i882.] 
On the Way to the Zambesi. 
33 
them to return on Monday evening. The people, including 
myself, were suppHed with drinking water by the Masaroa, who 
sank long tubes, made of reeds, into the ground at the bottom 
of a pit dug in the sand. They sucked the water up through 
these tubes, as it very slowly accumulated, and spat it out into 
tortoise-shells which they handed to us. It was very frothy stuff, 
as you may imagine, but I enjoyed it more than any draught I 
ever took of Loch Katrine water. Long practice enables the 
Bushmen to suck up the water through the tube; I tried it 
myself, but could not succeed. 
The oxen and the donkeys did not return until Wednesday 
evening, having had to go two days' journey before they found 
water, and then only a little pan of surface water which they 
emptied. We found afterwards that, between that and the 
Mababi river (two days further on), there was not a drop to 
be had. The cattle could not have gone a day further, as they 
had already been six days without water — the longest time they 
have been known to live without it — so that but for that little 
pan of water, which was found almost unexpectedly, we should 
have lost both oxen and donkeys, and, as Tinka says, "very 
few of the people with us would have got through;" for when 
the oxen returned that evening, the Masaroa sucked out of the 
ground the last drop of water they could procure. 
As for myself, a very little more of that sort of fare would 
have, humanly speaking, been too much for me. I do not mean 
that I suffered seriously from thirst, but I got into a very reduced 
state. 
After giving the cattle a night's rest, we started early on 
Thursday morning for the Mababi, Tinka and the other huntsmen 
of the company riding on to find the nearest water, as we had 
only a very Hmited supply in the waggon. I had but a pint 
and a half for a four days' journey; nor had we any meat, no 
game having been killed in the desert. I had meal with me, 
but could not cook it for want of water, so my staple supply 
was a few dry peaches that I had brought from Shoshong. On 
Friday, July 21st, we were still a long way from the Mababi River. 
I had finished my supply of water the day before, and the natives 
declared that they were all dead. 
My conviction was that we should not suffer from thirst much 
D 
