So that everything looked _couleur-de-rose_, and we unpacked stores and tools, pitched our tents, and prepared our camp with a light heart. In the evening the water-waggon left for the return journey, and not before it was time, for the hollow flanks and staring eyes of the poor beasts showed that they were suffering from thirst already. They were to return in a week with a further supply, meanwhile, in spite of the loss of one of the hogsheads, we should have sufficient. The first two or three days were spent in exploring our immediate neighbourhood. North and south, the dunes were very formidable and close together, and half a day’s toiling in either direction disclosed nothing but the same endless succession of long serried lines, ending in confused and broken country eastward. This preliminary canter was to enable us to get a general idea of our immediate surroundings, and gradually we were able to add other landmarks to our friendly big dune, a solitary _wit boom_ tree, scarcely 10 feet in height, but looming up like a forest giant, and prominent for miles in this treeless waste, a clump of _haak doorn_ bush, or a peculiarly bare patch of sand, all helping us to steer a course without the tediousness of working by compass, or of having to always follow the return trail over own our spoor. Gradually, too, the seemingly featureless contours of the dunes, each at first appearing the counterpart of the adjoining one, became distinguishable, and we began to gain the faculty of acute and mechanical observation of trifling differences essential for the long journeys we were preparing for in this pathless and unexplored waste. From the “lookout” dune we studied the country eastward. Almost due east, and apparently only about ten miles distant, a line of pure white sand-ridges showed the position of a big pan, which Old Gert recognised as a famous hunting rendezvous of the Bushmen in his day, and taking his bearings from it, he showed us, several points south of it, a long humped dune which apparently rose to a great height above its surroundings, and which towards evening loomed up like a mountain. This, he said, was “Aar Pan,” and from it he could locate pan after pan, including those which we were in search of. But the time of all times to locate these distant depressions was at daybreak, when for a short period before the sun actually rose, a small, distinct, and well-defined cloud could be seen floating low down over each of the larger pans, due doubtless to the moisture evaporating from their firmer soil, and which was wanting in the loose sand of the surrounding dunes. The furnace-like heat continued, though each afternoon storm-clouds gathered, and apparently heavy rain was falling eastward, especially in the direction of Aar Pan, where Old Gert assured us water would now be found.