10 AFRICA AND ITS EXPLORATION. 
By next day I was quite well again, and felt no 
trace of my recent adventure. The pans were now 
fast drying up, and we passed some that contained 
nothing but mud ; by scooping a hole we managed to 
get a little liquid earth, to which we could add a little 
alum, in order to precipitate some of the suspended 
matter. This had the effect of throwing down a good 
deal of the mud, but did not by any means clear it, 
and at best it was more like clay soup than water. 
Even when “ clarified ” it looked for all the world like 
milk-and-water. “ You might imagine yourself in 
London,” said Lulu, “ with this genuine chalk-and- 
water — milk-ho ! ” — and he uttered an unearthly yell 
that would have done credit to any milk-purveyor’s 
assistant, as he handed in the essence of clay with 
which we were condemned to make our matutinal 
coffee. 
Not having served my apprenticeship among the 
Guamo Indians, and not being afflicted, like an Irish- 
man, with “ earth-hunger,” I confess I did not like 
coffee a la Kalahari, and could not take more than 
one cup at a meal. Lulu, however, thirsty soul that 
he was, managed to take more of it : he would even 
drink the water before it had been boiled. This I 
never would do, and, however thirsty I might be, 
always waited till some had been put on the fire, and 
left to cool. Kert called it “ lecher watter ” (delicious 
water) ; and as for the Bushmen, they would lie down 
on their stomach, with their face in the hole, and suck 
up the pure undiluted fluid extract of mother earth as 
easily as an English navvy in a vertical position will 
pour a pot of beer down his capacious throat. 
Whenever we were near water we filled every avail- 
able vessel with it, first boiling it in two large zinc 
pails ; but fortunately we should soon be practically 
independent of water, for the sama were now as large as 
eggs. 
The sandy wastes now began to be interspersed 
with patches of hard stony ground ; but all alike was 
green with various grasses and bushes — the latter always 
