Lost Treasure

For years, my family on the Suurveld told me that the valley held a secret – but only a few would ever see it. Finally, they offered to show me. A young man and a girl led the way. “You are going to see treasure!” said the young man. I crawled through branches (pictured, top). We would see a magical, colourful ponorama, he said, painted by the Khoikhoi (an ancestral line of my wife – see a recent post). But when we got there (bottom) – one sees the distress on the girl’s face – people had hacked the colourful artwork off the face of the cave. How could this be? Who had discovered the secret? They ran from the cave and cried: “Dit is weg! Dit is weg!” (“It is gone!”). OBSERVATION: But there was one small consolation, which I leave to a future post. You may click on the photos to enlarge.