With Flashlight and Rifle ^ 



sultry ; the; burning heat, which the soil has absorbed 

 tluring th(; day. is undiminished — there is no dispersal 

 of it through the atmosphere. 



Ah ! there at last sounds a well-known voice from 

 the throat of a bird ; a little flying minstrel greets the 

 coming morn with soft twitterings. Darkness goes at 

 last, and at last (though still without an idea of the right 

 direction) we can move onward ! After hours of this, 

 after climb inij" trees to trv to get our bearinos, we at 

 last find a dried-up river-bed which leads to our camp. 

 Breathlessly we lollow its course upwards, and the first 

 little drop of water that we come to in the brook-bed 

 affords us at last the longed-for refreshment. 



To resume, the rhinoceros-track leads me now into an 

 entirely arid part of the desert, apparently devoid of any 

 of the higher forms of animal life, and takes me, hour by 

 hour, further from the camp. 



Sometimes the rhino has taken its toll from the 

 thorn-bushes Sa/vadoj-a pcrsica and the taparidal, and 

 has also rooted up some prickly aloes ; but apparently 

 it was already fully fed when it took itself into the 

 wilderness, and was chiefly occupied with the thought 

 of its safety. There are a dozen places on the way 

 where 1 might come across it — where the ranker plants- 

 grow in the torrent-bed, or in those oases where the 

 Venioiiia and " mpele-mpele " bushes grow ... it may 

 appear close before me, snorting, at any moment. 



The wind is still favourable ; I do not abandon the 

 pursuit ; a trail does not often last so well and yield so- 

 much possibility ! 



590 



