238 
TRAVELS IN AFRICA. Chap. XXVII. 
poor beast sufficient time to fill his stomach. Having 
then marched on through an open country, where 
large trees cease altogether, only detached clusters 
of bushes appearing here and there, and where we 
saw a large herd of ostriches and a troop of ga- 
zelles, we halted a little before noon in the scanty 
shade of a small Balanites. 
About two o'clock in the afternoon, after man 
and beast had enjoyed a little repose and food, we 
prepared to continue our march ; and my horse 
was already saddled, my berniis hanging over the 
saddle, when I perceived that my two youngsters 
could not manage our swift and capricious she- 
camel, and that, having escaped from their hands, 
although her forelegs were tied together, she baffled 
all their efforts to catch her again. Confiding, 
therefore, in the staid and obedient disposition 
of my horse, I ran to assist them, and we at 
length succeeded in catching the camel ; but when I 
returned to the place where I had left my horse, it 
was gone, and it was with some difficulty that we 
found its tracks, showing that it had returned in the 
direction whence we had come. It had strayed nearly 
as far as the well of U'ra, when it was most fortu- 
nately stopped by some musketeers marching to 
Kiikawa, who met my boy, when he had already 
gone halfway in pursuit of it. 
In consequence of this contretemps, it was five 
o'clock when we again set out on our march ; and 
in order to retrieve the lost time, I kept steadily 
