By Roxanne Reid
You’ve had a hard morning’s game viewing when you arrive at the Kamqua picnic site on the Auob River in the Kgalagadi Transfrontier Park. You’re looking for a spot of shade where you can get out and stretch your legs. What you find is the lost city of the Kalahari & some dead trees.
You’ve had a hard morning’s game viewing when you arrive at the Kamqua picnic site on the Auob River in the Kgalagadi Transfrontier Park. You’re looking for a spot of shade where you can get out and stretch your legs. What you find is the lost city of the Kalahari & some dead trees.
The camelthorn trees at Kamqua have been providing shade to picnickers in the park for decades. Then sometime in the last year or so, they withered and died; all that’s left are their skeletons.
I get that it’s a good idea to clear the vegetation under the trees, so snakes can’t hide there ready to nip visitors on the ankles. But I don’t know why a few of the park's staff couldn’t wield spades to skoffel off the offending growth. Instead, carelessly applied weed-killer has wiped out everything in sight, from the tiniest plant to large trees which – if left unpoisoned – could have lived for 200 to 300 years.
I get that it’s a good idea to clear the vegetation under the trees, so snakes can’t hide there ready to nip visitors on the ankles. But I don’t know why a few of the park's staff couldn’t wield spades to skoffel off the offending growth. Instead, carelessly applied weed-killer has wiped out everything in sight, from the tiniest plant to large trees which – if left unpoisoned – could have lived for 200 to 300 years.
The dead trees at the Kamqua picnic site
Here's what the picnic site used to look like in the 1990s, with welcome shade and white-browed sparrow weavers chattering in the camelthorns above you
It means you won’t want to linger at Kamqua. But don’t hightail it out of there before you take a look at the info board that tells the intriguing story of the lost city of the Kalahari.
The Lost City of the Kalahari
The legend about a vast city made from huge stones stacked on top of each other and then hidden away under the Kalahari sand has been knocking around for more than a century. Before you decide whether or not to believe it, you need to get to know the fellow who started the rumour.
He was one William Leonard Hunt, better known as The Great Farini – an explorer, inventor, writer, painter and spy, but best known for his tightrope performances at Niagara Falls in the 1860s. He was a fierce competitor and challenger of the more famous Blondin, and his exploits included crossing a high wire carrying a man on his back, or blindfolded, or with baskets on his feet, or doing somersaults along the way.
Definitely not an ordinary dude.
The Lost City of the Kalahari
The legend about a vast city made from huge stones stacked on top of each other and then hidden away under the Kalahari sand has been knocking around for more than a century. Before you decide whether or not to believe it, you need to get to know the fellow who started the rumour.
He was one William Leonard Hunt, better known as The Great Farini – an explorer, inventor, writer, painter and spy, but best known for his tightrope performances at Niagara Falls in the 1860s. He was a fierce competitor and challenger of the more famous Blondin, and his exploits included crossing a high wire carrying a man on his back, or blindfolded, or with baskets on his feet, or doing somersaults along the way.
Definitely not an ordinary dude.
William Leonard Hunt, aka the Great Farini
Tired of staring death in the face, he packed in his Niagra stunts in 1869 and carved out a career in Europe where he trained acrobats and invented the human cannonball. In 1885 he visited Africa in search of new excitement – and diamonds. In the book he wrote about the expedition he claimed he'd found a lost city in the Kalahari Desert. He was even invited to the Royal Geographic Society in London to talk about it.
So what exactly did he find?
He wrote of ‘an irregular pile of stones’ he thought had once been ‘a huge walled enclosure’ about a mile long. ‘In the middle was a kind of pavement of long, narrow, square blocks neatly fitted together, forming a Maltese cross, in the centre of which at one time must have stood an altar.’
The city was laid out in an arc and looked a bit like the Great Wall of China after an earthquake. Part of it was exposed and part had been covered by sand. Not one to be deterred by his lack of archaeological training, Farini reckoned the ruins were thousands of years old.
So what exactly did he find?
He wrote of ‘an irregular pile of stones’ he thought had once been ‘a huge walled enclosure’ about a mile long. ‘In the middle was a kind of pavement of long, narrow, square blocks neatly fitted together, forming a Maltese cross, in the centre of which at one time must have stood an altar.’
The city was laid out in an arc and looked a bit like the Great Wall of China after an earthquake. Part of it was exposed and part had been covered by sand. Not one to be deterred by his lack of archaeological training, Farini reckoned the ruins were thousands of years old.
As far as I can tell, Farini's visit to the Kalahari was in 1885, not 1895 as the info board states. His book about his journey, called 'Through the Kalahari Desert', was published in 1886
Since Farini’s big adventure, there have been about 30 expeditions to try to find the lost city, none of them successful. Then in 1964 Dr AJ Clement visited Rietfontein (to the southwest of Kamqua, on the Namibian border) where he saw an unusual rock formation known as Eggshell Hills. In places the rocks looked like a double wall built from large rocks. Clement thought that Farini may have confused the rocks with square building blocks.
A geologist who saw photos of the site suggested that the ‘ruins’ were simply weathered dolerite. Magma intrusions had forced their way in and formed cracks and splits as it cooled. This is what made it look as if the rock had been carefully cut and dressed, with pieces stacked up on top of each other.
Clement agreed that the rocks were all neatly squared and the lines were parallel and at right angles. But he felt sure that if this was what Farini had seen, he’d seen a natural formation, not a lost city. ‘There’s something rather sad about the destruction of a legend,’ he added.
A geologist who saw photos of the site suggested that the ‘ruins’ were simply weathered dolerite. Magma intrusions had forced their way in and formed cracks and splits as it cooled. This is what made it look as if the rock had been carefully cut and dressed, with pieces stacked up on top of each other.
Clement agreed that the rocks were all neatly squared and the lines were parallel and at right angles. But he felt sure that if this was what Farini had seen, he’d seen a natural formation, not a lost city. ‘There’s something rather sad about the destruction of a legend,’ he added.
The photo on the bottom right shows just how much the rocks near Rietfontein look like dressed stone
Of course, not everyone will be convinced. The swashbuckling appeal of searching for the lost city of the Kalahari is so great it’s doubtful we’ve seen the last expedition to find it.
So despite the skeletons of dead trees, the Kamqua picnic site still has something to offer – but only if you stop to take in this tale of a mysterious lost city.
More about the Kgalagadi
Copyright © Roxanne Reid - No words or photographs on this site may be used without written permission from roxannereid.co.za
So despite the skeletons of dead trees, the Kamqua picnic site still has something to offer – but only if you stop to take in this tale of a mysterious lost city.
More about the Kgalagadi
Copyright © Roxanne Reid - No words or photographs on this site may be used without written permission from roxannereid.co.za
