However, we jogged steadily along, and after one or two experiences gave these places as wide a berth or as short a visit as we possibly could, and this much to our driver’s disgust, for naturally he wished to visit all of them, spend an hour or two in gossiping at each, and whenever possible sleep in the ferret-hutch atmosphere of their interiors at night, instead of out under the stars as we did. Still, _De gustibus non disputandum_ holds good in Gordonia as elsewhere, I suppose, and as long as he did not delay us and kept his distance for a while afterwards, we did not mind where he slept. It is not my intention to turn this account into a guide-book description of the journey, most of which was absolutely featureless and uninteresting, but a brief outline of the route followed might be of interest. Trekking from Upington at 5 one evening, we kept on steadily till 11, when we turned in on the cool sand and slept comfortably till 4.30, when we started again, and at 7 o’clock passed the deserted copper-mine at Areachap, which had but recently been closed down, and presented the sad sight of a beautifully equipped and rich little mine being beaten in its struggle for existence by the heavy handicap of being situated 170 miles or so from the nearest railway. Rich heaps of ore lay there ready to be carted away, there was much valuable machinery going to rack and ruin, and the buildings must have cost a large sum to erect; and here it stood, alone and deserted in the midst of the solitary waste of veldt, guarded only by a couple of coloured “boys”--a sad monument of man’s energy wasted in a hopeless fight against adverse circumstances, or worse! The tall yellow shaft was visible hours after we had left it, a most prominent and incongruous landmark in the wide expanse of desert.