The first few days of our trek lay through the route referred to in Chapter V--the post road to Rietfontein and the north. Except that both grass and water were even scarcer than on that occasion, everything was exactly the same--the infrequent “homesteads,” naturally somewhat dirtier and more dilapidated, and the accumulation of dead animals and similar horrors somewhat increased on account of the drought. This latter, however, did not appear to be as bad as we had been led to expect, as water was still plentiful at the usual wells and water-pits. The veldt was very bare, and Du Toit was often obliged to drive his tired oxen many miles from the outspan before he could get a mouthful of grass for them. So our trekking was of necessity slow, and, on account of the great heat, most of it was done at night. Thus we crawled through Areachap, Steenkams Puts, Grondneus, and Zwartmodder, into the old bed of the Molopo, where there was water in the deep wells, but fodder was non-existent, and the oxen apparently lived on pebbles. We were now skirting the south-west extremity of the Reserve, which stretched east in a vast, dim, featureless, and apparently boundless world of sand-dunes, but the spot at which we intended entering it was still days to the north. The few habitations became fewer and wider apart, a long day’s journey of heavy sand-dunes usually dividing “neighbours” in this lonely fringe of huge desert farmlands on the Kalahari border, and water being unobtainable in between them. In fact, numbers of these vast surveyed desert farms had neither permanent water nor habitation on them. Ten days of trekking, and our eyes were gladdened by the most welcome of all sights in such a country, a large vley of water, in which cattle stood knee-deep, and over which flew Namaqua partridges in countless thousands. This was “Abiqwas” Pits, close to the tiny police post of “Obopogorop,” where two unfortunate young police troopers were stationed, within a mile or so of the equally desolate German border. Here we shot partridges to our hearts’ content, browning the big coveys shamelessly, for cartridges begin to be valued by the time one has spent a few months in the veldt. There were several waggons here, Boer families trekking to Upington for their periodical _nachtmaal_ (communion), which festivity, if it may be termed as such, appeared to be the one exciting event of their dreary, monotonous existence. They were incredulous as to our being allowed into the Reserve--with rifles! “_Allemachtig!_”--why, then, should we _verdommte uitlanders_ be allowed in the Reserve, when _they_, who lived on its border, scarce dare follow a strayed beast a day’s trek into it without the police being after them?