ter the following day? The reply, "How can I tell?" was
insufficient; I was supposed to know to an inch where water was and
exactly when we could reach it. I believe all except the officers
thought I was making for a known water, for although I had explained
the situation before leaving the dam, it was only now that they were
beginning to comprehend its full meaning. Towards the line of dark
sandhills, which formed the western horizon, was a great fall of
country into a kind of hollow, and on the following morning, the
seventeenth day from the dam, Mr. Tietkens appeared greatly impressed
with the belief that we were in the neighbourhood of water. I said
nothing of my own impressions, for I thought something of the kind
also, although I said I would not believe it. It was Mr. Tietkens's
turn to steer, and he started on foot ahead of the string of camels
for that purpose. He gave Tommy his little riding-bull, the best
leading camel we have, and told him to go on top of a white sandhill
to our left, a little south of us, and try if he could find any fresh
blacks' tracks, or other indications of water. I did not know that
Tommy had gone, nor could I see that Tietkens was walking--it was an
extraordinary event when the whole string of camels could be seen at
once in a line in this country--and we had been travelling some two
miles and a half when Alec Ross and Peter Nicholls declared that they
heard Tommy calling out "water!" I never will believe these things
until they are proved, so I kept the party still going on. However,
even I, soon ceased to doubt, for Tommy came rushing through the
scrubs full gallop, and, between a scream and a howl, yelled out quite
loud enough now even for me to hear, "Water! water! plenty water here!
come on! come on! this way! this way! come on, Mr. Giles! mine been
find 'em plenty water!" I checked his excitement a moment and asked
whether it was a native well he had found, and should we have to work
at it with the shovel? Tommy said, "No fear shovel, that fellow water
sit down meself (i.e. itself) along a ground, camel he drink 'em
meself." Of course we turned the long string after him. Soon after he
left us he had ascended the white sandhill whither Mr. Tietkens had
sent him, and what sight was presented to his view! A little open oval
space of grass land, half a mile away, surrounded entirely by
pine-trees, and falling into a small funnel-shaped hollow, looked at
from above. He said that befo