posed
that jackals and hyenas managed to exist on the fish cast up and
stranded by the sea. He never saw the track of any other beast.
"And all along that most disappointing beach we searched day after day, always hoping and expecting to find,
and always in vain. We tried the larger-graded pebbles farther from the
water first, hoping for Cullinans or at least Koh-i-noors, and by
degrees we worked down to the water's edge, where the grit was but
little coarser than that of Liideritzbucht; but all to no avail." The search was arduous, involving the digging every few paces
of prospecting pits five or six feet deep. The men had to work
furiously fast, too, in order to get as much done as possible while
their water supply held out. Ten days they allowed for all this toil,
and then they were forced to give up because of the water. Before they
left, however, Cornell and Du Toit went inland four miles and climbed
the highest dune they could find and got a good view of the country
round about. It was, said Cornell, a "terrible waterless waste surrounding us, treeless, bare,
and horrible in the glaring sun, awful in its featureless monotony of
huge wave after wave of verdureless sand." Yet, still further inland,
the faintest shadow against the glaring sky, were mountains.
He
and Du Toit went separate ways and did a little exploring. Cornell
climbed a series of steep ridges straight across: it was like walking
across a city by climbing up and down the houses of the streets one
crossed, instead of going through them. He found an ancient river
course, dry and choked with sand, now forming a "pan." Du Toit
reported, when they were together again, that he had seen more than
that—a far-off place that appeared to be thickly wooded; he had even
made out
