Between the trees of the carefully cultivated groves the farmers grow lucerne, which again thrives astonishingly, crop following crop almost as fast as it is cut, eight or nine times a year being quite common. Unfortunately, the irrigable land consists of a comparatively narrow strip averaging about half a mile in width, though there are spots where it is much wider, and in many places the river is split up into numerous channels enclosing densely wooded islands, which, wherever cleared and cultivated, give the same abundant crops. Lower down the river a certain amount of grain is grown, and it is claimed that wheat has here yielded the wonderful harvest of 246 bushels for one of seed--surely a world’s record? Altogether it needs no prophet to predict that the time will come when this long, winding oasis through the desert will be populated and utilised from end to end, as it deserves to be. But except for a brief drive or two we saw but little of this fertile belt on this visit, for within twenty-four hours of our arrival we were _en route_ again, this time in a Cape cart drawn by eight sturdy oxen, who are far better able to cope with heavy sand than are horses or mules, and whose steady, untiring walk or jog-trot gets them over the ground at a far quicker rate than would appear. As we were now entering a region where water is at its scarcest, we carried a considerable quantity of this prime necessity, a small cask, several tin cans, and a big canvas water-bag and aluminium water-bottle each. Our driver was a Boer who had been in the camel police, and knew the road to the north well, and for _voorleir_ we had a diminutive Hottentot Bushman boy with the most marvellous eyesight imaginable. Often this queer, monkey-faced little chap would call our attention to game far ahead of us, the long neck of a _paauw_ among the bushes, a good 500 yards away, and which our field-glasses hardly showed us, or a tiny _steenbok_ standing motionless among cover at double the distance; and his dexterity at picking up a spoor and following it was almost superhuman.