A SECRET OF THE ORANGE RIVER. i8i 



experienced were at last got through ; we had 

 surmounted and left behind the first huge mountain- 

 side, had plunged into a valley, had passed obliquely 

 over the shoulder of another great mountain, and 

 now halted in a deep and hollow kloof lying below a 

 singular flat-topped mountain, conical in shape, that 

 stretched across our onward path. This mountain 

 was flanked on either hand, as we fronted it, by 

 yawning cliffs, and was only approachable from 

 this one aspect. Here we outspanned for a final 

 rest before completing our work, if to complete it 

 were possible. Shading my eyes from the fierce 

 sunlight, I looked upward at the long slope of 

 mountain, broken here and there, and occasionally 

 shaggy with bush ; over all, the fierce atmosphere 

 quivered, seething and dancing in the sunblaze. I 

 looked again with doubt and dismay at the gasping 

 oxen, many of them lying foundered, and almost 

 dead from thirst and fatigue, and my spirits, 

 usually brisk and unflagging, sank below zero. 

 Klaas had told me, previously, of a most wonderful 

 pool of water that lay on the crown of a mountain, 

 where we should outspan finally before entering upon 

 the portals of the diamond valley. Now he came 

 to me and said, pointing upwards, ' Sieur, de 

 sweet water lies yonder op de berg. It is a beautiful 

 pool, such as ye never saw the like of ; if we reach 

 it we are saved, and the oxen will soon get round 

 again ; ye must get them up somehow, even without 



the waggon.' 



"The tiny yellow blear-eyed Bushman, standing 

 over me as I sat on a rock, pointing with his lean 

 arm skywards, his anxious dirt-grimed face streaming 

 with perspiration, was hardly the figure of an angel 



