For a howling sand-storm battered and choked and half blinded us by the river, and when, our work finished there, we struck across to the coast late at night, we were enveloped in a dense sea-fog that drenched us to the skin. It was intensely cold, too, and when we off-saddled and tried to sleep we were soon half frozen. Then the sam-pans tackled us, and I got up with both eyes swollen so that I could not see out of them, and in a state of intolerable irritation. The sand was very heavy going, and for two days we rode along the coast against a wind that the ponies could hardly stand up against, the sand blowing into us at such a rate that I felt grateful to the sam-pans for bunging my eyes up. Nothing but monotonous scrub and sand the whole way made the ride seem interminable, but at length the wind bore the tolling of a bell to us--the bell-buoy of Port Nolloth--and soon after we rode into that fag-end of creation itself. We were in rags, and so frayed and blistered by exposure that we were not recognised by people who knew us well in the little dorp. CHAPTER XI SECOND TRIP TO RICHTERSFELDT--SMASH-UP IN HELL’S KLOOF--CHRISTMAS AT KUBOOS--TESTING THE “BANKET”--A NEAR THING IN THE RAPIDS--AFTER A LEOPARD--NEW TRAILS--HOTTENTOT SUPERSTITION--STEWED FLAMINGO AND OTHER WEIRD DISHES--END OF THE TRIP. A month later I was again back in Port Nolloth, accompanied by Ransson and L. Poulley, a Rhodesian to whose imagination the huge beds of conglomerate we had seen appealed very strongly. We came prepared to test them thoroughly, and, if possible, to explore the Tatas Berg and the eastern portion of the district. The wiseacres of Port Nolloth shook their heads sagely and prophesied all sorts of dangers and difficulties. “Prospect the Richtersfeldt in December! Madness ... no water ... heat like H---- with the lid off,” etc. etc. But, as events proved, our troubles came from neither of these sources, for though the heat really merited the description given it, we were all used to it, and though we suffered a bit from thirst at times, we had rather too much water before the trip was over.