PRIMITIVE ARCHITECTURE 215 



It came from the steep and tortuous foaming 

 rapids where the mighty chasm remade itself 

 for a space. Here the river was as though 

 flung like a ringlet among the menacing 

 ranges. 



But in view of the fact that we had not been 

 able to make quite as much headway as I had 

 anticipated, I regretfully felt constrained to 

 leave the vicinity of the river for a time and 

 take a course across some very rough country 

 behind the south-western bluffs. We could 

 not get from the guides an assurance of being 

 able to make our way down through the 

 tortuous gorge. 



We soon reached a large, broken plateau, 

 on which several small flocks of goats were 

 grazing. Later, we found some scherms 

 occupied by human beings. These rudimen- 

 tary dwellings consisted of a few bushes piled, 

 crescent-wise, against the wind. A rush mat, 

 its position being altered with the changing 

 hours, afforded shelter from the sun. Rain 

 falls so seldom that it is not taken into account 

 in the architecture of the Richtersveld. The 

 dwellers in these scherms were of the same 

 ill-favoured type as my guides. They were 

 filled with curiosity as to the object of my 

 expedition. But curiosity paled in the joy 



