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And so, Northwards, to Namibia! First though, to the Caledon Home Affairs office, to collect my new passport. There was one stamp in my old passport, an entrance to Lesotho at the Maputsoe bridge. That was my first crossing into a foreign country in search of Pierneef, many Octobers ago. So, indulge me dear reader while I tell you about this little excursion.

The Lesotho site has proved the most elusive of all the 28. There’ve been many “direct hits” and many other places where we sense we’re in the general ballpark. But Lesotho? I’ve driven all the way around the Western flank, more than once. Clearly, Pierneef gazed at the Maloti mountains from somewhere in the Eastern Free State. I bet on Ficksburg because Pierneef had spent some time there in 1922, doing mural paintings at the Hoerskool. I found a helpful bloke in the Ficksburg tourism office, and after much consideration, he decided this view was actually inside Lesotho. He took out a map and marked the route there for me: along the R25 towards Katse Dam, just past the village of Pitseng. That’s where I’d find it. So now the search had become transnational. On the other side of the border I bought a stout walking stick, beautifully beaded at one end. Good for klapping your enemies or to lean on when ascending the mountain slopes.

I drove windingly past scattered settlements, nestled against the slopes in a pleasing way. There’s a happy confluence of traditional and more modern-looking houses. Cars, livestock, poultry, and pedestrians all share the roadside and the whole thing seems to tick over at a leisurely egalitarian pace.

I went into a small supermarket and the teller, delighted to have a tourist, pointed out the grand figure of “our Father, Moshesh” on the banknotes. In the mid 1800s, Mosheshwe took a bunch of desperate, dissolute refugees and shaped them into the Basotho nation, while fighting off the likes of the Mantatees and the Boers from his mountain stronghold of Thaba Bosiu. He was one of the greatest Southern Africans.

I got to the village of Pitseng. Nothing remotely looking like Pierneef’s painting. I went on further towards the Katse dam, getting into the high country. It wasn’t right – I was supposed to be looking at the mountains from afar. I did a sketch and turned back, stopping for a quick little drawing of houses.

Unable to resist a dirt road, I took a detour. There wasn’t that much of the day left, and I knew that I wasn’t going to find the site.

On the barren road I met the children of Moshesh, brightly dressed against the khaki landscape. They were happy to strike a pose.

Later, getting back on the main road, I met a man carrying a small white wooden suitcase. He said, ” Are you perhaps interested in some of Lesotho’s finest?” Stupidly I thought he was referring to the hand -crafted suitcase, but when I looked inside, it was full of well-packaged dagga. A traveling salesman! I politely declined, but perhaps I few drags on the dagga cigarette would have helped put me in touch with the ancestors, who could have guided me to the Pierneef site? Ja Nee….