Only well on to midday the next day did we leave it to clamber up a mountain slope as steep as a roof. Then came half a day of incessant effort, without a vestige of a path, to heights where a vast panorama of peaks lay spread beneath us, all of them nameless, untrodden, unknown. At length a game path was struck which led us to a lovely little pool of water surrounded by thick grass, and it would be hard to say which of the two our ponies enjoyed the more. Late in the day, and after severe clambering, we reached a peak and looked down into a basin below, completely surrounded by almost precipitous walls of conglomerate. It was our “plum,” the place we believed would make our fortunes; and plunging down the precipitous slope at imminent risk of breaking our necks, we found ourselves at the tiny pool of water known as “Quagga,” where we intended making our camp. There was a sufficiency of water, though it was getting black and smelt bad, and by it we rigged up a few bushes as a bivouac--for we brought no tent. Our hopes were high, for, as I have before mentioned superficially, the conglomerates were identical with the Rand _banket_; but again we were doomed to disappointment, many days of most laborious work, crushing and panning bed after bed, utterly failing to find even a “colour.” At length a nugget the size of a pin’s head rewarded us, and we decided that Ransson should remain at the spot and further test its possibilities, whilst Poulley and I would take a rapid trip round our former peggings.