chaf. viii. JOURNEY ACROSS THE KARROO, OR DESERT. 207 
was a sparse prickly sort of stunted bush, seldom a foot high, 
with several varieties of euphorbia and mesembryanthemum. 
We saw a few birds, but all besides was a blank and dreary 
waste. Ever since leaving the pool of water one of our horses 
had shown symptoms of disease, and about five o’clock our 
driver said he did not think it would live, and that if it died 
we should never get the waggon across the desert with the 
rest. In this predicament we halted for the night, and per¬ 
ceiving a tent and a couple of waggons at a short distance, 
belonging to some boers who are in the habit at certain 
seasons of the year of moving about the borders of the desert 
with large flocks of sheep, we were truly glad to find, on in¬ 
quiry, that they had a horse which they were willing to ex¬ 
change or sell. On this occasion we slept all night in our 
waggon in the open desert, and having obtained a fresh horse 
the next morning resumed our journey. In two or three 
hours, however, two other horses became ill, and as the driver 
said they could go no further we halted till the cool of the day. 
We had walked a great part of the distance to relieve our 
horses, every now and then passing, either on the road or near 
it, the whitening skeleton of some poor toil-worn beast which 
had there found its last resting-place. Towards evening we 
set off again, proceeding at a slow pace until about nine 
o’clock, when we gave our horses half the provender that re¬ 
mained, but looked in vain for water. At midnight we had 
thunder and lightning, and rain, but the tilt of our waggon 
kept us dry. Soon after daybreak we were again moving, 
and again in the course of a few hours our horses showed 
signs of fatigue. We therefore walked on a considerable way, 
and in about an hour and a half reached Braakfontayn, where 
we found water and provender. The horses, as soon as they 
were unharnessed, ran to the green grass growing by the side 
of the fountain, and began to eat most voraciously; they then 
turned to the water, but drank less than I expected; their 
next enjoyment was a good roll in the dust. They afterwards 
