So Andries brought his spring-wagon in to the Copper Mines and we made busy preparations for a start. Our wagon-team numbered eight, four belonging to Andries and four to me. Old Prince pulled as a wheeler; my two young chestnuts as leaders. Besides the wagon we had another vehicle,--a strange, springless, nondescript contraption knocked together by Andries out of the remains of an old horse-wagon which he had broken up. It had low, strong wheels set very wide apart, with a rough framework of yellow-wood boards superimposed. There was no seat, but a box-like rim of woodwork edged the frame. To this vehicle four half-trained horses were yoked. It was intended to be used in pursuing springbuck over the plains. Hendrick was to be the driver; his task would not be an easy one. Andries owned a mob of over sixty horses, the greater number of which had been taught but the merest rudiments of service. We reached the outer periphery of the hills late in the afternoon, and camped on the margin of the pale-green ocean of feathery "toa." Far-off, to eastward, we marked the rose-litten turrets of a thunder-cloud. When the sun went down these were illuminated by incessant lightnings, symbols of destruction heralding the advent of the only giver of life-rain. I had formerly been accustomed to bring books to Bushmanland, but, with one exception, I did so no longer. The exception was Ludwig's translation of the Vedic Hymns. The open Volume of the desert, so insistent to be read, was sufficient; nevertheless those large, primordial utterances of the Vedas seemed appropriate whenever one was brought into contact with unspoilt Nature in her vaster aspects. Although they originated under conditions very dissimilar to the local ones, the Vedic Hymns are tuned to the desert's pitch. In India, as in Bushmanland, rain is the paramount necessity. When the rain-gods forget Bushmanland a few thousand fat-tailed sheep may perish; a hundred families may have to retire from its margins and live for a season by digging wild tubers among the granite hills, or by robbing the ants of their underground store of "toa" seed. But if a similar thing happen in India, perhaps ten millions of human beings die a horrible death.