And he did, for the next thing I heard was a splash, and there he was, clothes and all, in the water-pit--the only water we had, mind, for drinking purposes for the next twenty-four hours, for our cask and bags were empty when we arrived and we had not yet refilled them. I shall never forget those six thorn-trees at Saulstraat, nor the heat when we left the shade there, for I think that day was the hottest I experienced during the trip. The heat of the sand struck through our boot-soles as though we were walking on red-hot embers, whilst the gait of the poor oxen reminded me of the old saying, “like a cat on hot bricks.” All round this flat plain between the dunes the mirage glittered until it was difficult to realise that we were not walking on the only dry spot in the midst of a wide lake. So perfect was the illusion that on looking back to the trees we saw them faithfully mirrored in the placid “water” beneath them, as were the high dunes and every little prominence in sight. However, after toiling through another barrier of high dunes we were cheered by the sight of real water, a fairly wide, shallow vley, with a number of oxen standing in it, showing where recent rains had fallen at Middle Pits. Here there was a substantially built house owned by a Bastard farmer, one of the few remaining original owners of these desert border farms. And here the sand-dunes came to an end. Ahead stretched flat country broken by one or two extraordinary black kopjes, the first sign of any intrusive rock we had seen since leaving Witkop. We had now for the first time an opportunity of giving our advance agents the slip, and turning abruptly from the path, we trekked all night, and in the morning were close to Rietfontein at the north-west corner of Hachschein Vley, and near our destination. The vley is such only in name, being a wide expanse of flat country which has at one time been a shallow lake or marsh, and into which several small rivers formerly ran. Except after rain these are, of course, dry, but in the “pan” itself water can be obtained almost anywhere at a comparatively shallow depth. In Anderson’s time this had been a noted place for lions, but they do not come as far south nowadays, and it was in this locality that the old traveller met with hostile Bushmen. No such place as Rietfontein then existed, but his map showed a native Kraal called “Quassama,” and it appeared likely that the post at Rietfontein had been built on the site of this old Bushman village, which indeed proved to be the case.