e never been climbed. From their base thick
vegetation can be seen crowning the inaccessible summit, and in several
places water flows in gushing cataracts down the steep cliffs that
frown upon the plain on every side.

This mountain had always had a great fascination for me; and once or
twice, in the old days, before the railway came, and when we used to
water our transport animals at these same streams, I attempted to climb
its steep sides, full of curiosity to see what the top might be like.

But I never got within a thousand feet of it, for the crowning bastions
are almost sheer, and would need a better cragsman than myself to
negotiate.

Isolated, and rising straight from the plain to a height of about 3,000
feet, it formed a prominent landmark for those few traders or
prospectors who, in the old days, returned from their trips to the
north to Walfisch Bay by this route; and I was glad indeed to see its
huge bulk towering up one day more years ago than I care to remember
when trekking in from a long expedition in the Kaokoveld for it meant
that my long journey was nearly finished.

With my wagon I had as cook and roust-about an old Englishman named Jim
Blake, who had ran away from his ship at Walfisch Bay many years
before, and who had traversed the country in all directions, since
then, as few men had. In spite of the many years he had spent there,
and the fact that he spoke many of the native dialects well, his
Cockney accent was as pronounced as ever it could have been when he
first shipped at Limehouse; and he had, apparently, a wholesale
contempt for everything, and everybody, but himself.

As his employer, he tolerated me, and as he was invaluable in many
ways, I tolerated him in return, but he had one habit that always
annoyed me immensely. In season and out of season he would say: "Yer
don't know heverythink if yer thinks yer does!"; and I could never
break him of it.

Well, the evening that I speak of, we outspanned under the cliffs of
Erongo, and the oxen drank deep.

We had had a very successful trip, and I felt at peace with all
mankind, as I sat smoking, and watching the setting sun turn the tall
rocks from gold to crimson, and thence through a whole gamut of
purples, violets and mauves to the cold grey of twilight.

"Pritty, 'aint it?" said a voice at my elbow. It was old Blake. His
mahogany face shone with the effects of the first soap and water he had
been able to use for weeks, for we had