Notes on South African Hunting. 79 
The start on the 100 miles thirst. 
could be a stretch of four and a half days’ hard 
walking without water ; we told them again and 
again—natives told them, everyone they saw, 
in fact, told them the same thing; but they 
only laughed pleasantly and said it was not 
possible. Moreover, being, as I have said, both 
hungry and footsore, they would not walk a 
respectable pace, but doddled along, turning 
out every now and then to pick berries. And 
the invariable difficulty with boys ”—to get 
them to start early, when it is cool—also caused 
a serious delay. The consequence was, that 
by the end of the second day’s walking we had 
only done about twenty-five miles, our water 
was half done, we had next to no food, and, 
worst of all, the boys complained of their loads. 
Nowthey were all carryingreally very light loads, 
so, as there still remained seventy to eighty 
miles of awful sand to do, things looked bad. 
It is not often that one’s heart is softened by 
the complaints of a nigger in ordinary life, 
because the more you give him of anything— 
except walking stick—the more he wants. But 
I really was sorry for these boys. They had 
practically nothing to eat since July 7, except 
