HOW WE FIND WATER. 
313 
of returning till I have got a goodly lot of teeth 
together. 
I am sorry now that I was induced to change my 
route, as Kleinboy told me Swartz lost twenty-four , 
oxen last year, after crossing the river Guia, by a 
small poisonous bush, with which all the country 
is covered, and which the oxen eat voraciously; 
but whether the rascal lies or not I cannot say. We 
have been bearing too much to the west the last few 
days to please me, but, immediately on crossing this 
vast pan, which I hope to do in two days, I shall hold 
north towards the country of Sekeletu. 
29 th. — Since writing up the journal last, we have 
been coming NW. and lately NE. We were at one 
time all but done for want of water. We had pressed 
into the service a Masara woman, to show us the 
water, necessity having no law; and, though she 
stepped out in good style before the wagons for 
hours and hours without intermission, she at last, at 
the end of the third day, acknowledged she was lost. 
She said she only recollected to have been at the 
fountain once before, and that was when she was a 
child. She was delighted with a present of beads 
and a handkerchief, and last not least in her estima¬ 
tion, as much dried meat as she could stagger 
under. In this emergency I saddled up to try and 
capture another. We are obliged to go about it very 
cautiously ; no shots fired, no whip cracking, for fear 
of alarming any chance straggler. When first 
sighted the men generally run, and the women hide 
