The officials of the Cape Copper Company at Anenous (which was the jumping-off place for our hundred-mile sand-swim) knew nothing of the country two miles on either side of the trolley-line. All they were definite about was that no one had ever been known to arrive at Anenous from the northward or north-westward. Such Hottentots as we were able to consult all declared that it was only under very exceptional circumstances that water was to be found between the trolley-line and the Orange River. Andries' feelings must have resembled those of a seaman ordered to navigate his ship through an uncharted archipelago. Owing to our absolute lack of local knowledge we should be constrained to do all our travelling by day, and this meant severe suffering for the cattle. In the old days of prospecting for copper ore, all communication with the Richtersveld was effected by a route along the actual sea-shore from Port Nolloth to the Orange River's mouth and thence inland along the river bank to the sickle-bend. We started from Anenous very early in the morning. On the previous day we had kept the oxen without water, so that almost to the moment of commencing the journey they might be very thirsty, and accordingly drink their fill. We at once plunged into the waste of sand; this proved to be so heavy that we were unable to travel at a higher rate than two miles an hour. The country was quite different from the Bushmanland plains; there was no "toa," but succulent plants of great variety were plentiful. One Mesembryanthemum had the dimensions of a large cabbage. In spite of its succulence the oxen would not eat of this vegetation. The climate, also, was different from that of the Bushmanland plains; the heat was not so great, but what there was of it proved exhausting. A haze brooded over the earth; through it the north-western mountain range loomed gigantic and mysterious. There were no roads,--unless a wide-meshed network of half-obliterated tracks--probably old game-paths--could be described as such. One strange peculiarity of the coastal desert is the extraordinary persistence of spoor and other markings on the surface of the ground. Near Walfish Bay the clear tracks of elephants may still be seen,--and there has not been an elephant in the vicinity for upwards of half a century. After desperate efforts we reached Kuboos on the afternoon of the fourth day. I never thought it possible that a wagon could travel where ours did. We ploughed through calamitous expanses of sand, we floundered through dusty dongas. We bumped and clattered over high, steep-sided ramparts of rock. But the skill of Andries as a driver, the endurance of the oxen and the strength of the wagon brought us safely through.