242 ELEPHANTS VISIT US. [chap. vm. 



forty or fifty oxen, which can always be done ; and 

 thus becoming independent, should have amply enough 

 for a second excursion on a smaller scale. 



We now trekked steadily up the Omoramba, and 

 one day's work was like another's. There were wells 

 every two, three, or four hours, but deep ones, and 

 choked with sand, which we had on every occasion to 

 clear out, worldng for hours, and often half through 

 the night. The river-bed is sometimes a broad reach 

 of sand with high banks, sometimes imperceptible, 

 except to a very practised eye. Thorns of course 

 hem it in. 



The few incidents that occurred on our return 

 journey were these. One night we slept close to 

 water-holes: our encampment was anything but a 

 quiet one ; and the dogs barked all night, as they 

 ■ almost invariably did. We had watered the oxen out 

 of a heavy wooden trough that Damaras had made and 

 left at the wells, and this trough blocked up the path- 

 way down to the largest well. In the morning, to our 

 surprise, we found elephant spoors all about us : three 

 large ones and two calves. They had pushed the 

 trough to one side, and walked down to the well till 

 theu' trunks could reach the water, and had stamped 

 the sand in, and made a great mess of our handiwork. 

 Then they had walked close round us till their minds 

 were satisfied, and finally moved off straight away 

 across country. 



A very large springbok was shot, which we weighed 

 against a large and fat sheep that we killed. The first 

 was 120 pounds; the second, 112 pounds. Damara 



