all over the lip of that nightmare of an abyss in one appalling maelstrom. Anyway, we got back safely, though sure enough the water had risen a good 6 inches since we crossed it before, and it was time to get going, for we were after better things than waterfalls; and bidding good-bye to Oberholzer, who prophesied our return, beaten, within a couple of days, we started again towards the blue peaks that beckoned to us from the German Border.
“You’ll maybe get as far as ‘Wag Brand,’” were Oberholzer’s last words; “not that you’ll ever get the cart there, but on foot you may do it: then you’ll have to come back. There’s a bit of a footpath that far, but it ends on the bank of the river, and you can’t get farther that way. Good-bye, so-long; see you back in a couple of days.”
However, we had long since learnt to take nothing for granted, and so we struck across rough but still negotiable country, away from the river, and hoped for the best. And our luck held, for though we had to zigzag in and out of huge boulders and round granite kopjes that barred our way every few hundred yards, we still managed to keep something of a course, and made steady progress. At every step the country grew wilder and more interesting; moreover, its general characteristics resembled those narrated in Brydone’s narrative so closely that our conviction grew at every step that we were indeed on the path of the man who, forty long years before, had penetrated this wild country and brought out a fortune. Rocks and ridges of startlingly vivid colours criss-crossed with numerous quartz reefs, in which the huge black crystals of tourmaline were exceptionally prominent; bright red and yellow sandstones, bare, clean, and looking red-hot in the bright sun, with prominent serrated ridges, and kopjes of jet-black and shining dolerites, amongst which the frequent outcrops of beautiful rose quartz showed up in startling contrast. Every dry stream-bed (and they were many) was full of large water-worn blocks of this lovely pink, translucent stone.
Now, Brydone had mentioned blocks and fragments of “rock crystal” in his narrative, and we concluded, much to our own satisfaction, that he must have referred to this remarkable quantity of rose quartz, and welcomed it as a proof that we were hot on the scent. Late in the afternoon we entered a most picturesque bit of country, where the fantastic kopjes were standing in small but thickly grassed open spaces, and where the usual sand-rivers were bordered with thick vegetation, principally of cameel-doorn trees, upon which the yellow bloom was thick, and the air full of its fragrance. This pleasant spot, I afterwards learnt, was known as “Knog Knieu” by the Bushmen, who made almost their last stand here.
The only possible track trended downwards, sometimes a faintly defined footpath, where it was often necessary for the whole party to combine forces and roll huge rocks aside to allow the wonderfully mobile Cape cart to pass; at others a soft-bedded sand-river, where the going was easy, except for occasional rocky falls, which were negotiated with brake on and sled-fashion. Now the way went among peaks instead of low kopjes, and as it trended rapidly downwards, these bordering heights became veritable mountains, until late at night we were in a deep defile flanked by lofty abrupt peaks, an apparent cul-de-sac which ended on the bank of the Orange again, where the latter emerged from the cañon leading from the “Great Falls.”
HOTTENTOT REFUGEES FROM THE GERMANS AT MOUTH OF THE MOLOPO, ORANGE RIVER.