DISCOVERT OF WATER. 
84 
After exhausting all his eloquence in fruitless attempts 
to persuade us to return, the under-chief, who headed the 
party ot Sokomi’s messengers, inquired, “ Who is taking 
them?” Looking round, ho exclaimed, with a faeo ex- 
pressive of the most unfeigned disgust, “ It is Ramotobi I” 
Our guide belonged to Sokomi’s tribe but had fled to 
Bechele ; as fugitives in this country are always well re- 
ceived, and may even afterward visit the tribe from which 
they had escaped, Ramotobi was in no danger, though doing 
that which he knew to bo directly opposed to the interests 
of his own chief and tribe. 
for sixty or seventy miles beyond Serotli, one clump of 
bushes and trees seemed exactly like another ; but, as wo 
walked together this morning, Ramotobi remarked, “ When 
we come to that hollow we shall light upon the highway 
ofSckomij and beyond that again lies the river Mokoko;’* 
which, though we passed along it, 1 could not perceive to 
be a river-bed at all. 
Alter 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 con- 
firmation 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 deop 
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 imbibo, that a sudden jerk, when 
they come out on the bank, makes somo of tho water run 
out again from their mouths; but, as they have been day® 
without food too, they very soon commence to graze, and 
of grass there is always abundance everywhere. This 
pool was called Mathuluana; and thankful wo wore to have 
obtained so welcome a supply of water. 
Alter giving tho cattle a reBt at this spot, wo proceeded 
down the dry bed of the river Mokoko. 
4 
