With great caution we successfully negotiated the rest of the bad places, and came to the mouth of the Molopo, whence the going was easy. Lower down, by a lovely stretch of placid water, and opposite the huge red mountain known as “Zee-coe-stuk,” we found a number of Hottentots and _Beeste Damaras_ with sheep, goats, and cattle, which Trollip shrewdly suspected had been stolen, for the few natives amongst these wild hills are vagrants and thieves, mostly descendants of the old free-booters who made this part of the Orange their fastness during the last century, or fugitives from justice. They were surly and suspicious, and would undoubtedly have liked to plunder the lot of us, but we were all well armed, and when they saw the quick-firing section and heavy artillery of Smith and Carl, they became quite civil. From them we succeeded in hiring a pack-cow, which lightened our load considerably, the old dear trotting along ahead of us in the most willing manner, climbing like a cat over rocks and stones, and with a half-grown calf running behind her. [Illustration: A BREAKDOWN ON THE ROAD FROM PRIESKA. Showing washing-machine, sieves, stores, etc. Note the canvas water-bag.] [Illustration: WASHING FOR DIAMONDS AT THE BASE OF THE ESCARPMENT AT NAKOB. The rotary washing-machine is in the background.] A day later we were in the deep gorge of the Bak River, where we succeeded in getting both horses and cow to our old camping-place of Chapter XII. Apparently no human foot had trod those wild ravines since last I had been there with Paul and Borcherds, though higher up, where the German patrol-path crossed into our territory, there were signs that these gentlemen visited this remote part of the border more frequently than of yore. And the very next day we saw two troopers cross the ridge a mile or so away from us, and a tiny watch-fire in the mountains that night made us surmise that we had been seen, and that Hottentot police trackers had been left to watch us. So we did our searching with great circumspection, though we had often to penetrate German territory for some distance. It soon became evident that neither van Rooy nor Trollip knew as much about the region as I did myself, and the only result of bringing them was to have a mountain pointed out that the other native had said that he had heard was the place where the diamonds were to be found (for here on the spot the precise information of both of them boiled down to that extent), and the identification of a huge gorge leading north-west into German territory as the famous “Oorlogs Kloof” of which I had heard so much.