A Rip Van Winkle of the Kalahari | Page 4

was then that I had evidence of the
almost superhuman strength with which he was endowed. Time after
time he tore himself from the combined strength of my two sturdy boys,
and always he raved of diamonds, and of a never-ending search for
something, or some one, in the desert.
His hurts were sufficient to have killed half a dozen men, and I never
expected him to live; but two days later he was able to tell the natives,
in their own tongue, of certain herbs which they prepared under his
direction, and in a week he was about again.
His cure was nothing short of miraculous in my eyes at least but he
made light of his own share in the matter, and was all gratitude for the
little I had been able to do to atone for the result of my bad shooting.
And one night, by the camp fire, and with very little preamble, he told

me the following strange story, which I have set down as nearly as
possible in his own words.

A RIP VAN WINKLE OF THE KALAHARI
CHAPTER I
THE BLUE DIAMOND

Diamonds first brought me to this country--a small glass phial full of
them in the hands of an old sailor who had been shipwrecked on the
South-west African coast, somewhere in the vicinity of Cape Cross,
and who had spent many months wandering with the Bushmen who
found him, before he eventually worked his way back safely to
Walfisch Bay. Here one of the rare whalers, that occasionally called at
that little-known spot, eventually picked him up, and he at length got
back to Liverpool, with nothing but his tiny packet of little bright
stones to show for all his months of hardship among the Bushmen.
The ignorant whalers had laughed at his assertion that the little crystals
were of any value; as at that time diamonds were undreamed of in
South Africa--for all this was long, long ago.
Chance threw me in the old man's way, and a small service I was able
to render him led to his showing me the stones. He had been in Brazil
and had seen rough diamonds there; and I too, who had also dug in the
fields of Minhas Geraes, saw at once that he was right; they were
diamonds.
I had money, but I wanted more; for there was a girl for whom I had
sworn to make a fortune, and who in turn had sworn to wait for me,
poor girl! She little knew how long that wait would be, or the kind of
wreck that would return to her at last. And even as I poured the little
glittering cascade of diamonds that old Anderson had found from one
hand to the other, my mind was made up.

"Anderson," I said, "come out with me to Africa again, man; we can
make ourselves rich men! Of course, there must be more where these
came from?"
"More!" said the hard-bitten old seaman, who was as brown and
withered as the Bushmen he had lived amongst so long; "More, is it?
Why, sir, there's bushels of them in a valley as I knows of out there; so
many that I couldn't believe myself that they was diamonds, so I only
brought a few! But there they can stay for me. No more Bushmen for
me, thank 'ee; they'd put a poisoned arrow through me if ever they saw
me again. But if you want to go, well and good; I'll tell you where to
find the diamonds!"
And the upshot was that I sailed for the Cape a week later, and a few
months afterwards I landed at Walfisch Bay, from whence I intended
trekking north in search of the Golconda old Anderson had described to
me.
At that time, with the exception of a few traders, hunters, and
missionaries near the coast, the country was uninhabited by white men;
moreover, it was in a state of turmoil. From the north-east, a powerful
Bantu race the Damaras, or Ovaherero as they term themselves had
been gradually spreading over the land south and west, and had just
come in contact with the Namaquas, a Hottentot race who had come
from the south. The result had been a series of bloody native wars, in
which neither race could for long claim decided advantage. Meanwhile
the aboriginal Bushmen of the country had been almost exterminated,
scattered tribes of them only remaining in the most inaccessible parts of
the country. It was towards these wild people that my path lay, and the
few settlers I met warned me that my trip was likely to be a dangerous
one.
"And you have nothing to gain!" they pointed out, "these Bushmen
have no cattle, no ivory, nothing! They