s no difference between day and day. They depended for their
subsistence almost entirely on the roots, which De Walden knew where to
search for, and which relieved the parched lips and burning throat as
nothing else could have done. Their resting-place at mid-day, and at
night alike, was either the shadow cast by some huge stone, or a natural
hollow in its side, or more rarely a patch of scrub and grass, growing
round some spring, either visible or underground. The cool sunset
breeze every evening restored something of vigour to their exhausted
frames, and enabled them to toil onward for another, and yet another,
day.

After nearly three weeks of this travel, they found the landscape begin
once more to change. The kameel-doorn and the euphorbia again made
their appearance, at first in a few comparatively shaded spots; then the
aloe and the mimosa began to mingle with them; and in the course of a
day's journey afterwards, birds chirped among the boughs, the secretary
was seen stalking over the plain, and the frequent spoor of wild animals
showed that they had again reached the world of living beings.

Their guide now told them that they were within two days' journey or so
of the Gariep; which he proposed to pass at some point immediately below
one of the great cataracts. The river at this spot ran always, he said,
with a rapidity which rendered it almost impossible to ford; but at the
times when it was at the lowest, after long drought, as was the case
now, it might be crossed by climbing along trunks of trees which had
been lodged among the rocks and left there by the subsiding waters of a
flood. This required nothing of the traveller beyond a steady foot and
a cool head. Where there were several to help one another, the risk was
reduced almost to zero.

The party woke up gladly enough on the morning of the last day of their
desert travel. The country was now thickly covered with wood.
Immediately before them was a plain very curiously dotted with patches
of thorns, growing at regular intervals about fifty paces apart from one
another, enclosing a large tract of ground with a kind of rude fence.
Nick was so struck with its singular appearance, that he stopped behind
his companions to examine it more closely. While thus engaged, his
attention was attracted by a grunting noise in the bush near him, and
peering cautiously through the bushes, saw what he supposed to be a
large black hog, unwieldy from its fat, ly