I started the next morning, and after toiling for several hours, rested, and again went on, crossing those lofty ridges until dark, outspanned for the night in a deep hollow, where there was plenty of good grass, and trees, and dead wood for fire. Our trek this day was about eight miles; two great fires were made, and our little party of twenty-six all told, made themselves comfortable over their supper, and at ten all were fast asleep. But we did not get much rest, the lions kept round the camp making a great noise, and being surrounded by these hills and thick bush, we were the greater part of the night obliged to keep a sharp look-out that none of our animals were taken. Early the next morning I took my rifle and mounted one of these sand-dunes before inspanning, and found from the base to the summit registered 204 feet. But what a sight when I looked round; as far as the eye could see, nothing but these immense sand-dunes in every direction, here and there open patches of yellow sand and bush, a wild, rugged, and howling wilderness, that appeared interminable, the fit abode for savage man and more savage beast, and here we find them, man in primitive nature, as low a type as the world can produce, little removed from the beast, for it is here I have met those wild men which I have described elsewhere; they are partly covered with short woolly hair, and have no forehead, the scant wool reaching the eyes. They are rarely now seen, even by the Bushmen of the desert, as they have repeatedly told me, and here they may find a home for many years to come, for no other living man will fix his residence in such a region of desolation,-- "A wilderness howling and drear, Forsaken by man from famine or fear." _Pringle_. On our trek we started many head of game, which are easily killed by the Bushman arrow, and with these and the many wild fruits they manage to exist. It has taken four days to cross this wild and hilly region which extends over an area as far as I have explored it, fifty miles from east to west, and nearly forty north to south: the home of the leopard and a legion of wild tiger-cats, that are spotted or striped,--their skins make beautiful karosses. On leaving these dunes we come upon a level plain of limestone, which we have ten miles to cross, where there are several watering-places, fountains they may be called, and enter sand-dunes again for some fifteen miles, and then come upon a bush country, with gentle rises and low wooded bills with isolated conical hills of granite. Close to the hills, I outspanned near a swamp; the noise from the bull-frog kept us from sleep. They are monsters, a foot across the back and quite black. The Bushmen eat them; they would form a fine dish for our French neighbours.