“There’s a snake up my leg!” he shouted, and we jumped down just as a frantic kick sent it squirming and wriggling into the sand, whence it made off like greased lightning. We killed it under the waggon. It was a young _geel capell_ (yellow cobra), about 2 feet long, quite big enough to have killed Du Toit, who was very lucky not to have been bitten. All kinds of reptiles and venomous insects seem to “trek” and run amok during these sand-storms, probably seeking for shelter from the rain that usually follows. In this case the rain followed immediately, thunder-clouds rolling up all around with incredible rapidity, and before we could properly cover the forepart of the waggon, the longed-for rain was pouring down in sheets. In a few minutes it was pitch dark, except for the vivid lightning, and we huddled in the waggon under a big bucksail which covered and half suffocated us--four white men and half a dozen Hottentots. So heavy was the downpour, and so near the almost incessant flashes of violet lightning, that the driver himself crept under the sail, and his weird screams at the frightened oxen, the roar of the wind and thunder, the crash and bump of the waggon as the scared animals scuttled along at their own sweet will, the darkness, heat, and perfume of Araby from the sweating natives, all combined to make that little joy-ride a thing to be remembered. [Illustration: ON THE GREAT SALT PAN, IN THE CENTRE OF THE SOUTHERN KALAHARI DESERT.] Eventually a big tree-stump brought the waggon to an abrupt stop, and the storm ceasing as suddenly as it had begun, we were able to get a light and disentangle ourselves from the most appalling jumble of gear imaginable. Guns had fallen from their slings, clothing, boots, cartridges, food, and Lord knows what, were piled all around and on top of us; but all might have been well had it not been for young van Reenen, who had taken advantage of the darkness to abstract a tin of marmalade from the “scoff-box” and was, as he confessed, making good going, when the waggon hit a snag, and he lost the run of the tin. Every blessed thing in the waggon was sticky for days afterwards. At the pits we left our reserve stores, every available utensil was filled with water, and in addition two hogsheads belonging to Rauchtenbach were lashed upon a further waggon; the oxen drank their fill, and we made our entry into the Reserve. On leaving the Molopo, in which the well was situated, we immediately entered the Reserve, the huge sand-dunes here trending in the right direction, and for a time making the going fairly easy. For in the long valleys between the wave-like dunes the sand was comparatively firm, being bound by various stunted roots and grasses, mostly dry, and showing but little signs of life, but capable of bursting forth into luxuriant growth with astonishing rapidity at the most meagre encouragement in the shape of a passing thunderstorm.