From the spot where we camped a side-gully led conveniently into the western bank and German territory, which at this part is as wild and unknown as the British. About a mile upstream we found the first international beacon, standing in the actual river-bed, a pile of rough rocks surmounted by an iron plate bearing on one side the inscription “British Territory,” and on the other “Deutsches Schutzgebeit.” These beacons extend at irregular intervals from the Orange River right up the twentieth degree of east longitude for many hundreds of miles; many of them are in almost inaccessible places, and have probably been seen by few, if any, white men since the International Boundary Commission first erected them; some have been thrown down by animals or the natives, and several that I have seen have been used as targets, the iron plates being perforated with bullet-holes. For this region formed a fastness for the guerilla bands of Hottentots that put up such a game fight against the overwhelming odds of the Germans in the “Hottentot Rebellion” of 1903-6. We soon found that, though this Bak River ravine answered to the description of the place we were after even better than the country near the Molopo, the natives who had brought us to it could not, or would not, show us the actual spot. They had all heard of it, all said it was near where we were, but there their knowledge ended. Moreover, so scared were they at the proximity of the dreaded _Duitsters_ that they were practically useless, except to gather firewood, look after the camp, and steal every bit of tobacco, sugar, etc., they could lay hands on. About a mile upstream a faint track showed where the German patrol from Stolzenfels at rare intervals took a turn round this remote portion of their frontier, and it was interesting to note that for miles this path of theirs ran well within British territory. However, we saw nothing of them, and after days of fruitless scrambling in the wild ravines and precipitous slopes of our own side of the line, we made a systematic search of all we could cover of theirs. Day after day we started at daybreak, dividing our forces and meeting at prearranged spots, each taking a little food and water for the day and returning only at nightfall. [Illustration: THE MAIN FALL, GREAT FALLS OF THE ORANGE. The cliff opposite is about 450 to 500 feet.] In German territory the mountains were higher than upstream, their tops wide spaces of flat tableland covered with _koker-boomen_.