CHAP. XIX SCARCITY OF WATER 313 



Tinkarn and his people had five waggons with 

 them and we white men four, two of which belonged 

 to me, one to Mr. H. C. Collison, and one to a 

 mutual friend, who had lost himself and died of 

 thirst, poor fellow, some few months previously in 

 the dreary wastes which lie between the Chobi and 

 the Zambesi rivers. 



I had with me two young Cape colonists, Messrs. 

 Miller and Sell, so that we were four white men 

 together. Having full spans of sixteen oxen for 

 each waggon, as well as some spare animals, we had 

 some 150 bullocks with us altogether, as well as 

 eight or ten shooting horses. 



South of Tlakani there was no permanent water 

 nearer than the wells of Klabala ; the deep pit of 

 Inkowani having ceased to hold water since the 

 emigrant Boers had deepened it during their 

 memorable but disastrous journey through these 

 same deserts in the winter of 1878. 



In this country of railways, the distance between 

 Tlakani and Klabala — not much over one hundred 

 miles probably — may seem very small, but as the 

 track between the two places lies through a level 

 expanse of soft desert sand through which a heavy 

 South African bullock waggon can only be dragged 

 at an average rate of from a mile and a half to two 

 miles an hour, it meant four days and four nights at 

 least of constant travel to get through it. Tinkarn, 

 however, had learned from the Bushmen that good 

 rains had fallen not long before between Inkowani 

 and Klabala, and felt sure that our live stock would 

 get a drink at the pools of Mahakabi, in which we 

 had found a good supply of water in the previous 

 April. 



As it would be a terrible pull to get our waggons 

 through even as far as these pools, we gave our 

 cattle a three days' rest at Tlakani, where the wells 

 were luckily full, before starting southwards again. 



