In the desert,--away from man and everything that suggested him, the Hebrew Scriptures seemed to be too overloaded with ethics, too exigent towards enlisting the services of the deity on the side of tribe against tribe. But the Vedic Hymnist was a worshipper who imposed no conditions upon his gods. He had passionately realised the fundamental fact that his own continued existence, as well as that of all organic life, depended upon the beneficient fury of the sky, so he offered awed and unconditioned adoration to Indra, Agni and the "golden-breasted" Storm Gods through a symbolism of sincere and homely dignity. Submissive, he accepted death or life, the thunder-bolt or the Soma-flower,--the drought that slew its millions or the rain that brought a bounteous harvest. We started at break of day. Although rain had fallen, we felt it necessary to plan our course carefully, for water was only to be found in the sand-covered rock-depressions--and these, albeit more than ordinarily frequent in that section of the desert over which our route lay, were nevertheless few and far between. The weather was hot; therefore the horses, unlike oxen, had to drink at least once a day. Even where it existed, water could only be obtained by digging to a depth of from five to eight feet; then it had to be scooped up in pannikins after having trickled in from the sides and collected at the bottom of the pit. Thus, even under favourable conditions, it took about two hours' hard work to provide sufficient water to quench the thirst of twelve animals. With cocked ears and anxious looks the horses would crowd to where the smell of wet sand told them that relief was near; it became necessary to keep them off with a whip. Once I narrowly escaped being badly hurt owing to a mule flinging itself into a pit in which I was digging for water. We decided not to delay on our forward journey; therefore the various herds of game seen in the distance were not interfered with. We intended, after finishing our business at Pella, to seek out some temporary oasis favourably situated, pitch our camp there and spend a few days shooting in the vicinity. On the forenoon of the fourth day,--a day of terrible heat, we sighted the mission buildings of Pella in the far distance. These stood on a limestone ridge in a crescent-shaped bend of that stark range of mountains on the northern side of which the Orange River has carved its tremendous earth-scar. Here the colour of the mountains changed; they were no longer jet-black as I had found those a hundred miles to westward, but a deep chocolate brown. From Pella ran a steep ravine which cleft the range almost to its base. Down this a crooked track led to the river, which was said to be about nine miles away.