A similar fate happened to Dick Mansel, in 1894, when he was returning late from hunting and lost his way in the darkness. After four days of unsuccessfully searching an Ovambo man reported having found a man, almost dead of thirst. This was Dick. He had cut open a vein, dipped a thorn into his blood and written on to his shirt: “Dick Mansel, died of thirst, 26 October 94”.
He had gotten away from the sandy grave in the Namib Desert, once again. Nobody knows how many have not managed to do so.
It is not known whether Thieme went on with his hazardous job of searching for water for Lüderitz. The permanently poor supply of drinking water was a huge problem for the town in the desert. To begin with, thousands of tons of drinking water were shipped from Cape Town to Lüderitz bay, where it was sold to the residents. One cubic metre cost up to 40 Marks. Then, salt water condensers were installed and drilling for well water yielded good results. From Garub, 100 kilometres away, where Thieme had almost died; water was fetched from 65 metres below the surface and transported by train to the diamond hill. In 1914, a litre of water cost 14 Pfennig, the same amount of beer cost only 10 Pfennig. Mine labourers and their families received a free allowance of 20 litres per head. Thus, a family of three had 60 litres of fresh water available, which is a luxury in the desert. In 1920, a litre of condensed water cost 8 Pfennig and in 1930, 10 Pfennig. Today, Lüderitz and Kolmanskop draw water from the Koichab. Geomorphologic age determination considers this enormous water reservoir to be a remainder of the last big rainy season 10.000 years ago. These fossil water reserves have been tapped for Lüderitz since 1969; their level has not receded yet. The five bore holes extend 200 metres deep, at a distance of 90 kilometres from Lüderitz. A chemical analysis determined the age of this enormous underground lake at just 7.000 years.
We have to bid farewell to Kolmanskop, a place steeped in history, energetically wrestled from the desert which now, quietly but steadily, claims it back. Once the 20.000 tourists a year have stopped coming here, the sand will cover it all. The exploration of the Namib Desert goes on. In the museum hangs an old tattered map of Southern Africa from that time. The sandy areas of the Namib Desert are marked a light yellow. These yellow expanses extend up to Portuguese West Africa, the modern Angola, and the town of Namibe, back then known as Moçâmedes. That’s where we want to go.
Lüderitz, an Artificial Oasis
Shark Island Camping is exposed on a rock needle. Hardly any guests are around. Can this be the reason for the dilapidated state of the ablution blocks? All sites offer a sweeping view, correspondingly windswept, however. Below, to the right, next to the water, we find a site, more or less sheltered from the wind. There are only a few ships in the harbour; not much is going on in the bay. The oyster industry has to cope with huge problems. Seafresh Investments is the company affected the most severely. It is producing up to 500.000 oysters a month. In an area of 1.250 hectares they put up an aqua park for rearing oysters. What began promisingly, in 2009, repeatedly fell prey to the algal bloom. Weather conditions and currents led to a surge in marine nutrients, which, in turn, facilitated the growth in algae. When algae die, dead matter is broken down by bacteria. This process draws oxygen from the water, vital to the oysters as well as to all other marine life.
In 1488, the Portuguese seafarer, Bartolomeu Dias, was looking for safe anchorage here and erected the national emblem of his country on a peninsula in Lüderitz Bay / Angra Pequena, which means “small bay”. The next visitors from the sea did arrive but only two hundred years later. Ships from the Dutch East India Company, in 1670, were exploring the waters north of the Cape. In 1786, a British sloop dropped anchor in Lüderitz Bay and soon the struggle began for this far-off part of Africa. Before anyone had thought of diamonds, the “White Gold” was discovered, guano, at that time an extraordinary fertiliser made from bird droppings, on the isles outside the Angra Pequena. This triggered a first assault by fortune seekers and the isles were freed of their “white gold”. At this time, Adolf Lüderitz, born in Bremen in 1834, was still a boy, with no idea that, on 10 April 1883, he would lay the foundation for the German colonial adventure in Namibia.
On this significant date, 10 April 1883, the two-mast barque Tilly entered Angra Pequena, carrying Heinrich Vogelsang. The said Vogelsang, in the name of Adolf Lüderitz, had acquired the bay and the adjacent five miles of land for 100 Pound Sterling and 200 rifles. An additional treaty followed with the representative of the Nama, Captain Hendrik Witbooi. Hence, the strip of land extending twenty miles parallel to the coast belonged to Mr Lüderitz, beginning at the northern bank of the Orange River and stretching up to the 26th latitude.
Lüderitz first arrived at his property in October 1883 to get properly started. His activities on his lawfully acquired land were subject to permanent threats, so he approached the Chancellor of the Reich, Bismarck. He sent a note to the consul in Cape Town with far-reaching consequences. The territory acquired by Lüderitz came under the protection of the German Reich. Already in August 1884, the men-of-war SMS Leipzig and SMS Elisabeth arrived in German South-West Africa, shortly thereafter followed by the gunboat SMS Wolf. Lüderitz was fully aware of his possibilities. He went on expeditions, researched, drilled and discovered all sorts of things, but no diamonds. His tireless activities cost the pioneer a lot of money and, already in 1885, he was worried about his finances. A research trip led him via Bethanie to Nabasdrif. Here, the boats were launched and the travellers followed the Orange River downstream to its mouth. They had to master a total of 50 rapids on the way to the Atlantic Ocean. Unfortunately, in 1886, the pioneer Lüderitz did not return from this expedition. While their companions returned by land, Lüderitz and his Bremen-born tiller man, Steingröver, steered a boat into the rough Atlantic Ocean. They were last seen alive on 22 October 1886, then, their tracks were lost. The vessel might have been too ill-equipped to safely return the travellers across the rough seas from the Orange River Mouth to Angra Pequena. Lüderitz had had all the opportunities. He dared, but the diamonds were to slumber on for a while yet. The German Colonial Society honoured him by renaming Angra Pequena Lüderitzbucht.
What was the settlement of Lüderitz like before the diamond rush? How to imagine life in this little oasis in the desert during the time that it was broken in by the Germans? The place was busy and changing. The basis for its revival was its population, first of all the resident German Schutztruppe forces. Lüderitz was living off the goods that were landed and it grew into a small German outpost. This wasn’t easy, though; Lüderitz was sheltered in a capsule. On the one side the angry endless sea was raging; on the other side stretched the barren expanses of the Namib Desert. It was conquered in spite of heat, sand and wind and humans invaded the interior. This led to existential fear among the local Herero and Nama peoples and conflicts broke out. In 1904, the uprising of the Herero and the Nama started, which was suppressed under the leadership of lieutenant-general Lothar von Trotha and turned into genocide.
Meanwhile, in 1905, they had begun laying railroad tracks to Aus. This construction work again attracted lots of people to Lüderitz. Soon, however, the funds were running short for financing the railroad and the Schutztruppe forces. On 13 December, 1906, this led to a dissent in the German Reichstag and the Emperor William II dissolved the Reichstag. But already, on 12 March, 1907, the new Reichstag had allocated the required funds to the young colony.
When, in 1907, it became clear that talk of relocations back home had not been just conjecture and the withdrawal of the forces actually began, many a venture was put on hold.
The Damocles sword of decline was hanging above Lüderitz. But, luckily, the above-mentioned Stauch and his resourceful and trustful assistant, Lewala, in 1908 had found the first diamond. Not only the foundation for Kolmanskop lay in Stauch’s hand; he also opened up the diamond areas south of Lüderitz, in the Namib Desert, the present Sperrgebiet I Diamond area.
Diamond