THE SPOOR OF SPOORS. 299 



inveterate smoker, and my Hottentot companion 

 was the same ; to you, who know not the delights 

 of tobacco, I need not urge the pleasures to be 

 derived from its use. You that are smokers well 

 know how painful it is to deprive yourselves of even 

 the last whiff. But night told us we must be going, 

 or else we should sleep without the friendly shelter 

 of our wagons. Therefore westward we went, and 

 went and went, till the sun was almost down, and 

 the shadow of one tree ran into that of another, and 

 " birds that were not canny began to talk from nook 

 and cranny,' ; telling plainly that the draperies of 

 night would soon be over all things, when we came 

 upon a vley. 



A vley, my readers already know, means a pool 

 of water, and this pool of water was just such as the 

 most fastidious could have desired to make. Fancy 

 a long sheet of liquid standing in a wood, with grassy 

 slopes surrounding it for, at least, a hundred yards 

 from where the timber ceased, and its clear, pellucid 

 contents margined with a wide streak of fairest snow- 

 white sand. We approached it, we tasted its waters, 

 and I laved my head in it, it was such an unexpected 

 pleasure ; but when satisfied I turned round to see 



