Altogether camel-riding in the dunes is a queer experience: at the same time it enables one to be free of the haunting anxiety of thirst, and to reach spots otherwise unapproachable. Unfortunately, my mount met with a misadventure when but two days out, as in trotting along a narrow _straat_ between the dunes, which were here waist-deep in magnificent grasses, he put his foot into a hidden ant-bear hole and came down, throwing me almost out of the Kalahari. Luckily--in a way--he was too lame to run away, and when I succeeded in getting my head out of the sand he was still there. As the other camel was several dunes ahead, my friend the trooper saw nothing of my having dismounted, and kept on; so that I had to walk the whole day and lead the lame camel, who groaned and grunted in a most astonishing manner the whole time. To enable the animal to rest and replenish our water-tanks we turned towards a place in the Kuruman River known as “Visch-gat” (Fish-hole), where there was usually water, but in this case our luck was dead out. The pit was about 20 feet deep, sunk in hard shale, and there was plenty of water, but it was quite putrid and undrinkable even for the camels. A bucketful that I drew was full of the decomposed fragments of small birds--bones, feathers, etc.--and there were a number of them still fluttering around the surface of the water, apparently too stupid to fly straight up and regain the open air. A contributory cause to this phenomenon may have been the owl that sat in a little niche about half-way down, screwing his head round and blinking up at us as we peered down. We had to stay here three days till the camel was fit to carry me again, and as time hung very heavily on our hands, we rigged up a wire noose on the end of a branch and fished for the owl in turns, making bets as to the time it took to hook him and haul him out. Each time we succeeded, he flew wildly round in the glaring sun for a minute, and came right back to the pit. There were traces of Bushmen in the vicinity, and it transpired there were ladies amongst them, with the result that our police-boy was always stealing away, and had to be remonstrated with in the usual manner. Two days later, when we were deep in the dunes near Tilrey Pan, he retaliated by deserting, and leaving us to tend the camels ourselves.