116 IN BRIGHTEST AFRICA 
twelve hours is the white man’s limit. The guide 
assured us that if we would continue on an hour 
longer we would find water. After four hours of 
hard, hot marching we arrived at a hole in the ground 
where some time there had been water but not a drop 
remained. After a little digging at the bottom of the 
hole the natives declared there was no hope. Our 
trail for the last hour had been under a pitiless noon- 
day sun along a narrow valley shut in on either side 
by steep, rocky hills, while we faced a veritable sand 
storm, a strong, hot wind that drove the burning sand 
into our faces and hands. The dry well was the last: 
straw. 
The guides said there was one more hole about an 
hour away and they would go and see if there was 
water there. They with the gun-bearers started out, 
while we off-saddled the mules and using the saddles 
for pillows and the saddle blankets to protect our 
faces from the driving sand, dozed in the scant shade 
of a leafless thorn tree. 
At four o’clock the boys returned—no water. 
Dodson and I received the report, looked at one an- 
other, and returned to our pillows beneath the saddle 
blankets. A little later a continued prodding in the 
ribs from my gun-bearer brought me to attention 
again as he pointed out an approaching caravan con- 
sisting of several camels and a couple of natives. Each 
of the natives carried a well-filled goatskin from his 
shoulders, and realizing that these goatskins probably 
contained milk, I knew that our troubles were nearly 
over. I instructed the gun-bearer to make a bargain 
