PRIMITIVE HOTTENTOTS

Evening Star, Issue 23292, 14 June 1939, Page 12

PRIMITIVE HOTTENTOTS

DESERT NOMADS OF ORANGE RIVER

The life of the Hottentots m the torrid Richtersveld, tbe “ never-never ” land of the Orange River, is described by a correspondent of the Johannesburg ‘ Star.’ Stark, grim, red-coloured mountains rise from the banks of the river, bare of vegetation except the cactus plant known as the noorsdoorn. These mountains nearly all have a . covering of smooth slabs of stone, thrown there by ancient volcanoes. These rocks throw off a glare in the daytime that is painful to the sight when near, aud from a distance one could forgive a stranger for thinking they are sheets of mica Due to two prevailing winds, downstream in the morning and up of a night, both cold and sometimes bitterly cold, driving a mass of sand before it the immediate vicinity of the river is devoid of grazeable vegetation, only a fringe of trees bordering the river on both banks. Even with their nearness to the water these trees are stunted The seasonal fall of leaves from these trees provide feeding of a sort for the stock of those nomads who have to live along the river through choice or necessity; but changes of grazing are necessary fcr the sake of the health of the animals The nearest grazing, con ■sisting of a scrub thorn, a variety of salt bush, and ice plants, is from eight to 12 miles from the banks of the river

Imagine the heat of those kloofs and gorges. One hundred and ten degrees to 12(Weg is common and higher is experienced every year. The days from 9 o’clock in the morning till 5 o’clock in the afternoon, are a breathless agony for a white person. Vegetables of the finer varieties, even if liberally watered, nearly always fail. That was ray experience on the river below Vioolsdrift—during a lengthy sojourn there.

The Richtersveld Hottentots live a semi-nomadic life, subsisting principally on goat’s milk and wild roots, with a small addition of civilised foods obtained through the barter of skins When visiting the river they profit by the flotsam of produce flood-borne from the interior Wo must remember that the family jealously guard their flocks, consisting entirely or nearly so of Boer-goats. The loss of one she goat means a diminution of their food supply.

course in the wake of the warship for Gibraltar.

America’s Splinter Fleet was on its way to the Mediterranean to join the Otranto Barrage. The war-time exploits of these hastilybuilt, diminutive craft, whose peculiar fighting equipment was a closely-pre-served secret at the time, have been overshadowed by the more familiar achievements of the Dover Patrol and the Q Ships . The anecdotes related in ‘ The Sphntei Fleet of .the Otranto Barrage,’ by Mr Ray Mulholland, who served with distinction in these motor boats as an engineer, serve, therefore, to fill in one of the more mysterious chapters in the naval operations during the Great War.

Their purpose, like that of their sister ships in the British service, was to hunt German submarines —hunt them with underwater listening devices, catch them with a superior turn of' speed, and bomb them. into eternity with depth charge and shell fire It was not easy work. It was, for the most part, arduous, unpleasant, sickening, and dangerous But it was exciting, a matching of cunning and tenacity against rthe wiles of a strange and unseen enemy The battle of wits produced, on both sides, some extraordinary stratagems. In an attempt to bottle up German and Austrian submarines in the Adriatic, the Allies maintained during the greater part of the war. an elaborate barrier of defences across the Adriatic, from the northern tip of Corfu to Otranto, on the Italian coast .This was the Otranto Barrage. Jn front and behind a formidable ebain of mine fields and three lines of warships—British, Australian, and Italian—maintained a constant vigil day and night, assisted by trawlers and motor torpedoboats GHOST SUBMARINE. Deep under the ocean, where the barrage was maintained during, the war, lie to-day the rusted shells' of scores of U-boats which fell victim to the- tricks of the submarine chasers. Yet for every submarine which fell foul of nets, mines, shell fire, or depth charges, one, or possibly two, evaded detection and got through And often what served the U-boat commanders best in their deadly game of wits was a lively sense of humour. Let the author tell his story:—%'■; ■ 1 “ Knowing our preference for seeing oil and air • bubbles rising to the surface after we had gone .to great pains to bomb a submarine, the accommodating U-boat commanders would sometimes squirt out a discharge of oil, and. if they felt very accommodating, 'would also release some compressed air Then, while we were still religiously bombing the spot where the oil showed on the surface the sub. would go into silent running speed and slip away, laughing at us.” At last, when the captains of the submarine chasers came to view with suspicion every rising bubble and ev,ery patch of oil, the ingenious U-boat commanders resorted to other practical jokes. “ The thing which annoyed us most was a device dropped by a mine-laying submarine right in our patrol area This infernal machine gave off a series of weird and varying submarine noises which we could hear at irregular intervals. It worked on our imagination until it would sound as if two or three submarines were playing tag with us. Time and again we bombed the spot after hours of careful plotting to locate the origin of the sound. Then it would cease for. a while, only to commence again. We wasted scores of valuable: depth bombs trying to kill this elusive (

mosquito. However, after tea' Armistice I could get no submarine commander to admit teat such a device had been employed. The ‘ ghost submarine ’ of the Otranto Barrage remains to this day one of the unexplained mysteries of the war.” THE INSPECTION. One day Washington, puzzled to know; what its Splinter Fleet was up: to, sent an inspector across the Atlantic to look it over and furnish a report to tee Navjj Department. An “ officious ; little officer,” he came aboard Mr Mulholland’* boat and demanded an exhibition of abandon-ship drill. The captain “ turned loose a rumble of thunder from his big chest, and gave a command that was absolutely unintelligible to every man •Tack of us.” A solemn .moment of profound inactivity followed. Then tee captain turned to the gaping inspector* saluted him gravely, and said: ‘‘Sir, the ship is abandoned.” “ My dear sir,” objected the inspector in hia most sarcastic tone, “ I am not testing the power of your voice £ am still waiting for-a demonstration of your; past instructions to your crew in. the correct movements for abandoning ship” The captain looked down from hi* superior height upon the inspector. Hi* polite phraseology bit like vitriol “My dear Mr Inspector, chaser! men never abandon ship. If you must; scar* us zero for that test ana proceed.” A PET LARK ; Mr Mulholland describes, in vivid seaman’s parlance, worthy of the engine room which was his special province, the heroic part which the American Splinter Fleet played in the Allied operation* against the Albanian port of Durazzo, teen used by the Germans as a submarine base. It was the only general naval engagement in which units of the American navy participated in tee entire war. It was fought on October 2,’ \9lB Three weeks later Austria made a- separate peace. .... But for all his powers, of dramatic description, his exciting'. catalogue of brfttle. storm and death,‘the authoi i» at his best when he is relating, with a twinkle in his eye, the lighter side of war’s grim pageantry. • “One day a lark, just a tiny bird,’ driven bv the wind far from its nesting field, fluttered aboard „and sank exhausted on the deck.. It- caused almost as much interest as an arriving shell might have done. Its welfare immediately became the all-absorbing concern of 18 men. who would drop bombs on other living creatures at every opportunity. But our little friend would not eat the strange food offered The days passed and we became greatly concerned for our lark. Tf only we had some bird seed! A solitary Italian steamer, plodding along through oUp lines bound for Corfu; was hailed, and boarded. We must have bird seed f<ip our pet lark. ‘ A thousand devils, you stop me for bird seed? By the Pope, yon have your nerve! ’ ” But they returned to.their motor boat with a large packet of pounded sunflower and pumpkin seeds, and. were rewarded when the bird recovered it* health and strength. It was .an affectionate little creature, and loved to sleep on the cook’s bunk with its little head tucked under a fragile wing. Yet the cook—clumsy fellow—was te* bird’s undoing in the end. He rolled over in his bunk one night and crushed the life out of the little pet. “I cannot look at a copy of Millet’* painting. ‘The Lark,’ ” Mr Mulholland concludes, “ without thinking : of tea tiny package, weighted l with a lump of coal, which dropped, with hardly aa tudible splash, into a hundred fathoms* iff Fano Island,”