CHAPTER XIII 



KAMIEBIES — THE BLOSSOMING WILDERNESS — THE OSTRICH 

 POACHERS— HAIL STORMS — THE SPRINGBUCK BEHIND 

 THE DUNE— HOW ANDRIES FOUND ME. 



ELIABLE information reached me to 

 the effect that the Half-Breed ostrich- 

 . poachers had again been at their ne- 

 farious work. So we decided, Andries and I, 

 to make a swoop upon the camp which these 

 people had established in southern Bushman- 

 land. This camp was in the vicinity of some 

 wells, the water of which was brackish to such 

 an extent that only men or animals who had 

 gradually accustomed themselves to its flavour 

 and properties, could consume it. Thus the 

 gang of poachers had for a long time been 

 able to defy us. After rain, however, the water 

 grew somewhat less brackish. On the rare 

 occasions when rain fell heavily, the propor- 

 tion of brack decreased so much that the water 

 became, for a few weeks, more or less fit for 

 ordinary consumption. 



The reason was a phenomenal one ; the rains 

 had set in a month before their usual time 



in 



