The following is Mr. Theal’s description of the district. “A long narrow belt, twenty thousand square miles in extent, it presents to the eye nothing but a dismal succession of hill and gorge and sandy plain, all bare and desolate.” “A land of drought and famine, of blinding glare and fiery blast,--such is the country of the Little Namaquas. From time immemorial it has been the home of a few wretched Hottentots who were almost safe in such a desert from even European intruders. Half a dozen missionaries and two or three score of farmers were the sole representatives of civilization among these wandering Savages. One individual to about three square miles was all that the land was capable of supporting.” But there is copper in the regions near the coast and consequently Little Namaqualand is becoming an important and a rich district. Before the Dutch came the Hottentots had found copper here and had used it for their ornaments. In 1683, when the Dutch government was still young and the Dutch territory still small, an expedition was sent by the Dutch Governor in search of copper to the very region in which the Cape Copper Company is now carrying on its works. But the coast was severe and the land hard to travellers, and it was found difficult to get the ore down to the sea. The Dutch therefore abandoned the undertaking and the copper was left at rest for a century and a half. The first renewed attempt was made in 1835, and that was unsuccessful. It was not till 1852 that the works were commenced which led to the present flourishing condition of the South African copper mines. For some few years after this there seems to have been a copper mania in South Africa,--as there was a railway mania in England, and a gold mania in Australia, and a diamond mania in Griqualand West. People with a little money rushed to the country and lost that little. And those who had none rushed also to the copper mines and failed to enrich themselves as they had expected. In 1863 Messrs. Phillips and King, who had commenced their work in 1852, established the company which is still known as the Cape Copper Mining Company,--and that company has been thoroughly successful altogether, through the Ookiep mine to which the magistrate in all the reports from which I have quoted has referred as the centre and source of Namaqualand prosperity.