The team, with its Hottentot driver and _voorlooper_, had come three days’ long trek from Kuboos to Port Nolloth to fetch us, and to our dismay we learnt from them the grave fact that, contrary to our expectation, the heavy rains that had recently fallen in the Steinkopf district had not extended to Richtersfeldt, whither we were bound, that the water-holes were dry, and that the oxen had not tasted water during the three days of intense heat that the journey had lasted. Not that they appeared inconvenienced; indeed, these Namaqualand cattle run the camel close in their ability to go for long periods without water, and their nomad owners are thus able to “run” them over tracts of veldt far distant from the precious fluid, caring little so long as they can get them to water every third or fourth day. To a minor degree this faculty is also shared by the few ponies bred in the country and called locally _boschje kops_, wiry little animals with a good deal of Basuto blood in them, and perfect marvels for endurance. I have on more than one occasion ridden one of these ponies three days without being able to give it a drop of water, and have seen it, when grass failed, and every bush was burnt dry with the awful sun, contentedly chewing the sapless twigs from the bushes that an ordinary goat would disdain, or apparently thriving upon the dry fallen leaves beneath the trees in the scorched-up river-beds. The waggon track to Richtersfeldt leads north-east from Port Nolloth, and after a few hours’ trek the sand veldt becomes thickly bushed, _melk bosch_, _zout bosch_, and many other fleshy-leaved aromatic and resinous shrubs densely covering the long, undulating slopes of heavy sand, the sad monotony of dark grey-green being unbroken except by an occasional lily-like flower of a brilliant scarlet; no sign of life anywhere, the silence unbroken except for the crack of the whip or the yell of the driver, the sand effectually deadening the sound of the wheels and the tread of the oxen. As we wished to see the whole of the country we were travelling through, we trekked only by day, quite contrary to the general custom of the country in the hot season; and as the intense heat made it impossible to move during a considerable part of the day, our progress was of necessity slow. The country was quite uninhabited and we saw not a soul during the first day; but towards evening we were overtaken by some five or six Hottentot women with a perfect mob of children, who, it appeared, were also bound for Kuboos. [Illustration: FEEDING THE HUNGRY AT THE STEINKOPF NATIVE MISSION STATION, LITTLE NAMAQUALAND.] [Illustration: HARD PULLING IN THE HALGHAT RIVER KLEIN, NAMAQUALAND.]