In places the path was treacherous, smooth, water-worn granite rocks sloping steeply, straight into the swift, muddy current below; at others it widened into a belt of thick and tangled wood, in which pheasants and guinea-fowl were calling, and grey monkeys chattered in the thick trees. At length our way was barred by an exceptionally formidable peak rising sheer from the water, and we followed a faint and difficult spoor leading over its steep flank inland. On cresting the ridge, we saw that, though the country beneath us was still broken and rugged in the extreme, it was comparatively open, and that for some miles, at least, the river was no longer pent between formidable walls of rock. On the south bank loomed a huge red mountain, flat-topped and striking-looking, even in this land of strange-shaped mountains. This mountain--“Zee-coe-steek”--as it is called, is the highest point in the Kenhardt district, and during the Boer War a helio station was established on its summit; but this had long been abandoned, and the southern bank in its vicinity is almost as unknown and deserted as the wild hills in which we were searching. Opposite this mountain, and near the mouth of the Molopo, we found a few Hottentots, who made a beeline for the hills the moment they saw us. Luckily two ancient hags and some pot-bellied little kiddies could not get away, and when they found who we were, and that we gave them tobacco and sugar instead of the sjambok, they hobbled off into the rocks and soon brought the refugees back. They had taken us for Germans, and their actions spoke volumes as to how they fear the white men on the other side of the border. They were all refugees from Damaraland, who had fled after the brave fight put up by Marengo against the Germans had finally ended in their defeat. In this remote spot, cut off by difficult mountains and uninhabited country for many miles in all directions from even the nearest dwelling, they had existed unmolested, seeing scarcely a white man a year, yet always in fear lest their old taskmasters should appear on the scene. They existed chiefly on the milk of a few goats, honey from the wild bees in the rocks, dassies (rock rabbits), and barbel caught in the river. In a short time they were chattering and clucking round us in high glee, but though we promised them good pay (or its equivalent in goods once we got to the cart) to guide us and act as porters, they were most reluctant to do so. They feared to go into the wild ravines we were bound for, fearing thirst, the leopards with which they said the mountains swarmed, and most of all fearing the Germans, whose patrol parties were often to be met with on our side of the border. But at length our arguments prevailed, upon a solemn promise that if we penetrated German territory, as we fully expected to do, we should in nowise force them to accompany us.