The latter gratuitously humiliating condition was afterwards withdrawn, as it was found impossible to arrange for a camel police trooper to be spared for the work, and I and my assistants were graciously given permission to proceed without such escort. By this time it was the end of September 1912; over six months had been taken in obtaining the permit, the t’samma season had come and gone, and the torrid heat of a Kalahari summer was at hand. It would therefore have been madness to attempt the expedition until some months had elapsed and young t’samma had again made its appearance--for upon the precarious patches of these little wild melons we should have to rely for a substitute for water, in this wild stretch of parched sand-dunes. Anxiously we therefore waited through the long summer days of October, November, and December, for news of the first rains, and it was not until January 1913 that news came from Gordonia that the first t’samma was beginning to make its appearance, and that it was considered safe for us to start. One of our guides had most inconsiderately died whilst waiting, but the other, with waggons and trek animals, drivers, “boys,” etc., still awaited us, and on January 26th, 1913, our little party left Cape Town for Prieska and Upington, where lay our transport. I had two partners, E. Telfer, a young and enthusiastic Scotsman of many years’ Colonial experience, and W. van Reenen, a still younger Cape Dutchman. Both were seasoned men, and though the desert would be new to them, they were both good shots, good horsemen, and thoroughly versed in farming, transport, and veldt craft, and I had little fear as to their ability to see the thing through. Our outfit was chosen with great care, for we knew that, once away from Upington, our waggon would be the only source of supplies--food, arms, ammunition, clothing, tools, and above all, medicine. As we hoped to establish a water depot within transport distance of the nearest well, we had a number of specially constructed tanks made--designed especially to pack on camel or oxen--but these, unfortunately, were of no use to us. At Prieska all this paraphernalia was transferred to transport-waggons, whilst with our lighter gear we hurried on to Upington to prepare for the real desert trek. The monotony of the Prieska to Upington trail has been referred to before in these pages, and a description of it would be of little interest. The drought had not broken here for many months; in the tiny village of Marydale no shower had fallen for two years, and hour after hour we trotted through a brown, dreary, dusty, verdureless expanse, where never a blade of grass or a green leaf could be seen as far as the eye could reach.