limited
knowledge of his language did not permit of my understanding. The
stones were plentiful, that he assured me of again and again, but they
were sacred, or tabooed, and no one was allowed to handle them but the
priests of whom he spoke.

He had always wanted to return, but had always Feared, but now with his
"little gun" I believe Inyati would cheerfully have faced a thousand
priests, or for the matter of that a thousand warriors. Danger there
would be, but what was that to him and his master?

He could find his way back, though the journey would be long and
difficult; and now was the only season in which it could be undertaken;
the season when the wild melon made it possible to traverse the
waterless wastes of the "Great Thirst Land."

I did not hesitate a moment, in fact no wink of sleep had I that night,
but lay tossing and turning, longing for daylight to come that I might
inspan and commence my long trek.

It came at last, my preparations for striking camp were soon made, and
sending off my crowd of Bushmen camp-followers with a small present of
tobacco, I turned my back to the sea and began my long journey to the
north-east.

Out of the long defiles and valleys we threaded our way into the open
country, past the huge flat-topped mountains of Ombokoro, the fastness
of the Berg Damaras, thence following the dry river-bed of the Om-
Mafako north-east to the confines of the Omaheke desert that great
north-western outlier of the true Kalahari not far, indeed, from this
very spot! So far the trek had been slow and tedious, but without
untoward incident. We were well armed, and those natives who did not
avoid us were only too eager to bring in food, or show us water in
return for our trade goods.

But, as the broken, bushy country gave way to the sand, water became
scarcer and scarcer, until it could only be obtained in small
quantities by digging deep in the bone-dry bed of the parched-up river.

At length it became evident that we could take the wagon and oxen no
farther; and so, at some Bushmen water-pits, at the every edge of the
desert, where "toa" grass and other fodder was still plentiful, I
decided to leave both vehicle and beasts in charge of my Hottentot and
Griqua followers, and attempt the desert journey on horseback, and
accompanied only by Inyati. Indeed there was no other course; for the
few "pans" that might contain water on the route we should have to
follow, were far between, and, as the s