72 Notes on South African Hunting, 
i 
Our victuals. 
birds as we went along; but birds are no more 
good to a hungry man in hard work, than 
chaff is to a race-horse in training. Of the 
cakes we allowed ourselves, at this time, one 
each per diem ; and they were about four inches,, 
by three, by three-quarters. These, with coffee,, 
constituted our whole food; and when I say 
that we had to get over some twenty to twenty- 
five miles a day of fearful sand, it may be 
imagined that we soon had most elegant waists.. 
Later we only got half a cake per diem. A few 
days later we dropped across a bushman light¬ 
ing veldt fires. At certain seasons of the year 
the natives light the dry grass for miles round, 
so as to burn it up and hasten the growth of 
the fresh grass. The bushman informed us he 
lived at a place not far off called Qualiba. In 
the course of an agreeable conversation, con¬ 
ducted mainly on the deaf and dumb principle, 
aided by facial contortion, we remarked that 
we had no meat, and that our boys were 
starving. He said that there were plenty of 
goats at Qualiba belonging to Khama. Now I 
knew the Khama would willingly have let us 
eat the whole flock if he thought we were 
