The glamour of prospecting — Story, Setting & Ideas

THE GLAMOUR OF PROSPECTING

IN THE WILDS OF SOUTH AMERICA

Six Years of Exploration in Colombia, Venezuela, British Guiana, Peru, Bolivia, Argentina, Paraguay, and Brazil. By LEO E. MILLER, of the American Museum of Natural History. First Lieutenant in the United States Aviation Corps. With 48 Full-page Illustrations and with maps. Demy 8vo, cloth.

This volume represents a series of almost continuous explorations hardly ever paralleled in the huge areas traversed. The author is a distinguished field naturalist--one of those who accompanied Colonel Roosevelt on his famous South American expedition--and his first object in his wanderings over 150,000 miles of territory was the observation of wild life; but hardly second was that of exploration. The result is a wonderfully informative, impressive, and often thrilling narrative in which savage peoples and all but unknown animals largely figure, which forms an infinitely readable book and one of rare value for geographers, naturalists, and other scientific men.

T. FISHER UNWIN LTD. LONDON

THE GLAMOUR OF PROSPECTING

WANDERINGS OF A SOUTH AFRICAN PROSPECTOR IN SEARCH OF COPPER, GOLD, EMERALDS, AND DIAMONDS

BY LIEUT. FRED C. CORNELL, O.B.E. AUTHOR OF “A RIP VAN WINKLE OF THE KALAHARI,” ETC.

WITH ILLUSTRATIONS AND A MAP

T. FISHER UNWIN LTD LONDON: ADELPHI TERRACE

_First published in 1920_

(_All rights reserved_)

Most of this record of wanderings in wild parts of South Africa had been written and was ready for publication before the outbreak of war: and since then there has been a radical alteration in much of the country described; for, with the conquest of German South-West by General Botha, the Union Jack now floats over the huge tract of country between the lower Orange River, the twentieth degree of east longitude, Portuguese Angola, and the South Atlantic.

As a result also of that campaign, new railway lines have come into being, and with the linking-up of the railway between Prieska, Upington, and the captured German system at Kalkfontein, the traveller to-day can ride in comfort in a saloon carriage from Cape Town to the farthest extremities of the conquered territory.

And, incidentally, many of the wild spots I have described have been brought within easy reach. For instance, the lonely little police post at Nakob (described in the closing chapters, and the scene of the violation of Union territory by German troops) was, at the outbreak of war, separated by 250 miles of difficult, semi-desert country from the nearest British railway at Prieska. To-day the line runs close by where the post stood, and passes within sight of the hill in British territory the Germans then occupied.

Upington, too, with a fine bridge spanning the Orange, has been brought into touch with the rest of South Africa; and, with the fertile oasis of the Orange River stretching on either hand and giving marvellous results in the growing of citrus and other fruits, cannot fail to become an important and thriving centre. There are rich mineral deposits in the vicinity, one of which (the “Areachap” copper-mine, mentioned in Chapter V) has, I believe, been reopened since the railway at Upington has rendered 150 miles of costly waggon transport unnecessary, and the marvellous “Great Falls of the Orange River,” ranking, with the Victoria Falls and Niagara, amongst the world’s greatest cataracts, is now within a day’s journey of the railway, and with the coming of peace, will undoubtedly be visited by thousands of visitors, and come to its own.

A railway has also been built to within easy distance of Van Ryn’s Dorp (mentioned in Chapter IV), and it is safe to predict that these new lines will be productive of a great accession of mineral wealth to the Union, wealth that has hitherto lain untouched and unexploited owing to its great distance from a railway.

These new lines, however, much as may be expected of them, still leave untapped vast spaces of the country I have described. Notably the mountainous Richtersfeldt region of Northern Klein Namaqualand (see Chapters VII to XI), with all its wealth of copper and other minerals, and which lies to-day as solitary and untrodden as when I left it. The Southern Kalahari, with its fine ranching possibilities and its remarkable “pans,” is still a huge “Royal Game Reserve,” forbidden to the farmer and the prospector; and though the dry Kuruman River (Chapter XVII) was the route for the flying invasion of German South-West (to the astonishment of the Germans, who believed the desert impossible by troops), the desert has long since claimed its own again: and the region is once more given over to the vast herds of gemsbok and a few wandering Bushmen.

To turn to the newly acquired territory of Great Namaqualand and Damaraland, much of the latter still remains practically unexplored, and although concessions over vast tracts of country were granted to various private companies by the German Administration, few attempts have been made to develop the great mineral wealth known to exist. There are exceptions, notably the rich copper deposits of Otavi and the Khan copper-mine, both having been worked to great advantage prior to the war, whilst the remarkable diamond discoveries on the coast have added enormously to the wealth of the country. But much of Northern Damaraland, Ovampoland, and Amboland, etc., has scarcely been scratched, and this is notably the case in the vast _terra incognita_ of the north-western portion known as the “Kokoa Veldt.” Here but little prospecting has ever been allowed, but copper abounds, tin and gold have been found, and the former in abundance, and there are other valuable minerals and precious stones waiting the day when the territory in question is thrown open to individual enterprise.

In conclusion, let me point out that this book, though recording faithfully some of my own prospecting trips, is in no wise intended to serve as a handbook to the would-be prospector; indeed, he should carefully avoid doing many of the things herein recorded. But should he contemplate becoming a prospector, let him at any rate not be discouraged by reading of the few discomforts and hardships I have experienced, for these, after all, were richly compensated for by the glorious freedom and adventure of the finest of outdoor lives, spent in one of the finest countries and climates of the world. And far be it from me to do anything to discourage the prospector. He is, I maintain, the true pioneer; his pick and hammer open up the wild places of the earth (usually to the benefit of those who follow him more than to his own), and, in the rush for “fresh scenes and pastures new” which will inevitably follow the war, he will be a factor of importance.

The ideal prospector is born, not made. He may be versed in geology and mineralogy and excel with the blow-pipe, but unless he has the love of wild places in his bones he will never fulfil his purpose. He must be an “adventurer” in the older and honourable sense of the word; often, unfortunately, he “fills the bill” in the more sordid sense. He should be able to ride, shoot, walk, climb, and swim with the best; indeed, if he still exists in the future, he will probably also need to fly. And the wilds must call him. “Something hid behind the ranges! Go and look behind the ranges!” as Kipling has it. That is the true spirit of the prospector; he must love his work or he will never succeed in it. I have had men out with me who were good enough theoretically, but were quite useless to cope with the misadventures they had to encounter, and soon gave up the life for something easier. I have had others to whom the glamour of a life spent in the wilds, with the sand for a couch and the stars for a ceiling, outweighed all its little disadvantages.

SOME WILD-GOOSE CHASES--DISCOVERY OF DIAMONDS IN GERMAN SOUTH-WEST AFRICA--BRIEF HISTORY OF THE NEW MANDATORY, LUDERITZBUCHT pp. 1-13

RUMOUR OF “HOTTENTOTS’ PARADISE”--UP THE COAST ON A SEALING CUTTER--WALFISH BAY pp. 14-29

THE NAMIEB DESERT, “SAM-PANS”--CAPE CROSS--SWAKOPMUND--WINDHUK pp. 30-43

MORE DIAMOND RUMOURS--PROSPECTING IN A MOTOR-CAR--VAN RYN’S DORP--PROSPECTING IN EARNEST--A PATRIARCH--NEWS OF BUSHMAN’S PARADISE pp. 44-62

“ANDERSON’S DIAMONDS”--PRIESKA, UPINGTON--THE SOUTHERN KALAHARI pp. 63-75

ZWARTMODDER--THE MOLOPO--RIETFONTEIN--THE GAME RESERVE pp. 76-91

KLEIN NAMAQUALAND--RICHTERSFELDT--PORT NOLLOTH AND THE “C.C.C.”--STEINKOPF--WONDERFUL NAMAQUALAND FLOWERS--TREKKING TO RICHTERSFELDT--FLEAS!--MONOTONY OF THE COUNTRY--MOUNTAINS IN SIGHT pp. 92-103

RICHTERSFELDT--ALEXANDER BAY--MOUTH OF THE ORANGE RIVER--“HADJE AIBEEP”--HELL’S KLOOF--A DESERTED COPPER-MINE--ROUGH GOING--A MAGNIFICENT VISTA OF PEAKS--AN OLD GOLD PROSPECT pp. 104-121

GOLD CAMP--THROUGH THE MOUNTAINS TO ARIEP--TATAS BERG AND COPPER PROSPECTS--A “MOUNTAIN” OF COPPER--THE GREAT FISH RIVER--THE “GROOT SLANG”--ZENDLING’S DRIFT pp. 122-144

ZENDLING’S DRIFT--JACKAL’S BERG--THE RESULT OF TOO MUCH WHYMPER--HUGE NUGGET OF NATIVE COPPER--A DIFFICULT PASS--KUBOOS--DEGENERATE NATIVES--BACK TO PORT NOLLOTH pp. 145-158

SECOND TRIP TO RICHTERSFELDT--SMASH-UP IN HELL’S KLOOF--CHRISTMAS AT KUBOOS--TESTING THE “BANKET”--A NEAR THING IN THE RAPIDS--AFTER A LEOPARD--NEW TRAILS--HOTTENTOT SUPERSTITION--STEWED FLAMINGO AND OTHER WEIRD DISHES--END OF THE TRIP pp. 159-184

BRYDONE’S DIAMONDS--THE GREAT FALLS OF THE ORANGE--MOUTH OF THE MOLOPO--BAK RIVER--THE GERMAN SOUTH-WEST BORDER--KAKAMAS--LITTLE BUSHMAN LAND pp. 185-212

GRAVEL TERRACES AT ZENDLING’S DRIFT--SECOND CHRISTMAS AT RICHTERSFELDT--GERMAN POST AT ZENDLING’S--MAKING A RAFT--HIPPO AT THE LORELEI MOUNTAIN pp. 213-223

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” pp. 224-236

THE “PANS” OF THE KALAHARI DESERT--THE MOLOPO ROUTE--BOOMPLAATS--ENTERING THE RESERVE--SPOORS--THE WATER CAMP--THIRST--THE GREAT SALT PAN--LOST! pp. 237-259

FORMATION OF THE DUNES AND PANS--“KOBO-KOBO” PAN--RAIN IN THE DESERT--SCORPIONS--AAR PAN--MIRAGE AND “SAND-DEVILS”--KOICHIE KA--THE PIT AND THE PUFF-ADDER pp. 260-276

THE KURUMAN RIVER--WITDRAAI--AAR PAN AND EASTWARD--GEMSBOK AND T’SAMMA--DRIELING PAN--WILD DOGS--THIRSTY CAMELS--SEARCH FOR WOLVERDANSE--“NABA”!--BUSHMEN--END OF THE TRIP pp. 277-293

TRIP IN SEARCH OF “EMERALD VALLEY”--FEVER AND FAILURE--BACK TO GORDONIA--SECOND TRIP TO BAK RIVER--“SOME GUN!”--THE PACK-COW--SURLY NATIVES--“ROUGHING IT” pp. 294-307

RESULT OF KALAHARI TRIP--NAKOB--LACK OF POLICE ON FRONTIER--WORKING A KIMBERLITE PIPE--UKAMAS--DRUNKEN GERMAN OFFICERS--SLOW TREKKING--A BAD SMASH pp. 308-323

WAR!--VIOLATION OF BRITISH TERRITORY AT NAKOB--THE END pp. 324-334

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

THE AUTHOR AT NAKOB, READY FOR A LONG TRIP _Frontispiece_

“BABYING” FOR DIAMONDS 8

SEALERS AT OLIFANTS ROCKS 20

TAKING THE HORSES ACROSS OLIFANTS RIVER 20

PROSPECTING PARTY NEARING THE MOUNTAIN OF RICHTERSFELDT, NAMAQUALAND 26

DRIFTWOOD ON THE DESOLATE BEACH NEAR CAPE VOLTAS 26

THE TERRIBLE DESOLATION OF BARREN, RIVEN ROCK BELOW THE GREAT FALLS 36

T’SAMMA IN THE DUNES 52

IN THE HEART OF THE SOUTHERN KALAHARI 52

A FLOWER OF THE DESERT, SOUTHERN KALAHARI 68

THE CAMEL POST AT ZWARTMODDER, GORDONIA 68

A BEAUTIFUL GORGE OF THE ORANGE RIVER (NEAR “AUSENKEHR”) 84

GRANITE RANGE BEHIND KUBOOS, RICHTERSFELDT 94

ENTRANCE TO A BAD PASS, RICHTERSFELDT 94

FEEDING THE HUNGRY AT THE STEINKOPF NATIVE MISSION STATION, LITTLE NAMAQUALAND 100

HARD PULLING IN THE HALGHAT RIVER KLEIN, NAMAQUALAND 100

“KOKER-BOOMEN” (_ALOE DICHOTOMA_), RICHTERSFELDT MOUNTAINS 112

A MOUNTAIN OF LACMATITI NEAR ZENDLING’S DRIFT, RICHTERSFELDT 112

THE DEEP GORGE, 500 FEET OR MORE IN DEPTH, IN WHICH THE ORANGE RIVER IS PENNED BELOW THE GREAT FALLS 132

LAUNCH OF THE “OUTRIGGER” 168

“OUTRIGGER” ON WHICH WE CROSSED TO THE GERMAN POST AT ZENDLING’S DRIFT 168

HOTTENTOT REFUGEES FROM THE GERMANS AT MOUTH OF THE MOLOPO, ORANGE RIVER 192

INTERNATIONAL BEACON IN THE BAK RIVER, BORDER OF GERMAN SOUTH-WEST 192

THE MAIN FALL, GREAT FALLS OF THE ORANGE 202

DUMPED WITH MY BELONGINGS IN THE DESERT WHILST THE OXEN WERE DRIVEN ON TO SAVE THEM FROM DYING OF THIRST 218

PACKING THE CART FOR THE JOURNEY 218

“CANDELABRA EUPHORBIA” 230

ON THE GREAT SALT PAN, IN THE CENTRE OF THE SOUTHERN KALAHARI DESERT 242

ON THE GREAT SALT PAN, SOUTHERN KALAHARI 254

BUSHMAN AT BOOMPLAATS, SOUTHERN KALAHARI 282

TEACHING CAMELS TO EAT T’SAMMA 282

THE HUGE NESTS OF THE “SOCIAL BIRDS” 288

WASHING FOR DIAMONDS AT THE BASE OF THE ESCARPMENT AT NAKOB 300

A BREAKDOWN ON THE ROAD FROM PRIESKA 300

AN INTERNATIONAL BOUNDARY BEACON BETWEEN GERMAN (LATE) SOUTH-WEST AFRICA TERRITORY AND BRITISH (GORDONIA) 316

GRANITE MONOLITH AT “LANGKLEP” 328

WATER-PITS IN THE DRY MOLOPO AT NAKOB 328

THE GLAMOUR OF PROSPECTING

SOME WILD-GOOSE CHASES--DISCOVERY OF DIAMONDS IN GERMAN SOUTH-WEST AFRICA--BRIEF HISTORY OF THE NEW MANDATORY, LUDERITZBUCHT.

What gave me “diamond fever” I don’t pretend to say. Certainly I have no love for the cut and finished article, and nothing would induce me to wear it; but for the rough stone, and for the rough life entailed in searching for it, I have always had a passion. Yet the luck attending many of my ventures has been but bad, or at the best, indifferent. The first tiny glittering crystal that I found at the bottom of my wooden “batea” in Brazil, many years ago, had cost me weeks of hard work and every penny I possessed; and the months of hard digging and perilous prospecting that followed that first “find,” and that led me through the diamond-fields of Diamantina and Minhas Geraes, left me none the richer except in experience. But the memory of those long-ago hardships is a faint thing compared with the glamour that still clings to that time; and even here in South Africa, the home of the diamond, not all the vicissitudes of years spent on the Vaal River Diggings, or of prospecting in far wilder spots, have taken away the fascination that, to me, lies in this most precarious of all professions. Still, the fruitless searches have been many, and I have often been called upon to make long and arduous trips where the quest of precious stones has proved nothing but a wild-goose chase.

A stray diamond, very possibly dropped by an ostrich, and maybe the only one for a hundred square miles, has often led to a rush to where it was found, whilst, frequently, circumstantial tales of the finding of “precious” stones have been founded on the picking up of a beautiful but worthless quartz crystal.

At no period of late years were rumours as to the finding of diamonds more rife in South Africa than in 1907, when the sands of Luderitzbucht, in adjacent German territory, were found to be full of them, and when luck led me many hundreds of miles in another direction, and spoilt my chance of being one of the first in those new and wonderful fields.

Ever since the discovery of the first South African diamond in the Hopetown District in 1867, a belief has been prevalent among the thousands of diamond seekers scattered along the Vaal River Diggings that rich fields of a similar nature must exist far lower downstream. Yet, although the theory is logical enough, and many expeditions have from time to time searched the banks far beyond the confluence of Vaal and Orange, and a few have even reached the little-known lower reaches of the latter and located both promising gravel and even stray diamonds, nothing of a payable nature has so far been discovered in that direction.

In the latter part of 1907 I was shown an extremely beautiful stone of about twenty carats, that had been picked up by a transport rider some fifty miles below Prieska; and the accompanying gravel that this man brought in was so exactly a replica of the Vaal River “wash” that I came to terms with the finder and set about arranging a small expedition to accompany him and test the spot.

Before completing my arrangements, I went into Kimberley to try and find an old digger partner of mine, who had always been particularly anxious to explore the lower Orange River, and who, I thought, would be just the man to accompany me.

After some trouble I found him, and before I could even broach the subject of my visit he opened fire on me. “The very man I wanted to see,” he burst out; “in fact, I was just writing to you. Man, I’ve just seen a whole lot of diamonds from a new place entirely; they’re small, but the chap who found them swears you can pick them up by the handful where he got them.”

It appeared that the finder of these small stones was again a transport rider, who had been working in German South-West Africa, and had brought back a small phial full of these tiny stones, which he said could be had for the picking up anywhere in the sand near a certain bay he knew of. An hour later my friend had found him again, and I saw them for myself--nearly fifty small, clean, and brilliantly polished little diamonds, of good quality, astonishingly alike in size, and quite different from either “mine” or “river” stones in appearance.

The man’s story was circumstantial enough, and March, my former partner, was most anxious to accompany him back to German South-West, and tried hard to induce me to join him.

Now, for years rumours had been current among prospectors and diamond diggers, as to the existence of the precious gems in abundance somewhere along the desolate, wind-swept shores of the little-known country lying north and west of the Orange; but the region was too remote and too inhospitable to encourage expeditions in that direction, and the German _régime_ of the country by no means added to its attractiveness. So that, tempting as the little “sandstones” were, I was not to be persuaded; moreover, I had committed myself to the other venture and consoled myself with the reflection that, after all, my one big diamond from the Orange River was worth more than the whole phialful brought from German territory. And when I told my tale in turn and spoke of the big twenty-carat beauty I had seen, not only did March promptly decide to come with me, but Du Toit, the discoverer of the German stones, immediately threw in his lot with us, arguing, doubtless, that it would be easier and quicker to fill bottles with big diamonds than with little ones. “Anyway,” he said, “the other place can wait; we can go there afterwards if we think it worth while.” And so it was agreed, and thereby we probably missed a fortune, for the place where Du Toit had found the diamonds is to-day one of the richest diamond-fields in South-West Africa.

Anyway, the decision once arrived at, we lost no time in getting under way, and a few days later we were on our way towards the spot where the twenty-carat stone had been found, and which we fondly hoped would prove as rich in big stones as Du Toit declared the sands of the German coast were in small.

Into the details of that disastrous trip I shall not enter here. Suffice it to say that four months later, ragged, footsore, broken in health and practically penniless, we tramped back into Prieska, having searched the southern bank of the river for nearly three hundred miles without having found a single diamond. Gravel there was in abundance, containing all the so-called “indications”--agates, jasper, chalcedony, banded ironstone--in fact, all the usual accompaniments of the diamond as they are found higher up the river, but never the diamond itself.

So good had these “indications” been that we were eternally buoyed up by the hope that sooner or later we must strike the right place, and so we had wandered on till the fine outfit we had started with had gone piecemeal to keep us in food; and it was only when our small funds were absolutely exhausted, and our tools and kit reduced to what we stood in and could carry, that we gave up the quest of the “Fata Morgana” that had led us on and on into the wild country near the “Great Falls” below Kakamas, and beyond all trace of civilisation.

For weeks we had had no news, and had not seen a newspaper or received a letter for months, and I well remember, when at long last we reached Prieska, with what eagerness we hastened to the little post-office for the budget we expected waiting for us. And the very first letter I opened told me what this particular wild-goose chase had cost us, for both it and numerous wires and newspapers of long weeks back told of the sensational discovery of diamonds in the sands of German South-West, and the fabulous finds that the lucky first-comers had made there.

Newspaper reports spoke of men picking them up by the handful, filling their pockets with them in an hour or two, of bucketsful lying in the Bank. In fact, it was Sinbad’s wonderful “Valley of Diamonds” over again; and, giving due allowance for the exaggeration usual to such discoveries, there still could be no doubt that we had missed a fortune by not going there with Du Toit four months back, instead of on our disastrous trip down the river.