Bushmanland might be described as a desert, the aridity of which is tempered by occasional thunderstorms. Its bounds begin immediately to the eastward of the rugged mountain chain which runs parallel with the coast-line, about eighty miles inland, and it stretches on for hundreds of miles until merged with the central Karoo plains. These also form its indefinite boundary to the southward. It is, for the most part, almost absolutely level. To the northward, however, a chain of mountains, occasionally very lofty, arises. For stern, uncompromising aridity, for stark, grotesque, naked horror, these mountains stand probably unsurpassed on the face of the globe. Composed of deep brown granite, with here and there immense veins, or patches many miles in extent, of jet-black, shining ironstone, they absorb the torrid sunshine all day, becoming almost red-hot in the process. At night this heat is radiated rapidly at high sunlight power, until the furnace of midnight becomes like an ice-house at dawn.
The only vegetation to be found among these mountains is a species of deadly Euphorbia—formerly much used by the Bushmen in poisoning their arrows—and a few stunted shrubs which are rooted deep down in the crannies, and which put forth a little timid foliage in the cooler season. The only animals are “klipspringers”—antelopes very like the chamois in form and habit; leopards which prey upon these; badgers, wild cats, jackals of several kinds, an occasional hyaena, desert mice, snakes, gorgeously hued lizards and fierce tarantulas. A few large brown hawks hover above the gloomy gorges and wake weird and depressing echoes with their shrill screams.
To the north of this almost impenetrable region the great “Gariep”—the “Yellow River” of the Hottentots—now called the “Orange” in honour of a former Stadtholder of the Netherlands, has carved out a gorge for its devious course, thousands of feet in depth. Allowing for its many and abrupt windings, this gorge, from the point at which the river hurtles into it over an obstinate stratum of rock at what is known as the Augrabies Falls, must be over four hundred miles in length. The greater part of this gorge is unexplored, being totally inaccessible.
Like the Nile, the Orange River drains an immense area of fertile country which is subject to heavy summer rains. It flows down in a raging, brimming flood, which is charged with rich alluvium, during several months of the year. Unlike the Nile, it has carved for itself a deep and narrow channel, through which it hurls its fertilising load with resistless momentum into the ocean which needs it not. Under different circumstances its valley might have been the cradle of another civilisation, and another Sphinx, of Hottentot or Bantu physiognomy, might have stood, gazing through forgotten centuries, across the waste of Bushmanland.
No more dreary prospect can be imagined than that afforded by Bushmanland in its normal condition of drought. After rain, however, it turns for a few short weeks into a smiling garden. This is especially the case around the northern and western margins where, among the rocky kopjes forming the fringe of the plain, gorgeous flowers cover the ground with vivid patches of colour, and climb and trail over the grey stones. This combination always suggests to the traveller a skull crowned with flowers. The stark rocks, blasted by aeons of burning sunshine, are always in evidence, and the wanton luxuriance of the garlands seem to mock at and accentuate their death-like rigour.
The grass with which the greater part of the plain is covered grows in thick shocks some thirty inches in height, from raised tussocks about six feet apart. In dry weather the fibre of the grass crumbles away in dust and the tussock turns black. After rain, however, the new blades shoot out with marvellous rapidity, and the Desert becomes a sea of waving plumes, which are tinted a beautifully delicate green. Between the tussocks spring up flowers of marvellous colour, scent, and form. It has been libellously affirmed that the flowers of the Desert have no scent. It is true that in the hot, midday glare all are more or less scentless, but in the early morning or when the afternoon cools the heliophilas, the pelargoniums, the many species of lily, and others too numerous to particularise, often make the Desert a veritable “scented garden.”
The great plain is almost absolutely treeless. Only in one or two localities are a few acacias found. These are of very large size. They are called “Camel-thorns,” for the reason that the camelopard was fond of browsing upon their foliage. Amongst the branches are often found the enormous nests of the sociable grosbeaks, sometimes ten feet in diameter. These nests are veritable cities—inhabited by countless numbers of birds. Woe betide the exhausted hunter who seeks the deceitful shade of these trees, for the ground beneath is full of the dreaded “sampans,” which bury themselves in the flesh and cause serious injury.
In the fringe of kopjes grow immense aloes (Aloe dichotoma—probably closely allied botanically to the almost extinct “Dragon Tree” of Teneriffe). These sometimes reach a height of sixty feet, and may measure twenty feet around their ridged and gnarled trunks. This tree is locally known as the “koekerboom,” or “quiver-tree,” a reminiscence of the fact that the Bushmen used to remove the fibrous wood from a section of a bough and utilise the cylinder of tough bark as a quiver for their poisoned arrows. The koekerbooms are believed to be of immense age; the oldest Trek-Boers will point to small trees growing close to their favourite camping-places, and tell you that they have not sensibly increased in size in upwards of half a century. Their appearance is extremely belated and archaic.
Running through Bushmanland from north-east to south-west is a curved ridge which is known as the “Jacht Bult,” or “hunt-ridge,” from the plentifulness of game upon it. This ridge rises so gradually from each side that its very existence is not apparent except for a few minutes at morning and evening—and then only if one happens to be on the top of it. Here occurs a curious phenomenon; for, just as the sun is touching the western horizon, if one looks eastward he will be startled at seeing half of the immense plain shrouded in almost complete darkness. The illusion is due to the western plain being flooded with sunlight whilst from the other the sunlight is suddenly and completely cut off. When the sun sinks the illusion vanishes and the eastern plain appears to be no darker than the western. At sunrise these conditions are, of course, reversed.
This region is the home of the “springbuck,” which still survives in countless myriads. After a large “trek,” as the annual migration of these animals across the Desert is called, has taken place, the wake of the host looks like an irregularly-ploughed field. Every vestige of vegetation is beaten out by the small, sharp, strong hoofs. It seems at such times as if all the springbucks in the Desert were suddenly smitten by a mad desire to collect and dash towards a certain point.