314 AFRICAN NATURE NOTES chap. 



I must here say that in the winter season, when 

 the nights are long and cold, and the sun not 

 intensely hot during the daytime, a picked span of 

 bullocks in good hard condition will sometimes 

 manage to pull a waggon along for four days and 

 four nights without drinking, but in very hot 

 weather no bullocks that 1 have ever seen can work 

 for more than half this time pulling heavy waggons 

 in deep sand and without water. 



Christmas time is about the hottest season of the 

 year in South Africa, unless heavy rains happen to 

 be falling, and at the time of which I am writing 

 the heat was simply terrific. The country around 

 us was an absolutely dead level in all directions, 

 everywhere clothed with a sparse covering of low 

 thorny bushes, whose little grey-green leaves and 

 hard black twigs, over which little hook-shaped 

 thorns are profusely scattered, afforded but little 

 protection from the cruel sun. Early in the day 

 the sand became so hot that it was quite impossible 

 to keep the palm of one's hand upon it for more 

 than a few seconds at a time, nor was it possible to 

 hold one's hand on any piece of iron exposed to the 

 sun's rays. The sand itself was so deep and soft, 

 that our heavy bullock waggons sank in it to a depth 

 of several inches, over the felloes of the wheels, in 

 fact ; and as our long caravan moved slowly and 

 painfully forwards, both bullocks and waggons were 

 almost hidden from sight in a thick cloud of fine 

 dust which rose from the trampled ground into the 

 still hot air. When the sun set the relief was 

 immense, but still the heat thrown up from the 

 scorched sand was very great, and it was only for 

 one short hour between dawn and sunrise that the 

 temperature became pleasantly cool. 



It was about four o'clock on the afternoon of 

 December 23 that we finally left Tlakani, after 

 having carefully filled our water-casks and given 



