My merchant, who had a small rough emerald to help his tale, claimed to have found the spot again, and wanted to make a dash for it from the Transvaal side of the Sabi Game Reserve; but as it was in Portuguese territory, I would only undertake the trip with a proper licence from the Portuguese. As the upshot of negotiations, within a month of leaving the desert I was on my way to Delagoa Bay, accompanied by Telfer, another white miner from Johannesburg, and the “discoverer.” We had been prepared for a certain amount of delay, as all must expect in dealing with Portuguese officials, but it was only after three most exasperating months of expense and waiting that we eventually crossed the Incomati River, a fully equipped expedition, armed with a “Special Mining Licence” and all the necessary permits for carrying out our purpose. And two months later three of us staggered out of the swamps more dead than alive, the fourth, the “discoverer,” having utterly failed us early in the search, and having made his way back into British territory after a terrific carousal, and when he found there would be no more liquor as long as he remained with us. We had been some months too late, and the rains had caught us in the swamps, whence native women eventually carried out the remnants of our once fine equipment. We were full of fever, bitten nearly to death by the swarms of mosquitoes, and practically penniless; and altogether the trip was one long disaster. Yet, though the man who took us there was a drunkard and utterly unreliable, I still believe that there was some foundation for his tale, and that “Emerald Valley” may yet make the fortune of a better planned and luckier expedition. Telfer, who had had a rough time in the Kalahari, collapsed with fever as soon as we reached Delagoa, and had to remain there. Shadford, my other companion, and I got back to Johannesburg, where he developed blackwater fever, and lay in a hotel for days in a desperate state, whilst I tramped from office to office in an attempt to raise the necessary finances for the opening of a water-route to the Kalahari pans--when once Government had made up its mind to allow of such a thing! Meanwhile I found a large accumulation of letters awaiting me--several of them months old--and amongst them a number urging me to return to Upington, where several options on supposed diamond properties were now obtainable. More, a wire reporting my return from Portuguese territory elicited the news that a new and reliable guide to “Brydone’s diamonds” had materialised at Upington, and that if I did not secure him pretty quick, others would do so, and “jump” the rich mine near the Bak River, for which I had already had a try (see Chapter XII).