CHAP. I.] THE KUISIP RIVER. 17 



one point being altogether undistinguisliable when I 

 had moved to my next station. 



After proceeding half a mile we came to the bed 

 of the Kuisip, a river that only runs once in four or 

 five years, but, when it does, sweeps everything before 

 it. The bed was very broad, and hardly definable : 

 there were marks here and there Hke the bottom of 

 dried-up pools, where the ground has been made into a 

 paste and afterwards cracked by the drought. Bushes 

 (Dabby bushes I have alwaj's heard them called) not 

 unlike fennel, but from eight to twelve feet high, grew 

 plentifully; a prickly gom-d, the 'Nara, with long 

 runners, covered numerous sand-hillocks ; and lastly, 

 high shifting sand dunes, on either side, completed 

 the scene. We were so much out of condition, that 

 the depth of the sand and the heat of the sun (at 

 least, what we then thought was heat) gave us a 

 good tu'ing, and we were heartily glad when Sand 

 Fountain and its watering-place came in sight. 

 My imagination had pictured, from its name, a 

 bubbling streamlet ; but in reality it was a hole, six 

 inches across, of green stagnant water. It was per- 

 fectly execrable to taste, as many years had elapsed 

 since the Kuisip last ran, and the water which drains 

 from its damp sand to the hollow here, had become 

 almost putrid, and highly saline. However, it was 

 drinkable, and I was satisfied that with plenty of 

 digging enough could be obtained to water my mules. 

 Some years ago, when the trader lived here, the water 

 was copious and very good ; but all these sort of wells are 

 very uncertain, even more so than the flow of the river 



