We had bought four or five oxen and a few sheep, which we intended to drive with us to Erongo, the broad table-mountain that now lay eight hours in front of us and bounded the horizon. It was five hours’ travel to the next water, but it took us much longer, for we had some hunting by the way. The heat became fearful, and fever was upon me; I could hardly sit the journey out, and was extremely glad to get to the bed of the Canna river, (a tributary of the Swakop) where an hour’s “crowing” and digging gave enough water for the oxen. After a good meal, as the evening was clear, we were again in the saddle, and pushed on for the mountains, the length of whose escarpment from east to west was fifteen miles. Its height by rough sextant measurement was 2800 feet. In one part of it there was a break, the mountains rising like parapets on either hand, and to this break we steered. It was pitch dark when we got there, and glad I was to lay my throbbing head to rest. In the morning I dispatched the two Ghou Damups up the hill to tell the inhabitants of our arrival, and to request guides from them. I spent the morning in sleeping under huge overhanging slabs of limestone, enjoying to the full “the shadow of a broad rock in a thirsty land.” In the afternoon we rambled about trying to climb the hill, and to obtain a good view of the adjacent country. The rocks that composed Erongo were here in huge smooth white masses—often hundreds of feet without a fissure—the hill seemed built by some Cyclopean architect. Immense round boulders of the same stones were strewed here and there at its base. Our Ghou Damup returned in the evening with a promise that guides should be sent us early the next day. We put our articles of exchange into small packs, as men had to carry them up the steep mountain by the footroad. When cattle are sent up, they are driven round to a different and more distant entrance, which we did not care to visit. It is just practicable for oxen and no more. [Illustration: TRAVELLER WITH PACK-OXEN. Drawn on Stone by W. L. Walton. Printed by Hullmandel & Walton.]