252 AFRICAN NATURE NOTES CHAP. 



to Mr. Wissels's store, the weather looked very un- 

 settled ; but on the following morning all signs of rain 

 had cleared off, and the sun rose red and fiery in a 

 cloudless sky. I got away early, and on the even- 

 ing of the third day slept within sight of the lights 

 amongst the shipping in Delagoa Bay. During those 

 three days the heat had been intense, and in those 

 eighty miles I never put my foot on a piece of firm 

 ground, but plodded painfully through deep white 

 sand, like the soft sand of the sea-shore. Indeed, 

 all this fiat country to the south of Delagoa Bay 

 must once have been at the bottom of the sea from 

 which it has been upheaved probably at no very 

 distant time, geologically speaking, as I noticed 

 that the patches of sandy soil which were under 

 cultivation were full of oyster and other sea-shells. 

 Water seemed to be everywhere close below the 

 surface, but was not good having an unhealthy, 

 slimy taste, and making bad tea. Indeed, except 

 in the actual stream of the Usutu river, I never 

 tasted anything but swamp water during this trip. 

 As I tramped along mile after mile in the deep sand 

 and beneath the blazing sun, I could not but think 

 regretfully of my elephant- hunting days of over 

 twenty years before, when I used to do the same 

 sort of work day after day and month after month 

 without feeling it, and got up every morning with- 

 out an ache or pain, fresh and ready for the next 

 day's work. But one cannot last for ever ; and on 

 this long weary tramp there', were moments when I 

 would have given a good deal for a horse, or even 

 a donkey, and on the first clay's walk the sun gave 

 me a bad headache. 



On the evening of the first and the morning of 

 the second clay we passed through some quite un- 

 inhabited country, and here I shot two duiker ante- 

 lopes and a steinbuck. I also saw some quite fresh 

 elephant spoor, and just caught a glimpse of a little 



