At 9 o'clock, when we halted for our morning meal, we were thankful to get under the shadow of the waggons: a man of the Rifle Brigade had a _coup-de-soleil_. A twenty miles' trying march through a burning desert country brought us by sunset to our halting place, near a small vley; but we had no sooner got our tents up than a whirlwind threw half of them down again, enveloping us for a few minutes in such a cloud of sand, that we could not see a yard before us. The water in these stagnant pools, that simmer all day in the sun, and at night are used as baths by herds of wild game, is the most villanous mixture of mud, dung, and green scum that can be imagined; as thick as pea-soup, and full of aquatic insects. Even where the water was clear, we often found it so _brak_ as to be even worse than in its gruel form; and of the two descriptions of _salt_ and _sweet_ brak, we hardly knew which was the worst; the brandy used to neutralize its bad effects, dysentery and diarrhoea, turning it as black as ink in a moment. [Illustration: CROSSING THE ORANGE RIVER.] The march of next morning again lay through a burning sun-baked plain, without a single object to vary the monotony of its barren desolation, the only sign of life being an occasional paauw or koran. But at the end of about seven miles a wonderful and glorious change met our delighted eyes; from a low undulating ridge we suddenly looked down on the broad silvery expanse of the Great Orange River, flowing between richly wooded banks of warm red earth and rock, in front of us three or four lovely green islets adorning its bosom. The transition from the dreary sterility of the burning plains of the last twenty-one days, shady trees in lieu of bare karroo, and miles of clear sparkling water instead of muddy vleys, was most delightful, independently of the natural beauties of the scene itself.