CATXI.E REVEL IN WATER. 5 I 



the operation of slaughtering, skinning, and cutting up the 

 antelope ; and then, after a hard day's toil, found himself 

 close upon the waggons ! The knowledge still retained 

 by Ramotobi of the trackless waste of scrub, through 

 which we were now passing, seemed admirable. For 

 sixty or seventy miles beyond Serotli, one clump of bushes 

 and trees seemed exactly like another ; but, as we walked 

 together this morning, he remarked, " When we come to 

 that hollow we shall light upon the highway of Sekomi ; 

 and beyond that again lies the river Mokoko ; " which,, 

 though we passed along it, I could not perceive to be a 

 river-bed at all. 



After breakfast some of the men, who had gone forward 

 on a little path with some footprints of water -loving 

 animals upon it, returned with the joyful tidings of 

 " metse," water, exhibiting the mud on their knees in 

 confirmation of the news being true. It does one's heart 

 good to see the thirsty oxen rush into a pool of delicious 

 rain-water, as this was. In they dash until the water 

 is deep enough to be nearly level with their throat, and 

 then they stand drawing slowly in the long refreshing 

 mouthfuls, until their formerly collapsed sides distend 

 as if they would burst. So much do they imbibe, that 

 a sudden jerk, when they come out on the bank, makes 

 some of the water run out again from their mouths ; but 

 as they have been days without food too, they very soon 

 commence to graze, and of grass there is always abundance 

 everywhere. This pool was called Mathuluam ; and thank- 

 ful we were to have obtained so welcome a supply of water. 



After giving the cattle a rest at this spot, we proceeded 

 down the dry bed of the river Mokoko. The name refers 

 to the water-bearing stratum before alluded to ; and in 

 this ancient bed it bears enough of water to admit of 

 permanent wells in several parts of it. We had now the 

 assurance from Ramotobi that we should suffer no more 

 from thirst. Twice we found rain-water in the Mokoko 

 before we reached Mokokonyani, where the water, gener- 

 ally below ground elsewhere, comes to the surface in a bed 

 of tufa. The adjacent country is all covered with low 

 thorny scrub, with grass, and here and there clumps of the 

 " wait-a-bit thorn," or Acacia detinens. At LVotlakani 

 (a little reed), another spring three miles further down, 

 we met with the first Palmyra trees which we had seen 

 in South Africa ; they were twenty-six in number. 



