t.

And thus, trekking by night, and resting by day as much as the terrific
heat would allow, we worked our tedious way into the heart of the
desert; and now the magnitude of the task before me was becoming more
fully apparent every day. For, toil as our willing beasts would, it was
obvious that each long night's exhausting trek barely carried us ten
miles forward as the crow flies. The dunes were each day becoming
higher, till they were veritable mountains of sand, the patches of
t'samma became less and less frequent, and it was evident that at any
time they might fail altogether. All this time we saw no sign of human
life, not even a solitary spoor upon the tell-tale sand. Animal life,
however, there was in abundance, and we had no need to leave our path
to shoot as much game as we required.

At times, on cresting the brow of a dune, we would come close upon a
herd of gemsbok in the long "aar" beneath us; magnificent animals,
whose long, straight, saber-like horns are feared even by the lion.
Fearless of man, the whole troop would stand as one, gazing straight at
us, immovable as statues, until we were within a few yards of them;
then their leader, usually a magnificent bull, with horns of well on to
four feet, would give a toss of his head and a stamp of his foot, and
away the whole troop would fly; wheeling, trotting, halting and turning
to gaze at us again, in such perfect unison, that they reminded one
irresistibly of a well-drilled troop of cavalry.

Or a flock of ostriches would career across our path, their huge
strides covering the ground at an incredible pace; queer-looking
hartebeest were also plentiful, and duiker, steenbok, and smaller fry
abounded everywhere.

Of lions we saw but little, though their spoors were abundant, and
occasionally we heard them at night; the spoors of leopards were
everywhere but these wily animals are seldom seen unless hunted for and
often a pack of the dreaded wild hunting-dogs would stream across our
path in pursuit of its quarry.

For strangely enough all of these animals appear to be absolutely
independent of water, and some of them notably the gemsbok, apparently
never drink.

There came a day when we entered an entirely different region, though
still the sand stretched in all directions. But now the dunes were no
longer either uniform in height or parallel as they had been, but
tossed and tumbled in all directions in the utmost confusion; and here
also t'samma, and