We found enough rain-water to live on, though it was vile and stinking, and every hour of daylight we searched, and searched, in vain. Apparently no human foot had ever trod these hills before, for no spoor except those of baboon, leopard, and lynx showed in the white sandbeds of the many dry river-beds; in fact, the whole region was given up to these, its only fit denizens. Except on the summits of some of the flat-topped hills there was no vegetation; there the queer-looking _koker-boom_ clustered in miniature forests. The Hottentots apparently thought we were mad, though in any case as long as they had enough to eat and drink they cared little; but even their curiosity was at length stirred, and it occurred to them to ask us what we were looking for, anyway; and in a queer mixture of Dutch, English, and Hottentot, we told them. “Oh, _that_ place,” said they, “where the ‘bright stones’ come from? _That_ place, by the big mountain? Oh! that is not in _these_ hills, _that_ place is a long day’s trek farther on; not near the Molopo, but near the Bak River, right on the German border, _that_ place.” Words failed. So these poor despised chaps knew the real place all the time, and we had not even asked them! Borcherds tore his battered remains of a hat off, and jumped upon it in sheer exasperation. “Which way?” he snorted, grabbing up his kit, and preparing to make a beeline. But the Hottentots apparently knew no way except to get back to the Molopo, and thence follow the Orange downstream, and we did not at all like the idea of that; but patient inquiry elicited the information that the place to which we had sent the cart could not be more than half a day from where we were, and from the cart the men could find the way. At great pains we reached an open valley that night, where at some deserted water-pits the cart should have been, but neither cart nor spoor could be seen, and we spent an anxious night, for our food was finished, and game had proved so scarce that there was little chance of living by the rifle, should any mishap have happened to the vehicle. In the morning, however, we found it a few miles up the valley, and had the first real square meal we had had since it left us. We consulted again as to the route, and the natives soon demonstrated that, although the valley we were in led eventually to the Orange, it was impassable in that direction, for the lower end consisted of a series of huge sheer precipices of polished granite which led like gigantic steps to the river, and down which this side-river had at one time poured in cascades similar to that of Aughrabies. To go round upstream would be possible, but it would mean about three days with the cart, which we were reluctant to leave again.