The glamour of prospecting

by Fred C. Cornell

The Hottentots claim that in this unhappy war of reprisals the Germans, exasperated by the protracted resistance of the natives, used to treat all wounded men who fell into their hands with horrible severity; breaking their bones, and throwing them bodily into these thorn-bushes, from which a sound man could scarcely escape, being a favourite method of disposing of them.

I have had this told me by numbers of Hottentots who fought in this war, and have seen the skeletons in several places where fighting took place. The Germans claim that German wounded were thus treated by the Hottentots, but the rags of clothing clinging to the bones I saw were not part of a German uniform.

One of the most beautiful things in this wild region was the wonderful outcrops of rose and amethyst quartz to which I have already alluded, but which in the vicinity of the Bak River reached a profusion and a perfection I have seen nowhere else. Huge kopjes of this beautiful stone, of the most exquisite rose-colour, big reefs cropping out of the mountain slopes and in places crowning them, afforded a wonderful sight, especially when the early sun shone into their translucent depths. Since I first wandered there I have seen this beautiful semiprecious stone cut into jewellery, and sold in shops as “pink quartz,” but in the Noup Hills by the Bak River there is sufficient of it to build a town.

A day or two before we abandoned the trip I had an adventure which might have proved more unpleasant than it did. Food was already very scarce, and one afternoon I took a shot-gun and went down the defile to where the Bak gorge ran into the Orange. Here the river was very wide, placid, and beautiful, and in the thick trees there were pheasants in plenty; but so thick was the vegetation that to flush them was next to impossible, and it was only after hours of walking and creeping through thick thorn, and the expenditure of the eight cartridges I had brought with me, that I got three pheasants. Of the others I had hit one or two hard, only to see them fall into the high and unclimbable thorn-trees, or into the river, and missed the rest. With my last shot I began to think about getting back to camp, and found that, absorbed in the pheasants, I had made my way upstream much farther than I had imagined. It was about sunset when I realised this, and night falls very suddenly in this region, so, getting clear of the thicket, I hurried campward. But the way was not only long but difficult, cut up with huge mullahs that had been worn in the deep silt of the banks, impeded by rocks and thick bush; and by the time I reached the Bak River gorge it was as near “pitch dark” as it ever is in Gordonia.

Of course there was no mistaking the way, for once in the ravine it is almost impossible to get out of it; but the pitfalls and pot-holes in the ice-smooth granite are bad enough even in the daytime, and I blundered along through the thick bush of the lower end of the valley, cursing myself for being so late, and wondering how I should get on when I got to the really difficult bare and rocky part.

Thought of any danger from leopards never entered my head, for though there was abundant evidence that the kloofs were full of them, and we knew that they had killed lots of natives thereabouts, they kept out of our way, and though we heard them all round us at times, we had not seen them.

Now, on my way down, I had wasted a shot on a splendid lammer vanger, a fine specimen of an eagle that got up from a rock within shot and with a big dassie in his claws, and that I had killed. I cut his wings, beak, and talons off, and left them hanging in a tall thorn-bush, and as I neared this spot I thought of trying to locate the bush and taking my trophy. I had just decided that I was quite near it when, just in front of me, rose a chorus of yelps and snarls, and it was evident that jackals were quarrelling over the eagle’s carcass. I was feeling around for a stone to shy at the small scavengers when I heard a sound as of a soft but heavy body landing amongst gravel and twigs, another stifled yelp and then the snarling, coughing growl of a leopard, or rather of two leopards, who appeared to be carrying on a similar quarrel to the one they had so summarily put a stop to.

I realised several things instantly. No cartridges, no trees except unclimbable thorn-trees, and no matches. A fire would have scared them immediately. No way home except past them—well, I’d have to go back! I did not like the idea of a night by the river, but even that pis aller had to go by the board, for as I turned to sneak back I heard the cough of another leopard in that direction. Clearly this was no place for me, but what on earth was I to do? The pheasants had bled a good deal, and I was smothered in the blood, which probably accounted for the gentlemen on my trail.

Well, something had to be done, and having heard that the human voice was feared by all animals, I left off a yell that scared me so that I dropped the gun. It echoed up among the rocks like the screech of a steam-siren; it woke the baboons on the peaks and they barked back in faint imitation; far up the ravine a big owl took up the refrain and passed it on farther. The snarling of the leopards stopped instantly, and the shuffle of a displaced stone among the rocks showed they had bounded away. So, picking up the useless gun, I took my courage in both hands and “lit out” for camp. Every few yards I repeated the first yell, but when after a bit I stopped for sheer want of breath and hoarseness I heard those blamed leopards making remarks to each other across the ravine; they were accompanying me on either side. Long before I reached camp I was as hoarse as a crow and my yell lacked vim. I fell over rocks and into crevasses, and once glissaded down a slope of slippery granite into about 3 feet of extremely wet cold water. But at long length I turned a corner of the defile and came in sight of the welcome fire, and heard the leopards no more.

There seemed to me to be a lack of anxiety about all of the home party. Paul was asleep and snoring within a few inches of the fire, and Borcherds and De Wet were smoking and swapping lies on the other side of it.