We had hoped to find a few natives here, but the _pondhoek_ was empty, and we could not even borrow a pot to make a little mealie pap from the tiny remainder of our meal and pea-flour. We made a few cakes on the embers, and slept like logs. In the morning we were desperately hungry, and though we had set night-lines, there were no fish on them. We could hear guinea-fowl and pheasant calling everywhere in the dense wood, but could not see them. At last Gert put a bullet through a pheasant, blowing it to bits, which we managed to roast on the embers, and a very tough _hors-d’œuvre_ it proved. The Hottentot demanded food--not without reason; and on our telling him he would get some at Waterfal that night, if there happened to be any people there, he demanded his money and proposed returning. He had had more than his share of the pheasant, including the liver wing, and as I did not wish to be unjust, I gave him the only handful of meal left. This left me with about a tea-cup of pea-flour and a fragment of rusty bacon about 2 inches square to last us two days’ hard trek to Miller’s store at North Furrow, Kakamas, should we fail to shoot anything _en route_. But that Hottentot was a perfect Oliver Twist. He made _asch-kook_ of the meal and devoured it, whilst we sat and partook of the smell. And then he demanded more! I told him to pack the cow and trek, and if he were lucky he would get something at Waterfal that night. Then, being full of good hot meal, he got cheeky and thrust his Mongol face in mine in a way that could have but one ending. So I knocked him down, three times to be exact, whereupon he became most cheerful, and drove the old cow towards the Great Falls in fine style. We were there by sunset, and I took the boy Gert to see the Cataract, being a bit dubious of the first stream, but traversing it quite safely. The Great Fall itself was more awe-inspiring than ever at sunset, and Gert was so impressed that I had great difficulty in getting him to cross the stream on our way back--he could not swim. There was not a soul at the Falls, and we could shoot nothing, and short as was the distance, what with the heat and the state of my feet, it took us all next day to get to the store at Krantz Kop, Kakamas North Furrow. We had an alleged meal at midday by the river, where Gert caught a small barbel the size of a herring. It was full of bones and tasted vilely, but with the aid of the pea-flour, and the bacon frizzled on a prospecting shovel, we ate it, bones and all. We got to the store in the evening. I was literally in rags, and with barely enough of my _veldtschoen_ uppers left to hold together the blood-stained rags on my feet. At the store I found friends, the magistrate, bank manager, and lawyer from Upington, who were on their way to the Great Falls; though I still believe they had a sneaking idea of making a desperate dash into the Noup Hills themselves to try and get hold of my mine!