The glamour of prospecting

by Fred C. Cornell

PERMIT FOR THE FORBIDDEN GAME RESERVE—VAN REENEN AND THE SCORPION—SECOND VISIT TO THE GREAT FALLS—OLD GERT, OUR GUIDE—BUSHMAN ARROWS AND THEIR POISONS—BUSHMAN INOCULATION AGAINST SNAKE-BITE—ANTIDOTE FOR SNAKE-BITE—TALES OF “THE GREAT THIRST.”

The trip had given time for certain preliminary plans to mature, and immediately on my return I made a formal application to the Department of Mines for permission to enter the Kalahari Game Reserve, and bring out proof of the existence there of certain diamond-mines.

I pointed out my reasons for holding the belief of their existence, also that the country was badly in need of revenue, and that the Premier Mine had that year contributed no less than £600,000 to the Union’s finances.

And, I argued, there might easily be several “Premiers” awaiting discovery in the Kalahari, and to find them would not cost the Government one penny; for, given the desired permission, I would find the necessary finances myself. All I stipulated was “Discoverer’s Rights” (half the mine) should I bring out the proof—so that the Union Government stood to win half a diamond-mine to nothing over the transaction. As I fully anticipated, the Department of Mines didn’t see how it could be done! The territory mentioned was “forbidden” to prospectors, no one was allowed to enter it, it was the breeding-place of Royal game, no one had ever been granted such a permit, etc.—all of which I had acknowledged in my application. And finally—and best reason of all—the Mines Department added that in any case the Reserve was not under its jurisdiction, being still in the hands of the Cape Provincial Council, and the Administrator; Sir Frederick de Waal. This gentleman being unfortunately absent on tour, I was again hung up; but I made another formal application to him, and strove to possess my soul in patience, what time letters and wires from Upington urged me to “get a move on,” for heavy thunder rain had fallen in the desert, and t’samma would soon make the trip possible.

As I firmly believed in my ability to obtain the permit sooner or later, I made arrangements for waggons, stores, etc., to be in readiness, and retained the guide I have previously mentioned, and another one in Upington, whom my energetic friend there had been months in tracing, and had finally secured.

But alas! “the best-laid plans of mice and men gang oft agley!” as this one did; for after a long, long wait I received a point-blank refusal from His Honour the Administrator, who again informed me that the Kalahari Game Reserve was “closed to prospecting” as it was the “breeding-place of Royal game.”

Now, I am as good a sportsman as the next man, and a firm believer in game-preserving, but considering that I did not propose to ever need more than a square mile or so of the (approximately) ten thousand square miles given over to the Reserve, this harping on the rights of a few gemsbok to keep me from a fortune only made me more determined to get it, and I again went to the Department of Mines—this time with more success.

At any rate I this time obtained a sympathetic hearing, and finally, after many rebuffs and months of delay, during which waggons, horses, oxen, and guides were “eating their heads off,” I had the supreme satisfaction of obtaining the desired permission. In it the Honourable the Minister of Mines agreed to allow me to enter the Reserve for a period of three months, to start from the date I left Upington, to search for the “supposed pipe,” conditional that I undertook the work on behalf of the Government, and at my own expense, etc. etc.; also that a policeman should accompany me on the trip, and that I paid half his salary during the period he was with me.

The latter gratuitously humiliating condition was afterwards withdrawn, as it was found impossible to arrange for a camel police trooper to be spared for the work, and I and my assistants were graciously given permission to proceed without such escort.

By this time it was the end of September 1912; over six months had been taken in obtaining the permit, the t’samma season had come and gone, and the torrid heat of a Kalahari summer was at hand. It would therefore have been madness to attempt the expedition until some months had elapsed and young t’samma had again made its appearance—for upon the precarious patches of these little wild melons we should have to rely for a substitute for water, in this wild stretch of parched sand-dunes. Anxiously we therefore waited through the long summer days of October, November, and December, for news of the first rains, and it was not until January 1913 that news came from Gordonia that the first t’samma was beginning to make its appearance, and that it was considered safe for us to start.