All this part of the chief Montsioa's territory, down past Kuis, and along the Mafeking river, which is his western division, is one of the driest portions of the Kalahara desert; in the winter months the only water to be obtained is in the sand of the river by digging; but in summer there is plenty. A road from Kuruman runs through the desert, down part of the way by the Kuruman river, crossing the Nosop and Oup to Meer, where the Bastards have formed a town: the distance is 240 miles. Before leaving this region I wish to explain the meteorological peculiarities of South Central Africa. When any great change in the atmosphere is about to take place, it has often been remarked by travellers, that in Africa there is lightning and thunder without clouds. I have often remarked this phenomenon, and wondered what could be the cause. Isolated from all society, thrown upon our own resources for occupation and amusement, in these solitary journeys through this vast unknown region, we are more prone to investigate the mysteries of nature than we should if thrown more amongst the busy world. So it was in my case, and knowing there must be some natural law unknown to me, I took my observations accordingly to find it out. During the long dry season many years ago, when travelling in the central portion of this desert, where this strange lightning and thunder occurred almost every night at certain seasons of the year, when no clouds are visible, all I could discover was, that the flashes seemed to come from one quarter. I was outspanned one day near one of those singular isolated granite hills, so often to be seen in the Kalahara desert, that look more like a ruined temple than the works of nature. I started in the afternoon to climb to its summit, to take observations with my instruments, and found the elevation from base to top to be 278 feet. It would be difficult to find words to convey the exquisite pleasure I felt in standing alone on this lofty eminence, where no white man before ever placed his foot: alone, far from the busy world, its anxieties and troubles; to look at the fair scene beneath and around me, the rich vegetation on the plains (for it was in the month of November, when all is bright and fair), the distant mountains, their quaint outlines softened by space to lovely purple tints, as they fade away into the rosy sky on the horizon! Taking up a position under a huge block of granite, to be out of the sun's influence, for the thermometer registered 106 degrees in the shade, to take observations, my attention was attracted to some heavy-looking clouds just perceptible above the topmost ridge of some lofty hills in the north-west some twenty miles distant. The sun was shining on them, giving them a pink massive outline. I remained in this position till nearly sundown, when I returned to the waggons; no clouds were visible above the hills when I reached my camp, nothing but the bright glow of the sky, which later on