78 Notes on South African Hunting, 
The start on the too miles thirst. 
Our great object now was to get meat, and with 
that end in view I spoke and signed with an 
eloquence probably hitherto unrivalled. Eventu¬ 
ally, in exchange for a good blanket, we got a 
very small, very miserable goat, who seemed 
quite glad to die. 
Next morning, after some difficulty, we got 
the boys off, and started to do the hundred miles 
thirst. About five miles on we found a little 
water, but it was so strongly impregnated with 
sulphuretted hydrogen as to be almost undrink¬ 
able. At this place I began to figure as an 
amateur cobbler. It is perhaps, unnecessary 
to say that my riding boots had, by this time, 
turned my feet into two large blisters ; and 
amateur cobbling is quite useless where there 
is much fine sand to go through. The goat 
which I had got for the boys had, of course, 
done very little towards staying their hunger, and 
their feet also were nearly all cracked. We had 
besides, even at starting, great difficulty in 
preventing them drinking the water they carried. 
Coming, as they did, from the neighbourhood 
of the Zambesi, where water is abundant, it 
was impossible to make them believe that there 
