South-West Africa

by William Eveleigh

The Orange River Basin

Trekking south through Great Namaqualand, toiling over the blistering wastes, the traveller experiences a peculiar sensation of unexpectedness when on rounding a kopje he sees below him in the near distance a long, twisted line of vivid green. This is the line of the Orange River.

As very little is known about the course of this, the largest river in South Africa, a brief description may not be without interest.

The river enters South-West Africa along a deep channel and winds its sinuous way like a giant snake between towering precipices and overhanging mountains grey with age along cañons reminiscent of Colorado. In some of the deep, rocky gorges the stream is inaccessible on either side, since the overhanging escarpments of the surrounding plateau rise sheer from the water many hundreds of feet, and a thirsty traveller might actually perish of thirst as he looked down upon the tantalising waters from the precipitous banks that offered not a single practicable way of descent. At intervals the stream broadens to a considerable distance and takes on the appearance of a quiet lake reflecting the image of the willow and mimosa trees that fringe its banks; islands of vivid green dot the waters; flamingos, ibises, and other wading birds, move leisurely in the shallows, while ever and anon birds of brilliant plumage dart across the surface. It then presents a picture of considerable charm. Barred in its approach to the sea by rocky hills and granite cliffs, in its eager efforts to find the line of least resistance, the river twists and turns, flowing now north, now south, and in one place actually doubling back to the east. On emerging from the mountain ranges it sprawls itself over a wide area as if reluctant to lose its greatness in the ocean. Its mouth is generally blocked for a number of years by a continuous narrow sand barrier formed by the big breakers of the Atlantic, and while the waves pound the sand with great fierceness on the one side, the cool, fresh waters of the river gently lap it on the other side. When the river comes down in strong flood the dam bursts with a crash and a roar heard many miles distant. Mr. A. D. Lewis, a Government engineer, visited the mouth at the end of 1912, having made a survey journey along the river valley from Pella to the Atlantic. He is actually the first scientifically trained individual to make the journey. His report,[3] together with plans and reproductions of photographs, is of absorbing interest.

The Rivers

The rivers of South-West Africa, like many others in South Africa, are found, mostly, on the maps. Though the country is trenched by the beds of many rivers, not a single perennial stream reaches the sea between the Kunene and the Orange. On account of the great depth of its channel below the adjacent land, the Orange is of no economic value to the country. The Swakop, which has a total length of 250 miles, rises to the east of the Damara highlands in the Waterberg and traverses the plateau through deep, rocky gorges. Occasionally it flows into the sea north of Walvis Bay. The Kuisip rises in the mountains beyond Windhoek and intersects the Namib plain south of the Swakop to a depth of over 600 feet, but it rarely reaches the ocean. The last occasion on which it pushed its way through to the Atlantic previous to the present year, was in 1904. South of the Kuisip are other watercourses which are arrested without even forming channels to the sea. During the greater part of the year the Swakop and the Kuisip are non-existent as rivers; a line of stunted willows or acacias, or, perhaps, a few muddy pools, mark the river courses. After the storms, however, they are raging torrents for a brief period, and immense volumes of water rush along their beds.

The feeble, intermittent streams on the east of the divide fall for the most part into the saline marshes of the Kalahari. The Fish River flows south through Great Namaqualand, and sometimes reaches the Orange. Lake Etosha in the north is a lagoon about sixty miles wide and fifty miles in length. When full one or two rivers issue from it.

But water is not the scarce commodity that one might imagine it to be, except, perhaps, in the Namib, for the springs or fonteins are a peculiar feature of the inner plateau. The most remarkable of these are situated in a hill to the north of Windhoek. No less than five springs issue from the limestone. They are all warm, and lie approximately in a straight line at intervals of a few hundred yards apart. It is a somewhat curious phenomenon that the temperatures vary considerably; a difference of no less than 54°F. has been noted between one and two. If the streams are all from the same source, as seems likely, they are probably influenced in their passage to the surface by the geological formation. Cold springs also exist in the limestone below the hot springs. The waters of the warm spring at Warmbad, in South Great Namaqualand, have strong sanative qualities. Centres so far distant from each other as Bethanien, in the south-west, Omaruru, north-east of Walvis Bay, and Gobabis, east of Windhoek, on the Kalahari border, also have their springs.

Water may generally be obtained even in the dry season by digging beneath the alluvium of a river bed, especially where a ledge of rocks crosses the watercourse. In some places, notably on the borders of the Namib and in the eastern areas, the water found by boring is brackish, and often unfit for human consumption. After the rainstorms water often lies for long periods in the natural depressions or vleís; these afford a good supply for cattle and game.

In some of these depressions, when the water around the edges has dried up, an incrustation of salt is left, which, as Dr. Moffat found in Namaqualand nearly a hundred years ago, “crackles under the feet like hoar-frost.”