The glamour of prospecting

by Fred C. Cornell

Track or path, of course, there was none. We were making our own waggon-path through country where no waggon had ever ventured within the memory of Rauchtenbach’s Hottentots who were guiding us. No sign was there anywhere of a man’s footprint, though the soft sand was as a closely written page with the spoors of countless animals.

Dainty little slots of steinbok and duiker, quaint little hand-like paw-marks of the porcupine, dog-like pads of the jackal; here a wide swath of country trampled and torn up by the sturdy hooves of a vast troop of trotting gemsbok, proud monarch of these desert wastes—there the fast trail of a pack of the ferocious wild hunting-dog, most dangerous and destructive of pests. Huge spoors of the ostrich, like a grotesque, deformed human foot, and showing by its gigantic strides where the big bird had flown like the wind before us; tiny, dainty pads of wild-cat and genet, larger ones of the rooi kat or lynx, and, too frequently to be pleasant, the big spoors of the treacherous sand-leopard, which, when wounded, is more to be feared than the lion. The queer-looking footprints of the tijger woolf (spotted hyena), with two huge paws and two quite small ones, were often to be seen covering these spoors of the leopard, showing where the hulking, cowardly beast had followed the bolder animal, content to eat his leavings when he had killed and eaten his fill. And prominent among all these signs of the dune-dwellers were the huge claw-marks of the giant gom paauw, a magnificent game bird of the bustard family, which attains a weight of 50 lb. or more, and which, superb in spread of wing, could be seen getting up from the crest of the dunes well in advance of the waggon. With the exception of these fine and wary birds, and of the noisy korhaan, whose harsh, warning cackle sounded from all quarters, no game whatever could be seen, for the yells of our drivers, the cracking of whips, and the creaking of the waggon gave plenty of warning of our approach.

Moreover, here, deep in the dunes, our scope of vision was extremely limited. In the hollows between them nothing could be seen except the crest of the sand-wave we had passed or were climbing, and the long narrow straat on either hand, whilst from the crest itself vision was bounded by the nearest dune a few feet higher than its neighbours, and rarely could a view be obtained of anything more than a few hundred yards ahead. Occasionally we climbed one of the most prominent dunes, and could see an apparently limitless expanse of wave after wave of dunes, covered with grey-green grass and scrub, monotonous in form and colour, and with no single distinctive feature, as far as the eye could see. No landmarks, no paths, each dune the counterpart of its neighbour, nothing to guide us, nothing to rely upon but the sense of direction, this waterless wilderness made it easy to understand the tales of men who had wandered in a circle for days searching vainly for t’samma or water or a way back, and dying within a mile or so of safety.

With an occasional brief outspan, we trekked all afternoon, evening, and throughout the night, for the drivers were most anxious to reach our camping-place before the sun gained power the following morning, and with the exception of a precarious perch now and again on the waggon, we walked the whole time. Towards morning the steep and difficult dunes came to an end, and we entered a straat a hundred yards or more in width, and trending in the right direction. Here the going, after the switchbacking of the previous twelve hours, was easy and pleasant, and we climbed thankfully into the waggon, and had just fallen asleep, when a chorus of yells and shrieks and the waggon coming to a standstill woke us all up again. Rauchtenbach’s waggon with the water-supply, which had been leading, had crashed into a big ant-bear hole and overturned, and one hogshead lay broached with all its precious contents spilt in the thirsty sand, whilst several of the smaller tanks were badly battered and leaking.

We lit fires of dry toa grass, outspanned the oxen, and all hands had to turn to and worked hard till daybreak before we salved the rest of our precious water and were ready to trek again; and the sun was high in the heavens, and both the oxen and ourselves about played out, when, after negotiating a few lines of extremely steep and difficult dunes, we came upon a small pan from which stretched a broad straight straat leading due east, and which was the spot Rauchtenbach had recommended as a camp. His judgment had not been at fault, for the position was admirable. He had gauged the capabilities of the oxen to a nicety, for it was quite obvious that they could not have dragged the waggons farther with a reasonable chance of getting back to water; the straat was open and of firm sand, in which tents could be pitched without fear of being blown away; there was an abundance of dry firewood in the shape of old tree-stumps all along the ridges of the flanking dunes, and the small pan showed traces of having held water, and in the event of rain would hold it again. And, best of all, in the immediate vicinity was an exceptionally high dune, from which we were able to distinguish several of the larger pans eastward, and which would form a most useful landmark as to our camp’s whereabouts when we wandered far afield.

There was grass in profusion—dry, but still good food for the cattle, and barely three dunes’ distance north we found a tract of sand where a heavy shower had fallen some time before, and where the t’samma was already beginning to bloom.

So that everything looked couleur-de-rose, and we unpacked stores and tools, pitched our tents, and prepared our camp with a light heart. In the evening the water-waggon left for the return journey, and not before it was time, for the hollow flanks and staring eyes of the poor beasts showed that they were suffering from thirst already. They were to return in a week with a further supply, meanwhile, in spite of the loss of one of the hogsheads, we should have sufficient.

The first two or three days were spent in exploring our immediate neighbourhood. North and south, the dunes were very formidable and close together, and half a day’s toiling in either direction disclosed nothing but the same endless succession of long serried lines, ending in confused and broken country eastward. This preliminary canter was to enable us to get a general idea of our immediate surroundings, and gradually we were able to add other landmarks to our friendly big dune, a solitary wit boom tree, scarcely 10 feet in height, but looming up like a forest giant, and prominent for miles in this treeless waste, a clump of haak doorn bush, or a peculiarly bare patch of sand, all helping us to steer a course without the tediousness of working by compass, or of having to always follow the return trail over own our spoor. Gradually, too, the seemingly featureless contours of the dunes, each at first appearing the counterpart of the adjoining one, became distinguishable, and we began to gain the faculty of acute and mechanical observation of trifling differences essential for the long journeys we were preparing for in this pathless and unexplored waste.

From the “lookout” dune we studied the country eastward. Almost due east, and apparently only about ten miles distant, a line of pure white sand-ridges showed the position of a big pan, which Old Gert recognised as a famous hunting rendezvous of the Bushmen in his day, and taking his bearings from it, he showed us, several points south of it, a long humped dune which apparently rose to a great height above its surroundings, and which towards evening loomed up like a mountain. This, he said, was “Aar Pan,” and from it he could locate pan after pan, including those which we were in search of. But the time of all times to locate these distant depressions was at daybreak, when for a short period before the sun actually rose, a small, distinct, and well-defined cloud could be seen floating low down over each of the larger pans, due doubtless to the moisture evaporating from their firmer soil, and which was wanting in the loose sand of the surrounding dunes.

The furnace-like heat continued, though each afternoon storm-clouds gathered, and apparently heavy rain was falling eastward, especially in the direction of Aar Pan, where Old Gert assured us water would now be found.