From Veldt Camp Fires. H. A. Bryden
disabled and I soon settled his game. After that episode Klaas proved himself about the only grateful native I ever heard of, and seemed as if he couldn’t do enough for me.
“One day, after he had got over his wound, he came to me, and said, ‘Sieur! you said one day that you would like to know whether there are diamonds anywhere else than at New Rush (as Kimberley was then called). Well, sieur, I have been working at New Rush and I know what diamonds are like; and I can tell you where you can find as many of them in a week’s search as you may like to pick up. Allemaghte! Ja, it is as true, sieur, as a wilde honde on a hartebeest’s spoor.’
“‘What the devil do you mean, Klaas!’ said I, turning sharply round – for I was mending the disselboom (waggon-pole) – to see if the Bushman was joking. But on the contrary, Klaas’s little weazened monkey face wore an expression perfectly serious and apparently truthful. The statement seemed strange, for I knew the little beggar was not given to ‘blowing,’ as so many of the Kaffirs and Totties are.
“‘Ja, sieur, it is truth; if ye will so trek with me to the Groote (Orange) River, three or four days beyond the falls, I will show you a place where there are hundreds and hundreds of diamonds, big ones, too, many of them to be found lying about in the gravel. I have played with them and with other “mooi steins” too, often and often as a boy, when I used to poke about here and there, up and down the Groote River. My father and grandfather lived near the place I speak of, and I know the way to the “vallei” where these diamonds are well, though no one but myself knows of them; for I found them by a chance, and, selfish like, never told of my child’s secret. I will take you to the place if you like.’
“‘Are you really speaking truth, Klaas?’ said I severely.
“‘Ja! Ja! sieur, I am, I am,’ he earnestly and vehemently reiterated, ‘you saved my life from the “rhenoster” the other day, and I don’t forget it.’
“Again and again I questioned and cross-questioned the little Bushman, and finally convinced myself of his truth; and I had too much respect for his keen intelligence to think he was himself misled or mistaken.
“‘Well, Klaas,’ said I at last, ‘I believe you, and we’ll trek down to the Orange River and see this wonderful diamond valley of yours.’
“Shortly after this conversation we came back to Shoshong, where I sold my ivory, and then, with empty waggon and the oxen refreshed by a good rest, set our faces for the river. From Shoshong, in Bamangwato, we trekked straight away across the south-eastern corner of the Kalahari, in an oblique direction, pointing south-west; it was a frightfully waterless and tedious journey, especially after passing the Langeberg, which we kept on our left hand. Towards the end of the journey we found no water at a fountain where we had expected to obtain it, and thereby lost four out of twenty-two oxen (for I had six spare ones), and at last, after trekking over a burning and most broken country, we were beyond measure thankful to strike the river some way below the great falls. Klaas had led us to a most beautiful spot, where the terrain slopes gradually to the river (the only place for perhaps thirty or forty miles where the water, shut in by mighty mountain walls, can be approached), and where we could rest and refresh ourselves and our oxen. Here we stopped four days. It was a lovely spot; down the banks of the river, and following its course, grew charming avenues of willows, kameel dooms (acacias) and bastard ebony; two or three islands, densely clothed with bush and greenery, dotted the broad and shining bosom of the mighty stream; hippopotami wallowed quietly in the flood, and fish were plentiful. The thorny acacia was now in full bloom, and the sweet fragrance of its yellow flowers everywhere perfumed the air as one strolled by the river’s brim. Rare cranes, flamingoes, gorgeous kingfishers and many handsome geese, ducks and other water-fowl, lent life and charm to this sweet and favoured oasis.
“I had some old scraps of fishing tackle with me, and having cut myself a rod from a willow tree, I employed some of my spare time in catching fish, and had, for South Africa – which, as you know, is not a great angling country – capital sport. The fish I captured were a kind of flat-headed barbel, fellows with dark greenish-olive backs and white bellies, and I caught them with scraps of meat, bees, grasshoppers, anything I could get hold of, as fast as I could pull them out, for an hour or two at a time. Once I ran clean out of bait, and was nonplussed; however, I turned over a stone or two, killed a couple of scorpions, carefully cut off their stings, and used them as bait, and the fish came at them absolutely like tigers. I soon caught some thirty pounds weight of fish whenever I went out. The mountains rose here and there around in magnificently serrated peaks, and the whole place, whichever way you looked, was superbly beautiful. There was a fair quantity of game about; Klaas shot some klipspringer antelopes – hereabouts comparatively tame – up in the mountains, and there were koodoos, steinbok and duykers in the bushes and kopjes.
“After the parching and most harassing trek across the desert; our encampment seemed a terrestrial paradise. The guinea-fowls called constantly with pleasant metallic voices from among the trees that margined the river, and furnished capital banquets when required. Many fine francolins abounded, and at evening, Namaqua partridges came to the water to drink in literally astounding numbers. We had to form a strong fence of thorns around us, for leopards were numerous and very daring, and there were still lions about in that country. At night, as I lay in my waggon, contentedly looking into the starry blue, studded with a million points of fire, and mildly admiring the glorious effulgence of the greater constellations, I began to conjure up all sorts of dreams of the future, of which the bases and foundations were piles of diamonds, culled from Klaas’s wondrous valley.
“Having recruited from the desert journey, and all, men and beasts, being in good heart and fettle, we presently started away down the river for the valley of diamonds. I had, besides Klaas, four other men as drivers, voerlopers and after-riders, and they naturally enough were extremely curious to know what on earth the ‘Baas’ could want to trek down the Orange River for – a country where no one came, and of which no one had ever even heard. I had to tell them that I was prospecting for a copper mine, for, as you probably know, there are many places in this region where that metal occurs. After our four days’ rest by the noble river we were all greatly refreshed, and quite prepared for the severe travel that lay before us. As we were doubtful whether we should find water at the next fountain that Klaas knew of, owing to the prevalence of drought – and as it was an utter impossibility (so Klaas informed me) to get down to the river on this side for several days, owing to the steep mountain wall that everywhere encompassed it – I filled the water vatjes and every other utensil I could think of, and then, all being ready and the oxen inspanned, we moved briskly forward.
“We had now to make a détour to the right, away from the river, and for great part of a day picked our painful footsteps over a rough and semi-mountainous country. Towards evening, we emerged upon a dreary and interminable waste that lay outstretched before us, its far horizon barred in the dim distance by towering mountains, through which we should presently have to force our passage. That evening we outspanned in a howling wilderness of loose and scorching sand, upon which scarcely a bush or shrub found subsistence. After a night not too comfortable and broken by some hyenas that prowled restlessly about, we were up betimes next morning. As soon as the oxen were inspanned and ready to move forward for the mountains to which Klaas had directed our course, I rode off for a low kopje that rose from the plain away in the distance hoping to see game beyond. I was not disappointed; a small troop of hartebeest was grazing about half a mile off, and by dint of a little manoeuvring with my Hottentot after-rider, whom I despatched on a détour, I managed to cut across the herd and knocked over a fat cow at forty yards. We soon had her skinned, and taking the best of the meat, rode on for the waggon. Again we had an exhausting trek over a burning sandy plain; the heat of this day was something terrible. I have had some baddish journeys in the doorst-land on the way to the great lake, but this was, if possible, worse. Towards four o’clock the oxen were ready to sink in their yokes, their lowing was most distressing, and as the water was now nearly at an end, and we might not reach a permanent supply for another day, nothing could be done to alleviate their sufferings. At nightfall, more dead than alive, we outspanned beneath the loom of a gigantic mountain range, whose recesses we were to pierce on the following morning. Half a day beyond this barrier lay the valley of diamonds, as Klaas whispered to me after supper that night, with gleaming excited eyes; for, noticing my