This drift, mentioned by Alexander as a permanent Hottentot _werf_, we found to be a most deserted and dreary expanse of flat, barren land, composed of the extremely fine silt brought down by constantly recurring floods; and this deep deposit of alluvial soil has been worn into a labyrinth of channels in all directions, with thousands of little “islands” between them, which are covered with and partly held together by the intertwined roots of dreary-looking tamarisks. Each time I have been to the drift it has been blowing hard, and on this first visit the hurricane was carrying the powdery silt in swirling clouds in all directions. There was no shelter anywhere, for the Hottentots in the past have denuded the spot of all the big trees, and our outspan that night was a most miserable one. A temporary lull led to our attempting to make a fire, which had hardly got fairly going when a most fiendish blast scattered it in all directions, taking with it our pots and pans and half-burying us in clouds of silt. We had to stick it somehow, however, as we had let the cattle away in search of food; it was bitterly cold, and what with being half buried in dust, as well as being half frozen, I was extremely glad when morning broke after a sleepless night and we could trek again. This time we turned south-east, away from the river and across a wide, undulating plain consisting principally of granite débris from the mountains we could now see, and where our waggon waited. Although to all appearances this plain, stretching gently upwards to the mountains, was unbroken, our attempt to cross it soon proved it to be cut into many places by deep, dry watercourses, the banks of which were often so abrupt as to make them worthy of being called cañons, and crossing them meant wide and difficult detours. These watercourses, sand-choked and dry, full of water-worn boulders of rocks foreign to the surrounding country, and all showing the enormous erosion by water that has taken place in the past, go to strengthen the general impression of the traveller that in the very remote past Namaqualand enjoyed a rainfall vastly in excess of that of to-day. [Illustration: “KOKER BOOMEN” (_ALOE DICHOTOMA_), RICHTERSFELDT MOUNTAINS] [Illustration: A MOUNTAIN OF LACMATITI NEAR ZENDLING’S DRIFT, RICHTERSFELDT.] At length and after many tedious detours we reached some foothills of the huge granite mountains of Kuboos which formed a barrier in front of us, and here, by a tiny trickle of water beneath two huge outcrops of white quartz, we found the waggon awaiting us, and with it the full complement of “boys,” guides, and oxen to take us into that same barrier. Formidable these mountains looked now we were close to them, so formidable that a careful inspection of them from this “kicking-off” spot made us wonder whether, instead of a waggon, we ought not to have brought an aeroplane!