A mile or so farther on we found that rain had fallen, and at the pools of shallow water lying in the road were Namaqua partridges by the thousand. These little plump, pretty game-birds are really a sand-grouse, and to such an extent do they abound in these districts that at the rare water-holes and at their drinking hours the air is literally full of them. An hour or two after sunrise and again at sunset they come to the water, huge coveys of them whirring in from all directions, and swarming towards the drinking-place in incredible numbers. In the stone-strewn _aars_ that are a feature of this country these little birds take advantage of their marvellous protective colouring, and I have often actually kicked against them crouching amongst, and absolutely indistinguishable from, the stones around them until they moved, when a whole covey would whirr up from beneath my feet. The driver frequently killed them with his whip from his seat on the cart, and we called down upon us his derision by shooting a few single ones that we put up by the path. He told us that was by no means the way, and that with one cartridge he would fill the pot for us, which of course he easily did by hiding behind a bush near the water and firing into the thick of them. Indeed, it is no uncommon thing to bag fifty or more at a shot in this manner, and though far from being “sport,” we soon found that on a long trip where ammunition could not be replenished it would scarcely pay to pot at single partridges; and in future we kept our big Kaffir pot filled with them by this most unsportsmanlike but profitable method. A bit of bacon, an onion, a little pepper and salt, and a potful of these little chaps, make a stew fit for a king, and with plenty of Boer meal “pap” and syrup and roster kook, G. and I sighed for nothing better; but the driver turned up his nose at the despised _vogelkies_ and pined for his beloved _vleesch_. Whenever he could get a chunk of goat or sheep he filled a pot and ate to repletion of the half-cooked, tough, and flavourless contents. When he could not get it, and perforce had to eat the birds, a dozen of them were but a sort of appetiser to him. As a beverage we drank tea, quarts and quarts of it, made in the kettle itself, without milk and with an abundance of sugar, for this was a trip _de luxe_, during which neither food nor water ran short.