322 AFRICAN NATURE NOTES chap. 



overcome me, as well as my companions. When 

 at last I woke again, the fires had all gone out, and 

 I could see that the dawn was just breaking. The 

 oxen were gone. 'Wake, wake,' I cried to my 

 companions. * The oxen have got up and gone 

 away.' Then we took up their tracks, which led 

 us away to the north and had not followed on the 

 spoor of the Mangwatos' cattle. I remained with 

 the rest of the boys, following on the tracks of the 

 cattle until the sun stood there " — pointing to a part 

 of the heavens which the sun must have reached 

 at about lo a.m. — "and then I thought I must let 

 the white man, my master's friend, know what had 

 happened. Ki peto " (''that is all"). "And how 

 about the herd-boys, will they not all die of thirst ? " 

 I asked Dick ; for, as they had been walking in the 

 sun for the greater part of the preceding day, I 

 knew from experience that, if they had not yet 

 reached water, they were probably all dead by now ; 

 as, although a man may live for three or four days 

 without water during the winter season, no man 

 that is born of a woman can live much more than 

 two days, if walking hard all the time, when exposed 

 to the intense heat of the sun during the hottest 

 time of year in the deserts of Western Africa. "If 

 God wishes it," said Dick, " the sun has now killed 

 them all ; but I do not think they are dead. When 

 we all halted in the middle of the night, you 

 remember there was no wind ; but when I awoke 

 before dawn this morning there was a light wind 

 blowing from the north ; and our oxen, on getting 

 up from where they had been lying, instead of 

 following on the tracks of the other cattle, went 

 off in a bee-line dead against the wind. I think, 

 therefore, that they must have smelt water and 

 were making straight for it. The boys that I left 

 following them up on foot thought so too. They 

 were terribly thirsty w^hen I left them, but thought 



