A few days in the defiles of the “Tatas Bergen,” and without going far from the water, satisfied us as to the copper prospects, and we returned to!!Ariep!! to locate a further spot which Klaas knew of, and of which we had great expectations. The samples he had shown us were of beautiful bornite, and if the spot only came up to the sample, it would mean something exceptionally good. Alas I we did not then fully realise what a queer mixture of intelligence and stupidity the average Hottentot or Bushman is! For, leading us downstream for half a day’s hard trek, Klaas ultimately landed us at a spot where the mountains receded from the river-bed, and the latter widened out into a boulder-strewn stretch of water-worn débris a mile or more in width. And here, in a patch of alluvial gravel, sand, and pebbles, he triumphantly pointed out two or three small fragments of bornite, the remnant of a water-borne fragment that he had found there, and smashed up on the spot! This was his copper-mine, and he seemed quite satisfied with it. There was nothing to show where it had come from: some bygone flood had brought it down--the veriest bit of jetsam. Words failed, for we had come all the way from Tatas Berg for this! Indeed, it had been one of our principal reasons for leaving the waggon. Meanwhile Klaas sat on his haunches and grinned and clucked, and held his old pipe out for _tabaki_, and was evidently quite pleased with himself. I started to tell him a little of what I thought of him, but realised that it was a bit beyond me. Then I saw Ransson picking up the rest of the “mine,” and I turned to him. “Oh, don’t be an ass!” I said. “Throw the ... stuff away--throw him away too! What are you going to do with it, anyhow?” “Make him eat it!” grunted Ransson--and judging by Klaas’s appearance a little later, I believe he did. “Ou Ezaak,” the other Hottentot with us, now came forward with the information that he knew of another spot where there was an abundance of copper. It would mean a long day’s trek to the south, but we could return to the waggon that way. He assured us that it was a “mine” where, as a boy, he had worked with white men.