THE OKAVANGO RIVER 29 



gelding, Tommy, was swapped in part payment 

 for the team with the German trader from whom 

 the oxen were bought. Tommy was quite a nice- 

 looking horse and had done well enough the 

 principal work — riding ahead to find water in the 

 sand belt — for which I had bought him ; I thought, 

 however, he would be sure to die of horse sickness 

 if taken on with me through the wet season ahead, 

 whereas the trader who bought him wanted him 

 to ride back into civilisation straight away. This 

 left me alone with the one horse Billy, a good sort 

 of old grey, grade Arab : a terribly lazy old slug, 

 but with a wonderful constitution, and although 

 he met with a sad fate later on, he was such an 

 annoying old pig that I fear he never gained any 

 sympathy or became very popular. In fact, 

 Billy was voted u generally beastly M (the common 

 and final accusation of schoolboys when a more 

 specific charge is not available). A couple of 

 Ovambos, a somewhat unattractive-looking 

 couple, were procured at the crossing to accom- 

 pany us. 



That night we camped close to the wagon of 

 a German trader who had come up the river from 

 the Quito. He looked, poor fellow, very shaken 

 with fever, and mentioned that on the way up 

 his best ox had been seized and so badly bitten by 

 a lion that it eventually succumbed from the 

 mauling. This piece of news was decidedly 

 exciting. The next few days, happily spent in 

 travelling down the Okavango, were interesting if 



