They had a waggonful of stores, and we spent a most enjoyable Christmas together.
We found the Kuboos natives extremely surly and suspicious; it was evident that they resented the visit of the police, and we could get no one to take us farther till after Boxing Day, when at an exorbitant price we succeeded in getting a waggon, and reached the Drift on December 28th. Here we pitched camp in a pleasant spot by some trees close to the river, which was in flood and higher than I had hitherto seen it. The waggon turned back to Kuboos, and we were alone.
About a mile downstream, and opposite the German police post, there was a tribe of Hottentots encamped, and from them we expected to get a sufficiency of labour, but we found that they had acquired the Christmas habit and were all drunk, insolent, and inclined to be dangerous.
At length, after a long powwow, I induced two of them to join us for good wages and plenty of tobacco, and we got the camp shipshape, hoping that their spree would not last longer than the New Year.
Meanwhile the river rose rapidly, a brown swirling torrent of some 300 yards separating us from the German bank, whilst downstream the roar of the rapids warned us when bathing to keep out of the main current.
We had hoped to get a certain amount of game, and an occasional sheep or goat from the natives, but their crowd of mongrel dogs had caught or driven away the former, and they demanded an exorbitant price for the latter, so that we had for a time to depend on our tinned stores.
Occasional Hottentots still crossed the swollen river to and from the German camp by means of their swimming-logs, and on New Year’s Eve we received a courteous message from the Wachtmeister in charge asking us to come over and join them. I did not like to leave our belongings to the mercy of the drunken Hottentots, so declined with thanks, but there was no reason why both should remain, so Dittmer sent an answer saying that, though a poor swimmer, he would try. I tried to dissuade him when I found he was a long way from being a strong swimmer, for the water looked very ugly, but later the messenger returned with a more urgent invitation and—a life-belt! I had never expected to see such a thing in Namaqualand, but the Germans are nothing if not thorough, and I found later they had about fifty of them at the post!
So Dittmer went, and I fell to cooking a fine wild goose that I had shot, for he promised to return and dine with me. But, alas! I had to eat it alone. However, he turned up before midnight, in state, accompanied by several natives with mouth-organs, and having had a glorious time. So enthusiastic was he, in fact, that I had great difficulty in preventing him from blowing up the whole of our dynamite to welcome in the New Year.
With its arrival we started work in earnest; a few more natives joined us, and we began our testing of the gravels.
We had hoped to get donkeys, oxen, or horses from the natives, but these had been driven away into the mountains when a rumour had spread that the Germans intended crossing, and nothing would induce them to bring them back. So that the large amount of water necessary even for “hand-washing” diamondiferous gravel had to be hand-dragged from the river to the deposits nearly a mile away, and this handicapped our operations considerably. Still, so promising were the indications that we were full of hope and enthusiasm, and worked from daylight to dark.