CHAP. IX.] • EEACH 'TOUNOBIS. 271 



recovered the Ondonga journey : we drove tliem as 

 far as we could, but it was no use, and as we of course 

 could not wait in the middle of the plain without 

 water, we had to leave the poor creatures to their fate. 



This day we managed eleven hours' actual travelling, 

 and could have easily pushed on again at midnight, 

 but the Bushmen begged us not, as we were coming 

 to where the rhinoceroses were very numerous, and 

 assured us that if we started in the morning we should 

 arrive at 'Tounobis before the heat of the day. This 

 we did ; we passed along a labyrinth of wild beasts' 

 paths, put up one rhinoceros, and, after four hours, 

 a valley in front where smoke rose among the trees 

 announced that we had arrived at 'Tounobis. We 

 hurried to the water to look for spoors, and now we 

 were, without any doubt, in a game-country. The 

 river-bed was trodden Hke the ground in a cattle fair 

 by animals of all descriptions. The water lay in 

 pools among rocks, and there were evident marks of 

 where the water had stood at the preceding evening, 

 and the depth to wliich it had been drunk out by the 

 animals during the night ; by the sides of these holes 

 were the circular walls of loose stones, two or three 

 feet high, that the Kubabees Hottentots had built up 

 as screens, from behind which to shoot. 



A little way off were crowds of Bushmen ; we went 

 to them, and found them clustered round one of a 

 series of deep uncovered wells, about twelve feet across 

 and eight or ten deep, and very close together, into 

 which an elephant had been pushed the preceding 

 night by his comrades, as they had scrambled in 



