104 SOUTH AFRICA. 



supplies as could be carried and tramping all 

 through the sand on the course indicated by 

 compass as leading to the Botletle. Therefore, 

 taking with them a gun and some ammunition, 

 some water in a large can, some dried meat and 

 biscuits, with three bottles of champagne, which 



D had saved to drink with me when we should 



meet on the Botletle, the forlorn wanderers forged 

 ahead painfully for forty-eight hours, when, just 

 as all hope was lost, they crossed a thickly trodden 

 game path along which a rhinoceros had lately 

 passed. As the rhino is dependent on a daily 

 supply of water for life, the travellers now knew 

 that at least they would be saved from the awful 

 fate of dying from thirst, and, stepping along with 

 renewed energy, in a couple of hours a large deep 

 and glittering pool of water was reached, and 

 death was, for the time, cheated. Here elephants, 

 rhinos, and other game evidently came to quench 

 thirst, so that no danger of hunger was to be 



dreaded at all events, although poor D was 



about the worst shot with ball I ever saw, and 

 ammunition was, of course, scarce until they could 

 revisit the waggon and bring back the supplies. 

 After quenching his intense thirst, and bathing, 



