70 Notes on South African Hunting, 
No food—More horses knock up. 
For meat we depended, of course; on what we 
could shoot as we went along; and we generally 
managed to get a pheasant or a partridge—not 
much, perhaps, between two men who had 
walked all day on two cups of coffee and a 
square inch of meal bread, but still something. 
Besides, we hoped to get some big game when 
we got on to the open flats around the Nata. 
Our chances in this latter direction were, how¬ 
ever, materially reduced by my horse being so 
knocked up as to make it imperative to leave 
him at this water—the next water being forty- 
five miles on. So on July 12 we started to do 
the remainder of the journey on foot. Ayton, 
lucky man, wore boots and gaiters ; but I had 
only a pair of old riding boots, which made 
walking very hard work. Our saddles and 
bridles we threw into a thicket, where they 
probably became an unfailing livelihood to suc¬ 
cessive generations of white ants. Two days 
later we arrived at the place where we had left 
the wagons. Just as we got there we met a 
native and a bushman out hunting. We tried 
to get food of them, but they lied in the cheer¬ 
ful way all natives do, and said they had none. 
