Chap. XXXIII.] SOUTHERN AFRICA. 291 



moment, as if in mockery, a solitary quagga, magni- 

 lied ten thousand times by the treacherous mirage, 

 loomed like the white tilt of a waggon ; but my joy 

 at the supposed discovery was invariably followed by 

 the bitterest disappointment. Again a group of 

 pigmy Bushwomen, walking unnoticed among a herd 

 of bles-bucks, and seen through the same deceptive 

 medium, personated our followers with the cattle. 

 Alas ! these too fled at my approach, andjabbered 

 like baboons when I had overtaken them. Several 

 hours had thus passed in idle search. Spent by fa- 

 tigue and anxiety, my parched tongue rattling like 

 a board against the palate of my mouth, I wandered 

 on over flowery wastes, still lengthening as I ad- 

 vanced. Dry tanks, surrounded by a garden of pinks 

 and marigolds, served only to increase my sufferings, 

 but neither fount, nor pool, nor running stream, 

 greeted my straining gaze. At length the refraction 

 dissipating with the declining day, the three table- 

 topped mountains became again visible in the hori- 

 zon. With the consoling reflection that at all events 

 I was now advancing in the same direction as the 

 caravan, I hastened forward, and before dusk, found 

 myself not a little revived by a draught of the clear- 

 est water from a serpentine river flowing to the west- 

 ward ; the banks of which were trimmed with reeds 

 and dwarf willows, while portions of its sandy bed 

 were imprinted with the heavy foot-steps of a troop 

 of lions. 



The mind becomes even more readily habituated 

 to hardship and suffering than the body. Every 



02 



