A Rip Van Winkle of the Kalahari | Page 9

of cavalry.
Or a flock of ostriches would career across our path, their huge strides covering the ground at an incredible pace; queer-looking hartebeest were also plentiful, and duiker, steenbok, and smaller fry abounded everywhere.
Of lions we saw but little, though their spoors were abundant, and occasionally we heard them at night; the spoors of leopards were everywhere but these wily animals are seldom seen unless hunted for and often a pack of the dreaded wild hunting-dogs would stream across our path in pursuit of its quarry.
For strangely enough all of these animals appear to be absolutely independent of water, and some of them notably the gemsbok, apparently never drink.
There came a day when we entered an entirely different region, though still the sand stretched in all directions. But now the dunes were no longer either uniform in height or parallel as they had been, but tossed and tumbled in all directions in the utmost confusion; and here also t'samma, and in fact all vegetation, ceased. We reached this region of awful desolation a little after sunrise one morning, coming upon it abruptly from the edge of a dune whose hollow held the usual vegetation in plenty.
With my field-glasses I scanned the bare and barren waste before us in all directions, but no sign of life or vegetation broke the monotony of its awful desolation. I looked at Inyati, peering from under his palm in the same direction, and he answered my unspoken question.
"Yes, master, we must cross it. It runs for many days' journey north and south, and we cannot go round. I crossed it when I came, but farther south; and I found a little t'samma then. And yet I nearly died!"
That day the heat was very great, and here there were no bushes to give us a particle of shade. A few stunted "gar-boomen" there were, and the horses ate eagerly of the long bunches of bean-like fruit hanging from them; but their thin, withered foliage was no protection against the terrific power of the sun. Then Inyati showed me a Bushman trick; for, burrowing in the side of the dune, he soon made a considerable hollow, and breaking down the brittle "gar" bushes he roofed it over, throwing a whole pile of other bushes on top till it was light-proof enough to at least break some of the sun's glare.
And into this we crawled, and stewed till evening brought us some little respite.
Meanwhile we had discussed our chances of getting across.
"Three days, at least, my master, it will take the horses; and if we find no t'samma they will die. It is drier than when I crossed. But if we go not east, but turn somewhat to the south, there is a pan. It is two days only but who knows if there is water there? Still, mayhap, that is the better path." That night we had to wait late before trekking, as the moon was waning, and in the hideous jumble of dunes before us, we feared to trust solely to the stars. We were glad to rest too, and let our horses rest and take their fill of the last t'samma they were likely to get.
I lay smoking in the dark, waiting for the moon to rise, and listening to the "crunch, crunch" of the horses still steadily feeding, when a low call from Inyati made me spring to my feet, He had climbed to the top of the highest dune, and at his second call I ploughed my way up through the loose sand till I stood beside him. He was pointing away to the south-east.
"A fire, master," he said; "there are men there; that must be our way, for there must there be t'samma, or water!"
Sure enough a tiny fire was flickering far away, and apparently on the far horizon, though it is almost impossible to judge of the distance of a fire by night.
At any rate, it certainly seemed better for us to try to make our way to it, and without waiting longer for the moon we saddled up and started our floundering way across the labyrinth of dunes in its direction.
All night long we followed the faint gleam, which faded and vanished as morning found us, well-nigh exhausted, in the midst of the wilderness of bare sand.
But, though I could see nothing, Inyati's keen eyes made out a thin wreath of smoke from a prominent dune still some distance away; and in spite of our fatigue we struggled on, till, with the sun glaring down full upon us, we stood on the flank of the huge slope of sand. Near its crest, a few dry and blackened stumps and withered bushes showed where a little vegetation had once existed, and from near them rose the smoke. There was, however, no