56 TSOBIS. [chap. n. 



We now emerged from the deep gorges and high cliffs 

 that for so long a time had shut us in, and could 

 breathe more freely in the open country that lay about 

 us. We had left the arid Naanip plain behind, and 

 were arrived to where thorn-bushes and scanty grass 

 overspread the sandy country. Fantastically peaked 

 rocks rose on every side, and huge masses of moun- 

 tains, that indicated the course of the Swakop, made a 

 grand succession of distances ; but there was a want, 

 even painfuUy felt, of life in the landscape. The grass 

 was withered, the bushes stunted and sear. No birds 

 could be seen or heard ; and every feature looked still 

 and dead, under that most saddening of lights, a 

 blazing sun in an unclouded sky. 



September 28th. — We rested a day, to have a really 

 good breakfast and dinner. I have read in some old- 

 fashioned books of fiction, entitled " Natural History," 

 that an ostrich egg would feed six men ; but I know 

 that Stewartson, Andersson, and myself, finished one 

 very easily for breakfast, before beginning upon the 

 giraffe. I confess, however, that we enjoyed the 

 blessing of a good appetite. 



My mules had become sadly distressed : one was 

 very iU ; he had nearly been drowned when landed at 

 Walfisch Bay, and never recovered the accident; he 

 was therefore seldom harnessed, but was driven along 

 with any other mule that I might be anxious to spare. 

 I tried harnessing my horse once, but his pace and 

 step were so different to those of his comrades, that 

 the work was too much for him. 



We were now only two days' journey from tlie 



