242 THROUGH TUEKANA AND SUK 



base of the Doenye Erok, here fairly well covered with grass, 

 bushes, and trees, reaching in two hours and a half another 

 portion of the same stream we had left in the morning. There 

 was a little muddy water in a hole some nine feet deep here, 

 and we halted for a short rest. 



Hidden in the bush a little distance off was a kraal, but 

 only the smoke and the murmur of voices betrayed its presence 

 to us, for the natives did not come near iis. Herds of cattle 

 and donkeys grazing beneath the trees were a fresh proof that 

 the district was inhabited. The donkeys were finer than any 

 we had seen elsewhere, and though they were really quite 

 tame they behaved just like wild animals, dashing to and fro 

 and pausing every now and then to gaze back at us and snort 

 out their surprise at our appearance. They were well grown 

 and strongly built, their smooth grey fur gleamed like 

 silver, and they held themselves as proudly as thorough-bred 

 horses. 



A couple of hours' forced march across a dreary, almost 

 barren steppe brought us to a little wood fringing the channel 

 of a second dried-up stream. The heat was intense, and as 

 various signs proved this to be a native halting-place we rested 

 here for the hottest mid-day hours. We found a little water in 

 a shallow hole. The fact that the fairly dense vegetation on 

 the banks consisted entirely of fan-palms [Ilyphcena thehaica) 

 gave the bed of the stream a very unusual appearance. The 

 trees grew closely together, some of them rising from islets and 

 sandbanks in the channel itself, whilst here and there lay others 

 which had fallen in their old age or been uprooted by the force 

 of the stream, which twice in the year rushes violently along. 

 The ground was strewn with withered leaves, relieving but 

 little the monotony of the dreary, naked landscape. Few 

 of these trees had an}^ fruit, the result, the natives told us, 

 of the long drought, and as this fruit is generally a staple 



