88 THE AUTHOR IN DANGER OF A SECOND SUN-STROKE. 



lingering death at a distance. From experience, indeed, I 

 should say that a similar fate awaits a large portion of birds 

 and animals that escape us after being badly wounded. 



Under ordinary circumstances, I would certainly have con- 

 tinued the pursuit ; but this was now impossible. We could 

 not reach our encampment under many hours, and we suffer- 

 ed painfully from thirst; while, owing to severe and con- 

 tinued exertions under a burning sun, I was attacked by 

 torturing headache. Long before we could reach the wagons, 

 I experienced precisely the same feelings as when I received 

 a sun-stroke. Knowing that a renewal of the same infliction 

 would in all probability prove fatal, I still toiled on ; yet, at 

 last, the faintness and exhaustion became so overpowering, 

 that, regardless of danger, I threw myself on a small flat rock, 

 so heated by the sun that I was unable to hold my hand 

 on it for a moment, and even the limbs protected by my 

 dress were almost blistered. I then urged Hans to proceed 

 as quickly as possible, in order that, if be found I did not 

 immediately follow, he might send me some water. 



Hans had not long been gone, however, when the rock be- 

 came so intolerably hot that, stupefied as I was, I found it 

 necessary to rise from it ; when, with a faltering step, and in 

 a state of almost total unconsciousness, I made for the wag- 

 ons, which I reached in safety just as Hans was about to 

 dispatch a man to me with an ample supply of water. My 

 apprehensions, however, had been vain. A few hours' rest 

 and quiet gradually restored me. 



The oppressive heat under which I had suffered so severe- 

 ly had also made the cattle very thirsty, and they refused to 

 eat the dry and sun-burnt grass. As soon, therefore, as the 

 air became a little cooler, we pushed on to Onanis, where we 

 arrived somewhat late in the evening. Notwithstanding the 

 darkness, and the risk of being attacked by lions, which some- 

 times swarm here, we were obliged to supply our cattle with 

 water ; and, as we had to dig for it in the bed of a small pe- 



