However, I reached the pan at last and found it to be an oval-shaped “floor,” strewn thickly with water-worn pebbles and quite free from sand. Scattered bush grew here and there upon it, and near the centre I saw larger trees growing. These I found to be tall thorn-trees, called locally _cameel doorn_, a species of thorny acacia which is usually found in or near watercourses; and at this time of the year they were covered with little yellow balls of bloom, scenting the air deliciously with the smell of cowslips. And here, in the middle of this sea of dunes, they lined a watercourse, and though it was bone-dry, there was evidence that at one time a considerable quantity of water had flowed there. Many of the larger trees, the girth of a man, were dead, and much larger blackened stumps were plentiful. This dry watercourse disappeared under the sand-dunes at either end of the pan, and a closer inspection of the whole extent of the latter showed that it was the remaining trace of what had at one time undoubtedly been the wide bed of a river of considerable extent, of which the narrow tree-lined watercourse in the centre had been the last surviving trickle. Later, I found many of these beds among the dunes, all choked with sand and long dead and extinct, but showing indisputably that this country was not always the waterless desert it is to-day. In some cases water still flows deep in their sand-choked beds, and can be obtained by digging. An hour or two spent in this spot convinced me that there were no diamonds to be picked up, and I turned back coastwards, after being rejoined by Du Toit. He had been to a similar pan still farther inland, and his conclusion had been that of myself, that it formed part of an ancient river-bed overwhelmed and choked by the dunes. He also said that from a high dune there, through his glasses, he had seen a very much wider expanse of country of a similar nature through a break in the dunes inland, and that it had appeared to be quite thickly wooded. He had also seen moving objects in that direction, but whether gemsbok or cattle he could not say. At any rate it was apparently an oasis, and quite possibly the “Hottentots’ Paradise” we had heard so much about. At least, so thought Du Toit. “But it’s a long way, and the dunes seem to get worse in that direction. It would take us a day and a half to reach it; that means we’d have to take water for three days, for we could not depend on finding water there. And if it is the place, there are a lot of well armed Hottentots there, and we’ve no rifles, and we’ve no trade goods to barter with. No, it’s not worth the risk; but, man, if the yarns we’ve heard are true, there must be piles of diamonds there!” [Illustration: DRIFTWOOD ON THE DESOLATE BEACH NEAR CAPE VOLTAS. The low point in the distance.] [Illustration: PROSPECTING PARTY NEARING THE MOUNTAIN OF RICHTERSFELDT, NAMAQUALAND.]