“Scalded you a bit, eh?” I asked, as I noticed the tears come to his eyes in a valiant attempt to swallow what he’d supped. He nodded, didn’t seem to trust his voice somehow! Then I took mine, first pouring it from cup to cup to cool it, and taking a mighty draught “at one fell swoop.”... As soon afterwards as I was able I went over to Jim and roused him gently but firmly. “Jim,” I asked, “how did you make this bucksail waterproof?” “Oh!” he replied enthusiastically, “she’s a real good ’un is that bucksail! I took a lot of trouble with her. Soaked her in paraffin first of all, then went over her with raw linseed oil. She still leaked a bit, and a feller at the whaling-station at Saldanha Bay gave me some whale oil for her, and I soaked that into her. Then, when I heard what you fellows wanted up here, I bunged some good old seal oil into her, and now she’d take a lot of beating!” And “she” would have--for she tasted of all the lot--I haven’t forgotten that tea yet! We spent ten days incessantly searching the gravel, and at length gave it up in despair. Jim advised us that we had only about water enough for six days, and, bad as it was, we knew we could not do without it, and the only question was whether to return to Luderitzbucht, or to try our luck at another place a lot farther up the coast. One of the Scandinavians suggested the latter. He said he had been there but once, but that the gravel was identical with that we had been trying. Only there was much more of it. It was a long way off, however, somewhere near Cape Cross, north of Walfish Bay and Swakopmund, and if we decided to go we should have to call at Walfish Bay for water. But, Jim continued, we were nearer the latter place than Luderitzbucht, the wind would probably be more in our favour; and we voted _en masse_ for these fresh fields. Before sailing, however, Du Toit and I went about four miles inland into the dunes to an extremely high and prominent one, a real sand-mountain about 200 feet high, from which we hoped to get a view of the sandy wastes generally, as we had still a lingering hope that we might yet find a similar deposit to that of Kolman’s Kop, with plenty of small stones, even though we could not find the big ones.