Maritz, then, was in command of the Defence Force training-camp at Prieska when I arrived there, and as I had some business with him _re_ a motor-car of his which had been burned in Namaqualand, I went up to the camp to see him. Rebel and traitor as he became, and probably was at heart then, it would be useless for me to say that he gave me a bad impression; on the contrary, he impressed me most favourably during the hour or so I was in his company. An alert, bluff, soldierly man, well groomed and of medium height, he looked the officer to perfection; but though sturdily built, he showed little signs of the enormous strength he was known to possess. His English was good, and his manner that of an educated man--though I have often heard him described as illiterate since his defection! He was full of curiosity as to where I had been in G.S.W., and what I knew of German doings there; like every other Boer who had seen their troops in the Herero and Hottentot rebellions, he expressed unbounded contempt for their fighting methods, and made the same assertion as most Boer leaders used then to make, that with a commando of 500 Boers he would take the country, any day! And I believe he meant it, for at that time the contempt of the German for the Boer was only equalled by the contempt of the Boer for the German. I got through to Upington without mishap--it was something of an undertaking even those few short years ago--and then, as I was preparing for great things, luck turned dead against me. I fell ill, and was laid up for days at the little hotel, and when at last I got under way again, worse was to follow. I had taken my friend the orange merchant for the return journey, as he had proved a very good chap, and I needed a white man for transport at the camp, and by his advice we had taken the back trail through Cnydas (where Maritz afterwards turned rebel) and through a mountain-encompassed hollow called Noedap, where one of the natives had a horse I greatly coveted. It was nothing to look at, a shabby-looking little blue roan (_blaauw schimmel_) pony of about 14.2, but a perfect marvel for endurance up to forty or fifty miles a day, in sand and over mountains, and capable apparently of living on stones. I intended working two gangs at least that distance apart, and this pony, if I could get it, would enable me to run both at once. We got into the crater--it merits the name--and after a day’s delay I became the possessor of the little nag.