of the sun
had somewhat abated before striking once more into the desert, due
east. Our horses were rested and refreshed, and we pushed on throughout
the night, till just before dawn we stumbled through a small patch of
t'samma, and immediately decided to give our horses the benefit of
them. Unfortunately, daylight showed the patch to be but a tiny one,
where an arbitrary shower had fallen at the right season, and it barely
sufficed for the day.

And so for days we pushed on incessantly, often going many miles out of
our course to visit one of the many pans we now came across frequently,
but failing in every case to find enough water to even replenish our
water-skin. T'samma we found occasionally, sufficient, at any rate, to
keep us and our animals alive, but barely; and the horrible anxiety of
constant fear of a death by thirst had began to tell upon me badly. Not
so Inyati, who, thirsty or satisfied, was always cheerful, always
optimistic that we should eventually find a way through to his country
of many diamonds and many wives! Many a weary trek that had landed us
waterless and still further involved in the vast wilderness of dunes,
had seen me sink despondent on the sand, caring but little whether I
ever tried to struggle farther; to be roused from my lethargy by the
cheery whimsicalities of this Micawber of the desert.

He would bring out the blue diamond and pretend to consult it as an
oracle, and it would always promise him wonderful things! Sometimes for
game was now scarce it would be a fat buck for breakfast; sometimes a
vast plain of t'samma, or a big pool of water; and his prophecies
always ended in unlimited diamonds and unlimited wives! And cheered by
this nonsense, I would shake off the fit of despondency, and struggle
on; though as time went on I often thought of Van der Decken, the
"Flying Dutchman," and his endless effort to weather the Cape of
Storms.

For our endless zigzagging in search of the wherewithal to live, though
it had brought us to the very heart of the vast desert, had taken us
far from the true direction of what we were in search of, nor could all
our efforts find us a way through.

The moon was with us now again, and we trekked at night, seldom riding,
but plodding doggedly through the endless succession of dunes, with the
spiritless horses strung out behind us. Their hooves were splayed to an
enormous size through this incessant trekking through the sand; yet,
though broken and e