50 EXPEDITION INTO [Chap. VIL 



for once taken the precaution of filling the casks, 

 and we were thus enabled to obtain breakfast al- 

 though we came to no water. About noon we also 

 halted for half an hour at a muddy pool, which the 

 cattle drained to the dregs, whilst a sheep was being 

 slaughtered to satisfy the cravings of our guest's 

 stomach, to the empty state of which he had repeat- 

 edly drawn our attention, altogether forgetting that 

 he had secured the lion's share of a spring-buck 

 that I had shot the preceding morning. 



During the early part of the day our road con- 

 tinued across a boundless ocean-like expanse, the 

 surface being broken only by ant-hills, or occasional 

 dwarf bushes, amongst which troops of ostriches 

 were grazing. Proceeding, we passed through 

 many extensive areas of waving grass, and the 

 country gradually became decorated with larger 

 shrubs, bearing a profusion of yellow flowers. 

 Occasionally, too, straggling clumps of mimosas, 

 from ten to fifteen feet in height, resting like islands 

 on the bosom of the sea of grass, afforded a pleasing 

 relief. The day was intolerably hot, dusty, and 

 disagreeable : we saw Motito indistinctly in the 

 distant glare some hours before we reached it. This 

 we did about sunset, having travelled altogether 

 twenty-two miles. We were immediately welcomed 

 by Mr. Lemue, the French Missionary, who, with 

 his agreeable wife, evinced, by great attention and 

 kindness to us, the gratification they experienced 

 from the arrival of two civilized strangers in the 

 desert, in which, from motives of the highest nature. 



