e
I speak of, the Germans had done but little to open up the northern
part of their territory; and indeed even to the present day much of it
still remains unexplored.

It is a wild and beautiful country, for the greater part well-wooded,
and teeming with game; though towards the east it becomes drier and
sandier until there stretches before the traveler nothing but the
endless dunes of the unknown Kalahari desert.

Untraversed, unexplored, and mysterious, this land of "The Great
Thirst" had always held a great fascination for me; its outlying dunes
began but a few miles east of my camp, and from an isolated granite
kopje near their border I had often gazed across the apparently
limitless sea of sand: stretching as far as the eye could reach to
where the dancing shimmer of the mirage linked sand and sky on the far
horizon.

It was along the edge of these dunes that I one day followed a wounded
eland so far that dusk overtook me a long distance from my wagon. My
water-bottle was full, there was abundance of dry wood for a fire, and
I was just debating whether I would try and get back to the wagon, or
camp where I was, when my horse solved the question for me by shying
violently at something, and throwing me clean out of the saddle.

My head must have struck a stone, for I was stunned, and for a time I
knew no more.

When I came to myself it was dark, but a bright fire was burning near
me, a blanket covered me, and I was lying upon something soft.
Evidently some one was caring for me, and I concluded that my boys had
found me though I had given them strict instructions not to leave the
wagon.

"Jantje! Kambala!" I called, but there was no answer, and I tried to
rise. But my hurt had apparently been a severe one, for my head spun
round, the fire danced before my eyes, and I again lost consciousness.

When next I awoke the fire was still burning, and a figure was seated
beside it: a figure that the leaping flames rendered monstrous and
distorted. The back was towards me, but at the slight rustle I made
upon my bed of dry leaves in awakening, the figure turned in my
direction, and I caught a momentary glimpse of the face. Firelight
plays strange tricks sometimes, but the momentary flicker showed me a
countenance so grotesque that I must have made an involuntary movement
of surprise, for with a short laugh the unknown man rose and came
towards me, saying as he did so, "Don't be scared even the devil isn't
as black as