Windhuk was at that time an important military station; in fact, the civilian population was insignificant, and the hotel was crammed with officers. Among these I met a Hauptmann, whom I will call Müller, who was a most striking contrast to the general run of overbearing, swashbuckling officers. He spoke English well and was most courteous and affable, especially when he learnt that I knew something of geology. He had just returned from a trip south to the Gibeon district, and he showed me some samples of excellent “blue ground”--Kimberlite--he had found there. He badly wanted me to return with him and prospect the place, but as I had made all arrangements to return to Luderitzbucht and Cape Town, I could not do so. And much to my regret, for his theory that these were the pipes from which the coastal deposits of diamonds had come originally was not as far-fetched as it appeared at first; for he explained it by a theory of glacial denudation of such pipes in the remote past, and said there was abundant evidence everywhere that such action had taken place, and that the glaciers had travelled from north-east to south-west right across the country to the sea. As I could not go, I suggested to Du Toit to do so, but this he would not do, as he got on with the Germans worse than I did; in fact, if they treated me with scant courtesy, they treated Du Toit with none! These Germans profess to despise the Boers, and many of the latter who fled into German territory rather than accept British rule after the Boer War had been very glad to return to the protection of the Union Jack. Meanwhile Hauptmann Müller very kindly lent me a horse and took me round the settlement, talking incessantly the while of the future of the Protectorate, of which he had a great opinion. He had been in the Cape Colony and Transvaal, and spoke with admiration not unmixed with envy of our rich mines and splendid resources. “We came late,” he said; “you English had all the good land. But now we have diamonds and copper here, and when the Protectorate pays we will develop the country--that is, if we have not fought you before then.” For this refreshing man made no secret of his belief that war between England and Germany was inevitable. “You English have the pick of the world,” he said, “but you cannot keep it! You have no army, and we are building a navy that will equal your own. And when ‘The Day’ comes we shall smash you up and take what we want, and you will decline into a little second-rate Power. We must do so; you cannot confine us to Europe and the waste places of the earth.”