376 
THE NEW AFRICA 
suspicious to the Boers, for it appeared as if he wished to split 
up the party from sinister motives of his own. A council of the 
leaders having come to this decision, the whole trek, over three 
hundred wagons strong, burst simultaneously into the desert 
with a rush that plainly meant: ‘ Heaven protect the hindmost! ’ 
They thrashed their oxen along, often eight waggons abreast, 
between the small trees growing in the sand-belts, in greak 
anxiety to reach the water pans in advance of each other. 
Naturally those in the van exhausted the supply of water at 
each pan as they reached it, and it had not a possible chance to 
collect again before the next party arrived. They, instead of 
returning to the place called Tlilaballa, on the back track, 
where there was a permanent supply of water, pushed forward, in 
the wake of the rest, until the oxen dropped exhausted or dead 
in the yokes. No one had a thought for the other, it was 
forward at every cost, and each one for himself. At Malatzwye 
things came to a climax. Water there was none; and the 
exhausted oxen were dying one by one, and could pull the 
wagons no further. There was hut one way to save. the 
lives of women and children, and that was to abandon the 
wagons and goods, and with light sleds, improvised out of 
the neighbouring trees, to force their way on ahead until water 
was reached, or they died. Mothers, with babies, expired of 
thirst, their dead children in' their arms, while the distracted 
fathers, when the last of the cattle had dropped dead in the 
yokes from thirst, hurried ahead with fevered throats, to seek 
water, hoping to return before the rest of the family had died. 
A panic set in, and there was no help or mercy for a fellow 
man in his distress. Those who had a little water in their casks 
hid the precious fluid from sight or knowledge of the others, to 
lave, in secret, the throats of their own infants, and the other 
poor unfortunates were left to die. With ruthless improvidence 
the leaders kept on ahead, emptying all the pans as they reached 
them, never passing or leaving one intact for the use of those in 
distress behind. They had got the lead, and by strengthening 
their cattle with the water at each point, they easily kept it 
