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Chapter 3 Windhoek, 13th October 2000 Torran makes the passing and dribbling look easy; it is obvious he enjoys football enormously, and I am beginning to catch the bug. He runs over at the end of the game with a small holdall and jumps into Nomad with a big grin. 'Let's go Dad,' he yells in excitement, switching to a studied air of nonchalance as he notices some schoolkids watching. 'Engaging warp drive,' I confirm. We drive out of Windhoek heading north to Okahandja and then west towards the coast, passing through a vast scrubby wilderness. The only habitation is at Karibib, a small mining town on the edge of the Namib Desert, where we stop in front of a general purpose store. Outside, the street lacks definition - bleached by the naked energy of the sun - but inside, as if in compensation, the shutters are closed and it is almost too dark to see. A bunch of kids aged about twelve or thirteen are hanging out near the chest freezer. One of them recognises Torran and comes over. It turns out they were classmates together at the local primary school. I buy them ice lollies, and down a soft drink myself. It is so dry here that sweat evaporates before your skin has a chance to grow moist. On the western side of Karibib, it is even drier. The scrub thins out leaving just the occasional broken line of thorn bushes to mark the edge of an empty water course. In the distance liquid hills float above the heat haze, the nearest in brick pink and the furthest in slate blue. A pair of German geologists, Henno Martin and Hermann Korn, survived in this inhospitable region for two and a half years so as to avoid internment during the second world war. Loading up their geological truck with provisions in Windhoek, they drove along the same route that we have taken, turning off the main road at Karibib, and disappearing from sight. They lived as hunter-gatherers using Bushman rock shelters to escape the sun, and finding scarce supplies of water and game animals in the sandy canyons and rocky desert outcrops. Henno Martin's account of their travails (1) is one of the finest real life adventure stories written, ranking alongside Heinrich Harrer's Seven Years in Tibet. The geologists had to learn how to shoot the local game animals - springbok, gemsbok and zebra - using either a light pistol or a shotgun. As they possessed only a few hundred rounds of old ammunition for the pistol and a handful of cartridges for the shotgun, this meant ambushing their intended prey in order to ensure that each shot was effective. Their preferred range was about the same as that of a Bushman hunter with bow and poisoned arrow. It was difficult to get so close and they missed constantly. Soon they were on the edge of starvation. * * * He had carried an old Webley service revolver in a cheap leather holster that swung from his belt as he paced the game trails looking for impala. There were five lead bullets, .455 inch caliber, heavy in the hand and pitted with age: too few to risk even a single practice shot. He only ever drew it once. One afternoon he was walking through the riverine woods, puzzling over the scarcity of animals. He climbed an old termite mound to scan a clearing with his binoculars, knowing it was a favourite haunt of impala. The clearing looked empty but he let his gaze linger in the dark shadows under the trees where animals are easily overlooked. A low growl from close-up sent his stomach into his mouth. Looking down, he saw the lionesses. They had been lying in short grass on the edge of the clearing basking in the midday heat. Two were now standing, staring at him, tails raised switching back and forth. They ran forward a few paces, still growling. He dropped his binoculars in shock, and fumbled for the revolver. The two turned to one side and disappeared from view. The third lioness now rose to her feet, looking about for the cause of the disturbance. She spotted him, and instantly charged. Streaking across the grass, coming faster than any human sprinter. He had never experienced such naked menace. Shakily he raised the gun, holding it at arms length, pointing the barrel at the yellow nightmare, knowing he must wait until she was almost upon him before firing. He squeezed the trigger, to cock the hammer, only the tiniest extra pressure was required to fire. At five metres distance, as he watched for the leap, the lioness veered in mid-stride and disappeared into tall grass. He sat down slowly, shaking with fright. For months after that there were nightmares about lion attacks. It was always the same. The lions would appear from nowhere as he was walking in the bush, and immediately charge. He would raise the revolver and fire. The bullet came out of the barrel slowly like a cork from a toy gun and dropped uselessly to the ground. By night he was surrounded by powerful animals – lions, elephants, buffalo - against which he had no defence; by day, he was hemmed in by park’s officers determined to bring him to heel. The young guy was pushing himself to the limit. * * * Henno and Herman watched their prey intently, hunger sharpening their powers of observation. They began to understand the habits of the wild animals, and even how to predict their behaviour. "We learnt to recognise their mood and intentions from the way they held their heads, or set their hooves, or from the swishing of their tails or the flicking of their ears. We got to understand them and their behaviour as you get to understand your friends without the need of speech." Here was another similarity with the Bushmen hunters who can classify individual animals according to more than eighteen categories of personality and character, enabling them to reject those animals judged to possess too much courage or contrariness (2). Modern day field biologists have not even approached this level of differentiation (3). Hermann confessed to trembling with eagerness 'like a dog' when a gemsbok came near enough for a shot and Henno remarked that he became tremendously keyed up when hunting for food on an empty stomach, and afterwards when the animal was killed, the release of tension was correspondingly great. Yet despite their best efforts, the two were constantly hungry. They tried all kinds of food from berries to wild onions, and from smoked carp to casseroled quail, but most of all they craved the large game animals, not just for their meat but for the tallow-like fat and soft marrow dripping. With such intensity of observation and purpose, is it not surprising to find that animals featured in the dreams of the geologists, to the extent that animal and human identities began to mingle. Perhaps Henno dreamt of being a gemsbok in its handsome black and tan coat with a pair of deadly sabre-like horns, pacing along the sandy canyon floor behind his friend, or of being a leopard, hungry in the night and ready to kill. The folklore from all over the world contains stories of humans who can turn into animals and vice versa. Our own European mythology has tales of wolves and werewolves, and of seals and silkies (4). Henno suggested that this common heritage in Man's mythology may have arisen from dreams: under conditions of necessity, the pursuit of meat becomes an all-consuming central purpose to life, so much so that the hunter's spiritual identity begins to mingle with that of his quarry. There is much to learn from the experiences of these two remarkable men as regards the hunting of large game and survival in the desert, but I would not want to leave them sitting with their stash of dried meat by a campfire in the Namib without making mention of their equally edifying debates on the origins of human nature. These continued, apparently, throughout the whole period of their isolation and some of the conclusions they reached on human evolution deserve to be better known. The first stone age artist to trace the outline of an antelope in the sand consciously created something new. Henno and Harmann recognised that the tracing of an antelope was no random event. Life had not been waiting for that million-to-one mutation that produced an artist where none had been before, rather the early humans were beginning to use their minds to create new possibilities, driving the process of evolution before them. The geologists' idea is not contrary to Darwinian evolution. Before there were artists, the human line must have been ready to produce them: the opposable thumb, tight eye-hand coordination and sophisticated pattern recognition of the brain, all pre-adapted humans for art. And following its advent, the standing of those individuals with artistic talent might have risen in their bands, and no doubt their survival and reproduction would therefore also have benefited. The genes that helped shape good artists would spread in the population. But within this thread of thought is the novel idea that imagination might play a pre-eminent role in evolution. The mind recognises new possibilities, so impelling change, and triggering episodes of classical evolution. It has been suggested that the variety we find amongst modern humans arose from the ingenuity shown by our ancestors in creating new technology - from stick-throwing to ocean going canoes. The technology in turn created new opportunities that carried their own selective pressures that ended up shaping us (5). My day dreams have helped to pass the hot drive to Swakopmund, and it is not long before Torran and I find ourselves entering the pretty coastal town with its oasis of flowers and palms. The day is wearing on but rather than stop here we push north, following the Atlantic seaboard, and looking for a place to camp. A number of 4x4s pass us going in the opposite direction, sporting up to seven fishing rods fastened vertically to the front bumper. It appears that shore-fishing is a popular weekend pastime in this isolated community. All along the road are little markers set on the verge - an empty beer can, a broken wooden post, a couple of stones - each with a track in the sand that leads the way to somebody's favourite fishing spot. Many an evening must be whiled away with a case of beers and the pounding surf for company. As the miles slip by, the markers begin to thin out, eventually disappearing altogether, and only then do we turn off the road and make our own way across the desert. On reaching the shore, I engage 4-wheel drive and we plough our way along the beach to a fine sandy point jutting out into the ocean. A never-ceasing stream of cormorants flies southwards past the spot where we are sitting; others sit in rafts about fifty metres from shore rising and falling in the swell on the outer edge of the breakers. The sea is streaked with foam and spindrift and the beach scarred with lines of weed and oceanic debris. As the sun sets, the wind begins to rise. We are soon struggling with the big red tent. The first time is always the hardest and we battle to work out where the poles go and what the guy ropes do, but succeed finally by lashing the guys to Nomad on the windward side and to jerry cans of petrol on the downwind side. Torran finds some long sticks which he quickly sharpens with a sheath knife, digging them deep into the sand to hold down the groundsheet. After helping put up the tent, he gathers up some large stones to make a fireplace, and then goes off to hunt for driftwood. Returning with a large armful, he stacks up the wood and coaxes a fire into life. It is a joy for me to see him having so much fun. In a short while, the smoky smell of boerewors permeates the camp. This is my first experience of Geoff and Sue's braaivleis machine which traps the spiral of spiced sausage between two grills, enabling the whole thing to be turned over, quick as a wink. Reinvigorated by barbecued sausage in fresh rolls and a mug of orange juice, we set off to explore. First we go to the edge of the ocean which is about ten metres beyond the high sand ledge on which we are camped. All light from the west has now gone but a rising full moon lights up the beach in silvery relief; there, at the edge of the ocean, is a huge Cape Fur Seal sitting up on its front flippers. I pull out my torch and we approach cautiously. It lets out a few grunts and lunges forward; we turn and run up the beach whooping with excitement. The seal lurches off into the waves and disappears, wearing an annoyed expression. The edge of the water is receding fast as the tide ebbs causing me to worry that it could rise equally fast in a few hours time. As the moon is full, we can expect a spring tide which might bring the sea flooding inland. Luckily Torran noticed an announcement on the car radio that high tide would be at four o'clock in the morning. As a precaution against being caught out in the middle of the night, we walk along the beach using Nomad's rechargeable lantern to map out the highest line of retreat, and only then retire to our sleeping bags. I set my digital watch alarm for 2 am and, utterly exhausted, fall quickly asleep. Miraculously, I awake to the tinny jingle. Steeling myself against further sleep, I unzip a panel in the tent and peer outside. The moon is now riding high, shining a soft grey light over the desert sands. Thankfully the onshore gale has died down and the roar of ocean waves can be clearly heard. Extricating myself from the sleeping bag, I quietly slip out of the tent and walk over to the sand ledge. Woh! The waves are crashing in, reaching right up to the top; with two more hours of rising tide, our camp is about to be inundated. There is absolutely no time to be lost. I run quickly back to the car, unlock all the doors, throw down the tailgate and begin untying the guy ropes. Then in a mounting frenzy, I grab jerry cans, water containers, braai machine, food boxes, cups, plates, camp chair, bedding and more, throwing them into the back of Nomad, before pulling out tent pegs and finally rousing Torran. As I collapse the tent and thrust it unceremoniously into the back of the cab, Torran runs over to check the sandy ledge. He reports that waves are now breaking over the top and water is reaching to within two metres of Nomad. 'Quick,' I order. 'Into the car!' Hands fumbling, I push the ignition key into the lock and turn it. Nothing happens, just a click and the ignition light goes out. Oh horror! The battery must have gone flat from leaving the lights on last evening. Fortunately there is that second battery which was wired into the ignition system in Cape Town for just such an eventuality as this. Blessing my foresight, I hope against hope that it works as it should. Out I jump, throw open the bonnet, turn the heavy lever that points at battery one over to battery two, slam shut the bonnet, glance at the oncoming sea over my shoulder, jump back into the car, and hastily turn the ignition key. There is another click. The ignition light goes out. Surely impossible, I wail. But there it is, the red ignition light is out indicating a second dead battery. And unlike the old Land Rovers that could be cranked into life with a bit of human muscle power, the new breed of off-road vehicle is entirely dependent on charged batteries. I am stunned. Over towards the coast road, it is inky black. Even though we are over a kilometre away, it should be possible to make out the headlights of any vehicles going by. But nothing is moving at 2.30 in the morning along the Skeleton Coast. The impending horror of our situation begins to sink in. Without help, the tide will soon race past Nomad, sucking her deeply into the soft sand. I drag my mind back to the problem in hand; Torran must not see that I am worried. 'No problemo,' I say lightly. 'I'll just try a different solution.' Leaping out again, I turn the heavy lever midway to bring both batteries into circuit, knowing even as I do this that it is almost certainly a futile gesture. Then I jump back into the cab, forcing my mind to slow down and concentrate on what little I know of electrical circuitry. Suddenly the penny drops. In my haste to escape the sea, I had forgotten to press the anti-disabling button dangling on the key chain. No wonder the car won't start - the ignition circuit is being broken by a security device - something else that I had fitted in Cape Town. What a relief! Swiftly I press the button. The ignition light clicks on. I screw round the starter key. Instantly Nomad fires up, and we are off, tanking through the soft sands at high revs in low wheel ratio. Two hundred and fifty metres later, we lurch up onto a raised terrace, swing round to face inland and continue for another hundred metres just to be safe. As I manoeuvre the car to create a wind break, I notice something else is abroad on the otherwise deserted strand. A black-backed jackal hobbles along the rotting tidemark, momentarily baring its teeth as it turns from the headlights. No doubt it is searching for the carcass of a dead seal. The night is too far advanced to bother with a tent, and so Torran and I hastily arrange two campbeds on the side of the sandy track in the lee of Nomad. We take out blankets as well as sleeping bags to keep off the cold sea breeze, then settle down for the second half of the night, this time under the stars as Torran had originally wanted. I doze fitfully at first, finally dropping into a heavy sleep in which I have the most vivid dream. A jackal approaches me, coming up to my bed and grabbing my hand with its sharp teeth. As this happens, I realise that I am still sleeping and in extreme danger. I yell with the utmost urgency to my other self, 'Wake up! Wake up! Wake up! For pity's sake, wake up!'. And my other self responds, pushing back the deep waves of sleep, at first so slowly, but then more strongly and I begin to rise from the depths of slumber to the light of consciousness. And all the while, I am aware that this is taking too much time, much too much time. 'Wake up! Wake up now!' Just as I reach the edge of wakefulness, the crisis passes. I fall back into an easy dream where I show my hand, complete with bite marks, to various friends. The sea breeze continues to blow strange stories down the coast, and at length the long night draws to a close. Torran surfaces first to be greeted by a cold grey dawn and the reassuring sound of distant ocean waves. He is soon out of his bag and looking about. 'Look Dad,' he says. 'There are jackal prints all around your campbed.' Namib Desert, 14th October 2000 Despite our troubled night, Torran and I are in high spirits as we head north to take a look at a colony of fur seals. On the way, we stop to breakfast on 'weetbix', long life milk and dry brown bread covered in the glorious homemade apricot jam that I had purchased from the sweetest-smelling-filling-station-in-the-world, all washed down with coffee and fruit juice. When we reach the rocky shoreline where the seal colony is located, Torran holds his hand over my eyes and steers me forward to a low wall that somehow contrives to separate seals from seal-observers. The rotting marine aroma gives a pretty hefty clue as to what to expect. When he takes his hand away, I find myself surrounded by hundreds of fur seals - bellowing, arguing, mewing and wailing - a bit of Antarctica right here in Africa. We set off inland around midday, heading for the Erongo Mountains and enjoy the sensation of cruising at speed along the sand-covered highway, rocking across the Namib Desert to the sounds of 96.7 FM on the car radio. The road snakes past the isolated massif of Spitzkoppe, a steep sided, 1800 metre high mountain where prospectors have discovered many sorts of gemstone - amethyst, aquamarine, topaz and green tourmaline. This Tolkienesque mountain dominates the baking desert plains that surround it, luring generations of adventurers with its promise of hidden treasure (6). We stop at a roadside stand where I buy a smoky amethyst from a desperate-looking woman dressed in dirty rags. In its flawed depths is a perfect silver bubble floating within an invisible liquid bed. So curious - I feel the small price that I pay is a bargain but Torran, who knows the real price of such treasures from his years in Karibib, tells me it was extortionate. One of the men at the stand shows us two enormous aquamarine crystals that barely fit onto his large outstretched hands. He has just discovered them in a cave on the side of the mountain. 'God smiled on me today,' he says with a strong Afrikaans accent. 'Even one of these will buy me a new bakkie (7).' He and Torran chat away in Afrikaans. When I ask what was said, Torran tells me that the prospector had asked him to pass on a message about his find to the gemstone dealer in Torran's home town. Three kilometres further down the road, I stop again to give five vagabonds some petrol for their broken-down Land Rover. Torran cautions me that it is a common trick, but this weekend I am happy, and happy to spread happiness around. Later when I hear about the hijacking and murder of a tourist at this spot, I determine to be more careful. In the late afternoon we manoeuvre up a steep track that leads to the Erongo Wilderness Lodge, halting on the brow of the hill. It is still and quiet with just the occasional sonorous chirp from an unseen bird to indicate that we have left the desert behind. On both sides are enormous whale-back kopjes; their bare granite tops streaked by weathering and their boulder-strewn bottoms fringed by leafless bushes. It is an arid version of the savannahs of East African: here the rocks dominate whilst there the trees and grasses soften and enrich the landscape. The track takes us between the kopjes into an enclosed amphitheatre within the mountains where we are met by the proprietor of the lodge. He whisks us into a waiting safari truck and sends us off with a guide for the evening's game drive. The truck winds its way in and out of the rounded granite giants; wild figs cling to cracks in the shear rock walls and bulbous trees balance leafless on minute ledges. All life it seems is awaiting the summer rains. Shortly after crossing a dry stream bed we pull up at the base of one of the great kopjes, from there we proceed by foot following a rough trail that leads to an elevated viewing point. At the top, Torran sits down with our guide to enjoy a cool soda whilst I wander off to investigate a nearby Bushman's cave. The smooth granite falls away steeply to the valley below as I clamber warily along the side of the kopje to the sunken cave. Its perfect teardrop of an entrance is protected from frontal view by thorny scrub and from either side by the rounded contours of the hill. The opening is more than twice my height and almost as wide but it shelves inwards to a darkened recess at its furthest point. Near the front are several paintings in red ochre. On the left is a stylised hunter with what looks to be feathers attached to his head: he is facing a springbok. Further on, a group of four stick figures play flute-like instruments whilst seemingly floating in the air. In another scene, a pregnant woman strides purposively across the rock. She has been painted with care and detail but her image is now fading. The best preserved cameo is on the west side of the entrance. The centrepiece is a female kudu standing with lifted tail and large rounded ears; nearby is a group of figures holding the small bows and quivers of Bushman hunters. The figure furthest from the kudu is stationary with raised bow; possibly he has just fired an arrow. The next figure is walking, holding the bow down. The figure nearest the kudu is running rapidly towards it, holding the bow down but with a small spear raised in the opposite arm. The group may portray the sequence of a chase - firstly the firing of a poisoned arrow, then the tracking of the kudu at walking pace as the poison slowly takes effect, and finally the hunter rushing in to finish off the stricken animal with a spear. It is an awesome cave, and one can imagine that the local Bushmen would have attached great significance to it. Irresistibly, I find myself drawn to the small opening at its far end. Without pausing to think, I duck in under the mantel and stand up. Inside it is pitch black, as if one were standing within the chimney of a Georgian manor house. I barely have time to register the presence of bat droppings on the ground, or the sense of enclosed space and blackness above, when there is an alarming sound of angry bees. Instantly, I duck back out into the main chamber, but one bee is already buzzing about my head and others are coming in hot pursuit. As I stumble down the cave, I am stung hard on the right ear. It is not until I am right outside that the others finally give up the chase. Our guide comes over, his face the picture of concern, and removes the sting before it can pump a full sac of poison into my ear. I feel chastened, as if given a sound clipping on the ear by the spirit of a Bushman offended at my thoughtless intrusion into his sacred place. Back at the lodge, Torran and I take a hot shower before donning fresh clothes and strolling across the rockbound amphitheatre to the diningroom set on top of the facing kopje. Over pancakes and ice-cream, Torran asks about last night's visitor on the beach. 'Dad, do you think you smelt his rotten breath and that gave you the dream?' 'Maybe.' 'Do you think your guardian angel was trying to wake you up?' I don't have any clear answers but I see that he needs some kind of explanation. 'I'm not sure. Sometimes you see things more vividly in dreams than when awake. It is a different kind of awareness. Last night, the warning was unmistakable but sometimes the meaning is almost hidden.' Although it is now late, the night air carries the heat of the surrounding rocks. We walk slowly back to our tented cabin and open up all the flaps: it remains too hot even for a sheet. Torran is soon fast asleep but I lie awake thinking over our experiences. Outside, all is quiet. My ear throbs. In a cave, two valleys away, the hunter is seeking a kudu cow... He holds five pieces of thick eland hide in his cupped hands, blows on them, bangs their edges on a skin mat, and throws down the oracle disks. Looking at the pattern formed, a story begins to unfold: a story of men and animals, of where the rains are falling and in what direction good fortune lies. Gathering his bow and poisoned arrows, the hunter sets off at dawn, skirting round the base of the hill and out across the open scrubland. He walks swiftly and silently; his companion follows exactly in his footsteps to minimise noise and avoid thorns. Soon the pair have left their shelter far behind. The leading hunter is on the lookout for fresh spoor and is fully attuned to the life of the bush. If birds are mobbing in a tree, he thinks of snakes; if they are flying to and from a common point, it indicates water. When he spots some tracks he signals silently with his right hand that it is kudu, a group of females with one large male. The tracks are fresh, they are heading north. The two of them examine the spoor closely, sitting on their heels, discussing which animal should be their quarry. This one is heavy, the female may be pregnant. That one is more nervous than her companions. Another is contented. Yet another has a limp, she is favouring her right hind leg. This is the one that they will hunt. They follow her tracks at a steady trot. Here, a nocturnal beetle has crossed the hoof print; a trickle of sand still falls from the edge of the impression. It means they are but a few hours behind the animals. The lead hunter notices the torn leaf stems that indicate which plants their quarry is eating: now he knows what food she is looking for. Where she has turned to avoid a stone, he follows the turn. When she stops to look to her left, so does he. She runs forward a few paces to catch up with the others in her group, and he is running alongside her prints. He begins to feel the kudu's stripes on his side, a white band across his nose. Soon he knows where to run without looking for her tracks. He is getting closer. The hunter signals to his companion before climbing a tree to scout ahead. There in amongst some thorn bushes is a group of five kudu cows and two calves. He watches intently, noting that the one who is heavily pregnant is feeding strongly, but that the one next to her with a young calf is nervous and constantly looking about. He finds the animal with a limp: she is on the edge of the group and has a quiet personality. Yes, this is the one he will kill. The two hunters circle downwind, staying out of sight, then advance rapidly, running between bushes, bodies bent double. In outline they look like a single stalking animal, one that is more lethal to a kudu cow than even a hungry lioness. The lead hunter separates from his companion. Using the cover of large stones and shrubs, he edges closer, eventually sinking to the ground and crawling, and finally wriggling forward through the whispering grass on his elbows. One hand now holds the bow, the other a poisoned arrow, nocked at the bowstring and ready to fire. Reaching a spot about twenty metres from the kudu group, he waits patiently for his quarry to walk from behind the bush where she is feeding, checking at the same time that his companion is in firing position. When he sees her move, he slides sideways a little to give a clearer line of fire and looses an arrow, hitting the cow in the deep muscle of her left thigh. She starts forward and his companion's arrow flies behind her. Their quarry turns and stares but does not seem to recognise her danger. She walks forward slowly and nervously and the rest of the herd follow her. The hunters turn and walk quietly back to camp wishing to give the poison time to take effect. The spirit of the lead hunter is now closely attending the spirit of the kudu. He avoids others in camp, not wanting their shouts or even sneezes to startle the animal through him, and he waits for one of the old men to construct a special hut far away from the women and children. He avoids eating the meat of any fleet-footed animal as this may strengthen the wounded kudu; he even refrains from urinating lest the kudu urinate too, letting the poison escape. He knows that the trickster-God may be angry, so to divert His wrath he has handed the quiver that contained the offending arrow to an old man. The next day he and his companion again pick up the tracks of their quarry. They follow the spoor for several hours, noting the behaviour of the wounded animal, but avoiding a close approach. They let her weaken, then when she shows signs of collapse, the first hunter quickly steps forward to confront her. She stands in a daze, huge round ears lifted towards him. The hunter runs in and spears her to death. There is little sign of jubilation and none of showmanship. The kudu will provide food for the whole camp and the fat will be much prized; the real celebration will be in the feasting and in the healing dance tonight. Perhaps he will paint this story... ******* 1. Henno Martin, The Sheltering Desert, AD. London, William Kimber,1957 2. George B. Silberbauer, Hunter and Habitat in the Central Kalahari Desert, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press,1981. 3. Recent assessments of personality in domestic animals have revealed consistent differences in temperament (Wemelsfelder, F. 2001. Assessing the 'whole animal': a free choice profiling approach. Animal Behaviour, 62: 209-220). 4. Silkies are a Scottish version of mermaids. 5. Jonathan Kingdon, Self-Made Man and his Undoing. London, Simon and Schuster, 1993. 6. J.R.R. Tolkien was born in Bloemfontein, just a few hundred kilometres away, but only lived in South Africa until the age of four. Perhaps he heard stories of Spitzkoppe and used them in later life as inspiration for the Lonely Mountain where Smaug, the dragon, guarded a hoard of gems and golden treasure. J.R.R. Tolkien, The Hobbit: or There and Back Again, London, George Allen and Unwin, 1937. 7. A bakkie is the local name for a pickup truck.
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