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- 



