120 DAYS AND NIGHTS BY THE DESERT. 



elevation till the water was reached gave no signs 

 of visits from any animal. No wonder, for the 

 hardest hoof could not have made impressions upon 

 it. My companion was far from an unpleasant 

 one under ordinary circumstances, but when he had 

 smoked a pipe or two of my tobacco, filled his capa- 

 cious nostrils with very pungent " Irish blackguard," 

 and imbibed a soupje of brandewein, he became 

 quite a jovial fellow. I regretted much, as I have 

 often done previously, that I did not understand 

 more of the language of these thorough sons of 

 Nimrod, for I am certain I should have been enriched 

 by some extraordinary stories of hunters' successes, 

 or marvellous escapes in rencontres with the car- 

 nivorce. I do not know that all experience an intui- 

 tive knowledge that certain persons are near them 

 before they have been seen. I feel convinced that 

 I often do. Suddenly a thought struck me. What 

 a time the waggons will have coming down the 

 staircase I have so lately descended ! When bump, 

 bump, bump, I distinctly heard echoed from the 

 hillsides, quickly followed by many an oath in broken 

 Dutch and Kaffir hurled at the head of the over- 

 abused voer-loper, in the easily recognized voice of 

 my Hottentot driver. 



There was work to be done before our heavy 

 loads reached the fountain, and, as natives are never 

 too careful when the eye of the baas is not upon 

 them, I went to take a general supervision of the 



