64 SPORT AND TRAVEL PAPERS 



is to be obtained, and generally visit tbe same spot every day, 

 unless disturbed, until the supply of water fails. These pools 

 and small water-holes soon dry up, and animals have to seek 

 some other source, the whereabouts of which is known probably 

 only to themselves. Frequently, when passing the larger wells, 

 often 12 to 20 feet deep, a swarm of birds would flutter up, 

 startled from the depths below, where, seated on the lowest twig 

 of the branches supporting the walls, they had been drinking. 

 In the vicinity of villages, where the mud tanks near the wells are 

 daily used for watering the flocks, enough water remains in them 

 for all comers ; florican and guinea-fowl drink there at daybreak 

 before the flocks, small birds with them whenever an opportunity 

 offers, sand-grouse after them at dusk; and then come the 

 prowlers of the night, jackal, hyena, and lion. It is a comical 

 and common sight to watch, during the mid-day heat, a number 

 of thirsty crows, with their beaks wide open, sitting round these 

 tanks, anxiously awaiting their chance of a drink. When the 

 village shifts, however, these soon become dry, the wells sand up, 

 and then it seems to man a puzzle where the various animals 

 find the necessary water. When making a long march up the 

 sandy bed of a river some little time before, we followed the 

 recent deeply-trodden path of an elephant for two or three days. 

 He had always visited the wells along the road, and tried to 

 reach the water with his trunk, sometimes kneeling, sometimes 

 standing up, at some of the shallower wells no doubt success- 

 fully ; but at others the side of the well had given way under 

 the enormous weight, and Mr. Elephant, after a fall, had been 

 obliged to continue his tramp, thirsty, and no doubt in a bad 

 temper. 



But time was up, and a longish piece of road between us and 

 the camp, and antelope or gazelle had to be procured for food, so 

 the word was given to get the horses ready, and shortly after- 

 wards we were once more riding in single file through the thorny 

 mimosa bush, following at first a well-used gazelle path leading 

 towards the water. Giraffe tracks again were plentiful, but 

 nothing was to be seen of those wary animals. Some of the 

 larger mimosa bushes told a tale of elephants having passed 

 through here, probably during the late rains ; branches torn off, 

 some left hanging by a few fibres, others scattered about on the 

 ground, all dead. Crystal-like, almost transparent, masses of 



