94 LODGES IN THE WILDERNESS 



at an end, so we did not mind our presence 

 being advertised throughout the desert. The 

 oxen had returned from Gamoep. All pre- 

 parations for a start before dawn on the 

 morrow had been made. 



After finishing my amateur map-making, I 

 roughly measured with a pair of compasses the 

 distance we had travelled from the vicinity of 

 the Copper Mines. Thus I found that if we 

 were to travel only four times as far, altering 

 our course a little to the northward, we would 

 reach Johannesburg. A change, indeed. How 

 great would have been the contrast between 

 Bushmanland, the abode of immemorial 

 silence and solitude, and what was probably 

 the most intensely active (in a mechanical 

 sense) environment on earth. And yet, but a 

 few short years before, when I first crossed it, 

 the Rand lay as lonely as Bantom Berg. But 

 now I could almost hear the ten-thousand-fold 

 thudding of the stamps, — the thunderous ex- 

 plosions vexing the bowels of the earth — the 

 din of the strenuous, diversified throng in the 

 streets. 



They say that men soon wear themselves out 

 in the city of gold and sin; that the grave- 

 stones there are mostly those of the young. 

 What is to be the effect of this burning fever- 



