A TRACKLESS DESERT 183 



it is true, not more than a bare hundred miles 

 of desert to cross, but the only definite infor- 

 mation we had been able to gain as to the route 

 was to the effect that it led through a tract 

 practically waterless and extremely difficult to 

 traverse. Moreover, it was reported to be ab- 

 solutely uninhabited. One thing was quite 

 clear, — we should have to travel with oxen; 

 horses would have been useless under the con- 

 ditions as described. 



Andries arrived bringing — not the comfort- 

 able, tilted, spring-wagon, — but the strong, 

 heavy, tentless " buck " wagon, with a team of 

 sixteen picked oxen. He seemed uneasy as 

 to our prospects, for the coast desert had a bad 

 reputation and we were about to plunge into 

 a wilderness with the conditions of which he 

 was unfamiliar. The map was produced, but 

 Andries rather despises maps. This one 

 shewed little beyond " gaps " and " unhabit- 

 able downs." But it indicated, roughly, our 

 obvious route. We would travel alongside the 

 copper-trolley line as far as Anenous, which 

 lay at the foot of the mountain range and thus 

 on the inner margin of the coast desert, — which 

 is little, if at all, above the level of the sea. 

 From Anenous we had to trend to the north- 

 west, past Tarabies, Lekkersing and the north- 



