But after a long and excited palaver among the “boys,” one of them intimated that he knew of a water-hole only a few hours away, and that it was a _fontein_ where there was plenty of water and grass for the oxen. And so we sent him off with the poor thirsty brutes, hoping he would prove less of a romancer than the other chap, which luckily he did. Evidently spurred by this good example, Klaas Zwartbooi, the wildest of the lot, and almost a pure Bushman, came clucking around us like a broody hen, and led us to understand that he also knew of water quite near us! We followed him, and sure enough, in another rocky catchment amongst the wilderness of peaks, we found a second tiny pool. Ransson was pleased, and gave Klaas a plug of tobacco he had no further use for, and this stimulated him to further efforts; for after another severe scramble, and in the most unlikely-looking spot imaginable, he brought us to still another apology for a water-hole. Klaas was not a witch-doctor for nothing, and I feel sure that, if we had only had a pound of strong plug tobacco to tempt him with, he would have found us a nice little private bar and some iced lager-beer in the next gully. Anyway, there was clearly enough liquid in the vicinity to keep us going for some time, and so we scrambled back to camp, pitched our tent, unpacked our waggon, had the first square meal for days, set our roust-about to make bread, and got ready for real prospecting. Many years ago, in one of the gullies close to this spot, a number of gold nuggets had been found. These had been brought into Port Nolloth by a Hottentot, and white men proceeded to the spot. Still more nuggets were found, and eventually the magistrate of the district, Mr. W. C. Scully, the well-known writer, is said to have proceeded to the spot and verified the discovery. But owing to its inaccessibility and want of water it was never proclaimed a gold-diggings; and though an occasional white man had made an attempt to find gold there since, no one had succeeded. Still, it was obvious to us that nothing but the veriest fossicking had been done there, and we had hopes.