"Well, what was to be done now? I had wandered about in so many different directions on the tracks of the pony that I had by this time clean lost my bearings. However, I took what I judged to be the direction of your wagon route, after looking at my compass and the sun, and marched on. After skinning the eland I had acquired a tremendous thirst, and could have drunk gallons; before sundown I began to find serious inconvenience from want of water. You know it has been desperately hot; and shut up in dense bush and forest on this light, sandy soil, it seemed blazing. I never felt the heat so much. Well, it came to sundown that evening, and I knew I was lost. I began to feel uncomfortable. Still, I thought, I shall be all right in the morning, and shall hear guns going or find the road. I wouldn’t let myself believe that I was in really a serious mess. I lit a fire and cooked a bit of meat, but I was too dry to make much of a meal. I slept fairly well; but every now and again I awoke with my tongue, throat, and mouth horribly parched, and feeling that I would give anything just for one little glass of clean water. "Morning came, and I got up and went on my way. I was too thirsty to eat: my tongue, throat, and lips were very much swollen, and the mere action of swallowing was most painful; and so I just tramped on. I took the direction by sun and compass again, but I was this time so ’bushed,’ and had wandered so far from where we had started, that I knew it would be a mere chance if I hit off the wagon track again. As for water, there was none, of course, in that miserable wilderness. Nor, at this time of year, was there the least speck of dew--everything as dry as a bone, including myself. Well, I wandered on and on that day, seldom resting, and gradually getting slower and weaker. All the afternoon I tired steadily, and by two o’clock could scarcely drag one leg after another. The veldt was the same: endless bush and mopani forest. "I rested for an hour, and then, looking at my watch, I determined to walk for another two hours in as straight a direction as I could manage. Of course bush and timber divert one constantly from one’s course, but I pushed steadily on at a slow pace. All this afternoon I kept on thinking of pleasant drinks. Cricket matches came constantly to my mind, with huge refreshing draughts of shandy-gaff, and so on. And often I pictured to myself the big dam at Bamborough, and imagined myself wading in up to my neck and drinking till I could drink no longer. My thirst, somehow, was not quite so bad as in the morning, but my mouth and tongue bothered me a great deal--they were just like so much leather--and my throat was horribly sore.