alive.

My heart leapt with joy at the news, for with the knowledge that water awaited us we could struggle on but the horses? Inyati shook his head as he examined them. "That one will die before morning," said he, "but maybe we can save the others, though they cannot carry us. We must eat, drink, and sleep, for the way is long and we are weak. And now, master, if all the tobacco is not there under the big dune with the other packs, I will smoke, for I have missed my tobacco sadly."

How he enjoyed himself, this lighthearted philosopher of the desert! Long steaks of tender gemsbok he cut and grilled on the wood ashes of the tiny fire, treating in a like manner the juicy udders after he had squeezed out most of the milk. The water he would not touch, but his appetite seemed unappeasable; steak after steak disappeared and still he carved and cooked, smoking between whiles, and singing some never- ending song of all the fine wives he would buy, and what he would do to certain priests, if he got his "little gun" safe to his own country. His cheery presence, and the reliance I placed in him cheered me enormously, and I realized that I, too, was hungry. And so we ate, and smoked, and slept, till nearly midnight; and then, keeping the Southern Cross low down on the horizon on our right, we once more entered the dunes.

The horse that Inyati had referred to was obviously dying, and a merciful bullet put an end to the poor brute's sufferings. The others trudged wearily after us, making but slow progress, but doing better than I had conceived possible of animals that had not eaten or drank for thirty-six hours. But morning found them dead beat; they stood stock still as the sun rose, and neither coaxing nor flogging could get the poor brutes a step farther. According to Inyati's reckoning we were still four hours from the water, and it was obvious that once we left them we could never hope to save them, for we could never bring back enough water to keep them alive.

"There is but one thing," said Inyati, as he slipped their loads off. "Water we cannot bring them, nor would it be in time, for once the sun is hot they will die. But stay here, and I will search for a certain thing. Nay, master," he continued, for I had made a gesture of dissent; "this time I go not far. But here I see rain has fallen of late, and though there is no t'samma, there may be another thing that will save the horses."

"Then I will seek it with you, Inyati," I said, for I was determined not to lose sight of him again.

"Better rest, master," he urged, "there will be no more sandstorms. And there is still far to go."

But go I would, and so we left the poor horses standing in a forlorn little group, gazing with sad lack-luster eyes at the masters who had brought them to such a plight. Inyati took with him a canvas bag that had been used as a saddlecloth, and I wondered what he hoped to find to fill it, for there was no vestige of vegetation to be seen, except some tiny seeds just sprouting here and there in the hollows between the dunes.

I could see no other evidence of the rain that Inyati spoke of, but soon, in a deeper depression than usual, we found signs that water had recently accumulated there, though the spot was now as dry as the surrounding dunes. But here Inyati, who had been keenly examining the ground, uttered a grunt of satisfaction, and pointed to a spot close to his feet. There was no trace of a plant, but a slight swelling, as it were, of the soil, which showed, too, some small cracks as though something was trying to burst its way to the surface.

"Cameel-brod," said he, and kneeling down he commenced scooping away the sand with his hands, and from a few inches below the surface he soon drew a whitish tuber the size of a large turnip. It was full of thin watery juice, acrid and sharp to the taste, but as I afterwards found, extremely acceptable to the horses.

Soon we had the bag nearly full, and cutting them up on our waterproof ground-sheet, we quickly had a quantity of watery pulp, at which the animals nuzzled greedily, and which revived them to a remarkable extent almost at once; so much so indeed, that we had very little difficulty in hurrying them forward again. The last drop of water had long since gone, and I was now consumed with thirst, and sick with misgiving as to what might be found at the pan Inyati had seen. Now we could see it, and, as yesterday, the flocks of partridges were all flying in that direction. How I envied them their wings, and how I grudged them the precious water they would be drinking! At length, footsore, weary, with eyes scorched by the blinding glare of the sun on the bare sand, and with lips cracked and tongues swollen with thirst, we staggered out of the dunes into a wide pan covered with bush and sprinkled with big trees huge cameel-doorn of thick verdant foliage, which gave the whole expanse a park-like appearance. They were full of gay-plumaged birds, butterflies were flitting everywhere, here and there were fine stretches of thick grass, in fact, after all we had suffered in the furnace of shade-less sand behind us, the place was a veritable paradise. And at length, where the trees were thickest, we espied tall green reeds growing thickly, and a few minutes later our fears were at an end, for here was water in plenty.

It was thick and muddy, and fouled by wild animals, whose spoors showed thick all around it; but to us it was absolute nectar, and it needed all Inyati's persuasion to prevent me from drinking to excess and probably dying on the spot.

We had to control the horses too, and let them drink but little at a time, or they too would probably have drank till they dropped dead in their tracks.

In this pleasant oasis we stayed for three days, resting, recuperating, and living on the fat of the land. Game there was in abundance, so much so, indeed, that they were a cause of anxiety, for the water in the vlei was decreasing rapidly from the number of animals that drank there nightly, and it was obvious that it would not last for very long unless rain fell. Signs were not wanting that the season had been exceptionally dry, for the vlei had at one time been of large extent, and now nothing but the one small pool remained. At it also drank myriads of partridges, the air being literally thick with the huge swarms of them that came in the early morning and again at night, so tame and fearless that they scarcely troubled to get out of our way, and we kept our pot going by simply knocking them over with a stick.

We soon explored the pan or oasis which was almost circular in shape and about a mile in diameter, and completely encircled by dunes; most of them as barren and forbidding as those we had already passed through, though to the south there was a certain amount of vegetation. This, however, was useless to us, as our way was east or north-east, and in this direction all Inyati's reconnoitering failed to discover anything but bare dunes, as far as the eye could reach.

Pleasant as the shade and greenery of the oasis was, it was evident that our stay could not be a lengthy one; moreover, lions were increasingly numerous, and for the first time in our trip began to cause us serious anxiety. So bold were they that fires had to be lit at nightfall and kept going all night; and their roars made sleep impossible.

The nights were now dark and moonless, and on the third of our stay the lions were exceptionally troublesome. We could see little beyond the light of the fires, but roars and growls came from all quarters, and there were evidences that a large herd of some kind of buck was passing through the oasis, and these the lions were attacking.

Inyati was nervous and uneasy, not, as he explained, on account of the lions, his "little gun" would see to them, but as to what was happening