However, the prospecting carried out had proved many of the deposits to be extremely rich, and some years later development work was started in several places by different syndicates, with excellent results, and a certain amount of ore was again shipped from Alexander Bay; but by this time a formidable rival had appeared upon the scene in the shape of the Cape Copper Company, who, with their own line of railway connecting their own copper-mine at O’okiep with their own port at Port Nolloth, had already begun to exercise that influence upon the affairs of Namaqualand that has lasted up to the present day. Adverse circumstances thus again proving too strong for these budding copper ventures, the country once more became deserted, the actual locality of many of the abandoned workings remaining known only to a few among the Hottentots who form the scanty inhabitants. It was with a view to locating and examining as many of these mineral deposits as possible, as well as keeping an eye on the prospects of the diamonds that Alexander and his followers had never dreamed of, and also to finding a route between them and the bays near the Orange River mouth, that I landed at Port Nolloth in August 1910, having made the voyage in the S.S. _Hellopes_, and having arrived in a thick fog the very twin brother of the one that hid everything on my previous visit there. However, by midday the sun had got the best of it, and we were slung overside in a big basket, dumped into a waiting lighter and towed ashore. I was a bit curious to see Port Nolloth, for I had heard a good deal about it, and the mournful sound of the bell-buoy had engendered a somewhat mournful anticipation, which I may say fell far short of the reality. A long row of low shanties, mostly of corrugated iron, almost level with and facing the sea, on a narrow path won from the desert of white powdery sand stretching behind it; not a tree, bush, or sign of vegetation except the bright hues of the cherished pot plants adorning the tiny stoeps of some of the dwellings on the “front,” whose owners doubtless like to remind themselves that there are other things on earth beside sand and sea and the Cape Copper Company. [Illustration: GRANITE RANGE BEHIND KUBOOS, RICHTERSFELDT.] [Illustration: ENTRANCE TO A BAD PASS, RICHTERSFELDT. Ransson in foreground.]