The alternative was to climb the almost vertical mountains that barred our way, cross their flat tops and descend on the far side, a distance, we judged, of not more than ten miles as the crow flies. Time was an object, and we decided not only to attempt this path, but also to try to take a pack-horse over with us. It looked impossible, but Paul had spent a few hours in clambering the slopes and thought it could be done. So Stoffel, one of the leaders, an old horse who was used to pack-work, was chosen and packed with a miscellaneous load of food, tools, blankets, etc., round which was wound the stout rope with which we proposed to negotiate the crater in which were the diamonds--should we find it. The Hottentots were well loaded too, and altogether we had sufficient in the shape of stores to make us independent of the cart for a long time. The cart was to remain by the water-place, which was nothing but a hole scraped in the dry sand of the river-bed, but into which water soaked as fast as we could use it. That climb was a thing to be remembered. The first hour was fairly easy, for the lower slopes, though encumbered by huge blocks of rock, were negotiable by cautious zigzagging; but steeper and steeper grew the incline, till the “capping” of about two or three hundred feet was reached, and this was almost vertical. By working along the face, however, we found here and there a steep gully where water had worn a way, and in which there clung quite a lot of thorn-bushes and other vegetation. Up one of these we got the old nag, until it seemed impossible to get him farther, and we unpacked him and sent the “boys” on with his load to the top, where the others had long since arrived. I was loth to abandon the idea of getting him up, seeing how near the top was, and therefore started making a path, pulling here and there a rock away and making it possible for him to scramble up, disturbing more scorpions in so doing than I had ever seen before. Within 50 feet of the top, and when I could hear the other chaps laughing and talking above, I got tired of this road-making and tried to pull the old horse up by his rein. He had just reached up for a mouthful of dry grass growing in a crack, and as I snatched him a bit he reared, lost his balance, and went over with a crash. Of course I thought he was finished, for the rock went sheer down, but on looking over I found that he had only fallen about 10 feet full into the middle of a thick thorn-bush, and there he lay, on his back, with his legs wildly pawing and the bunch of dry grass still in his mouth, looking about as ludicrous an object as it would be possible to imagine. My yells soon brought the whole party down, and somehow we managed to get him out and up to the top, full of thorns, but with no bones broken, and still munching the bunch of grass.