Our anxiety, however, was not now so much about water, but about Old Gert himself, for he had contracted rheumatism so badly that he could scarcely hobble, and it soon became apparent that, until water fell in the pans, or t’samma made it possible to employ a riding-ox to carry him, we should have to rely upon his instructions, and search out the places for ourselves. Aar Pan we could not miss, and thence the nearest pan where diamonds had been found was but half a day’s trek. The others were several days’ journey distant, but this nearest pan appeared an easy task to find. Gert tried to dissuade us, however, and suggested that we had better first try to locate a vast salt pan at one time well known to the natives, and which should be, he considered, about six hours’ trek due east, and impossible to miss. The locating of this pan would, he explained, help us greatly in our further operations, and we accordingly set out early one morning with the intention of finding it. Du Toit, van Reenen, and myself made up the party, as Telfer was indisposed. Each man carried only a water-bottle, a little food, and a rifle, for we fully expected to reach the pan by midday, and be back by night. Experienced as I thought myself in the desert, that first walk eastward, so lightly undertaken, was to provide a lesson never to be forgotten. For an hour or so the almost straight _straat_ in which the camp stood led in the right direction, due east. It ended in broken dunes, very high and confused; still, we were able to keep the general direction for another couple of hours, when we had the “luck” to strike another series of dunes and _straats_ apparently in a beeline with our objective, and we pushed on, congratulating ourselves that by noon we should reach the Salt Pan. Unfortunately, however, the rough country had thrown us a point or two out of our bearings, and this easy, wide, and seductive-looking _straat_ fooled us nicely. For, as we afterwards discovered, it not only started slightly in the wrong direction, but curved so gradually as to deceive us completely, and without even a glance at the compass we toiled on till the terrific heat of the blazing sun right overhead showed us that it was noon, and our burning feet and aching calves urged a halt. There was an abundance of low bush and thick grass, but not a tree anywhere, and we threw ourselves down and rested for a while in the blazing sunshine. We had been walking about six hours with scarcely a breather, and even allowing for slow progress in the broken dunes, we had, we calculated, come a distance of at least twelve miles, and should be near the Salt Pan. But the crest of the dunes showed us no break in either direction, and with a brief rest we pushed on again for about an hour, when the end of the _straat_ came in sight, barred by formidable dunes running right across it. Evidently there was no salt pan in that direction, and a tardy