to the south, but no landmark as yet appeared
in sight--nothing to indicate the presence of water. We could see
nothing around us but the sterile plain stretching on all sides to the
horizon--not even a bush, or rock, or the form of a wild animal,
relieved the monotonous expanse. We were as much alone, as if we had
been in an open boat in the middle of the ocean!

"We began to grow alarmed, and to hesitate. Should we go back? No,
that would never do. Even had the prospect at the end of a backward
journey been more cheering, we felt uncertain whether we might be able
to reach the stream we had just left. We should surely reach water as
soon by keeping forward; and with this thought we travelled on through
all the livelong night.

"When morning came, I again surveyed the horizon, but could see no
object along its level line. I was riding gloomily alongside the poor
oxen, watching their laborious efforts, when a voice sounded in my ears.
It was that of Frank, who was standing in the fore part of the wagon,
looking out from under the tilt.

"`Papa! papa!' cried he, `look at the pretty white cloud!'

"I looked up at the boy, to see what he meant. I saw that he was
pointing to the south-east, and I turned my eyes in that direction. I
uttered an exclamation of joy, which startled my companions; for I saw
that what Frank had taken for a white cloud was the snowy cap of a
mountain! I might have seen it before, had my eyes been searching in
that quarter; but they were not, as I was examining the sky more towards
the south and west.

"Guided by no very extraordinary experience, I knew that where there was
snow there must be water; and, without another word, I directed Cudjo to
head his oxen for the mountain. It was out of the way we wanted to go;
but we thought not of that, for the saving of our lives had now come to
be the only question with us.

"The mountain was still twenty miles distant. We could have seen it
much farther off, but we had been travelling through the night. The
question was, would our oxen be able to reach it? They were already
tottering in their tracks. If they should break down, could we reach
it? Our water was all gone, and we were suffering from thirst as the
sun rose. A river, thought I, must run from the mountain, fed by the
melting of its snows. Perhaps we might come to this river before
arriving at the mountain-foot. But, no;--the plain evidently sloped
down from us to the moun