Few years ago as it was, at that time there was not even a motor-car service to either Kenhardt, Upington, Kakamas, or any of the far townships of the German border. Twice a week a post-cart jogged over the apology for a road, with letters to the “backveld,” and occasionally a commercial traveller followed the same path; but wayfarers of any description other than local farmers or stock-buyers were rare enough to make us the object of a considerable amount of curiosity, and during the few hours we stayed in the little “border” dorp the place was humming with rumours as to who we were and where we were bound for. We had been warned that this kind of thing would happen, and that if our true object leaked out we should be followed--perhaps forestalled. And I must say that for naïve and insatiable inquisitiveness into the doings of strangers, the inhabitants of the wild and neglected districts of the north-west are very hard to beat. At the lonely and poverty-stricken farmsteads all along the route we were invariably subjected to a regular inquisition, as to who we were, where we came from, where we were going, and above all, why, why, why had we come into those parts? Why? indeed! For there appeared little or nothing to attract anyone to this desolate and barren countryside, devastated by drought, neglected and ignored, without any of the conveniences of more favoured regions, a very Cinderella among South African districts. The advent of a rare stranger--especially if he looked a townsman and an “Engelsman”--usually gave rise to some faint hope that at length the _spoorweg_ (railway) was coming, or roads were to be made, or a mine opened, or some kind of _Gouvermentse werk_ to be started to benefit the country at long last. But after all, we had little to fear from these poor chaps; the danger came from the townsmen we had left, for our coming and our object were both known in Upington before we got there, and all arrangements had been made for our being followed. However, I anticipate. We succeeded in hiring a light spring-waggon with six good horses, and the fourth day saw us at the drift at Upington, having passed through one of the most dreary and monotonous parts of South Africa _en route_, a part calling for no special mention, as it is utterly devoid of scenery or of any object of interest. Dreary stretches of flat stony veldt, incredibly bare, and denuded of even its modicum of straggling vegetation, for miles on either side of the road, by the crowds of donkeys that then hauled the heavy transport-waggons from the railway to the far back-veldt, and which crawled along at a snail’s pace over the interminable distance, often taking three weeks to accomplish the 150 miles between Prieska and Upington.