his
spare time in polishing my weapons, a work he absolutely loved, and
crooning interminable songs in a low monotone.

One day, when the Bushmen had again trooped off on their fruitless
search, I called Inyati; and told him to make certain preparations, as,
should they again bring in nothing, I would strike camp and return to
Walfisch Bay. And then I asked him, out of curiosity, why he had not
tried to earn the gun.

"Master," said he, scraping away at the hollow shin-bone of a buck that
served him as a pipe, as a broad hint that his tobacco was finished; "I
know not the land of these dogs of Bushmen. If it were in my own land
now! But that is far away!"

I laughed, for by his manner of saying it, he conveyed the impression
that there he could pick up diamonds under every bush.

"Dogs they may be, Inyati," I answered him, "but they are dogs with
keen eyes; and yet they cannot find the stones I seek, and that I know,
too, are not far away!" He stood, nodding gravely at my words, and
still fidgeting with his bone pipe; a splendid figure of a man, nude
except for his leopard-skin loin-cloth, his skin clear and glossy, of a
golden-brown for he was no darker than, but entirely different from,
the yellow Hottentots.

"Master," said he; "what magic will my master make with the little
bright stones, should he find them?"

"No magic, Inyati," said I, "but in my country, across the great water,
these things are worth many muskets, cattle aye, and even wives!"

"That may be, my master," he replied, "but magic they are; and hide
themselves when dogs such as these Bushmen search for them. Still,
master, we will wait and see what they bring to-night; though well I
know that they will come back with empty hands as empty as is this my
pipe!"

I could not help laughing at the way in which he had brought the
subject of his finished tobacco to my notice, and in a fit of unwonted
generosity I not only gave him a span of tobacco, but also a cheap pipe
from my "trade" goods.

Poor chap, it was the first he had ever had, for his shin-bone had
served him hitherto, and his delight was unmistakable. An hour later I
saw him still at his everlasting polishing, and with the new pipe in
full blast; and now he was crooning not only its praises, but my own.
Half his improvised song was unintelligible to me, but I understood
enough to learn that when the "dogs of Bushmen" had failed, he, Inyati
"The Snake" would lead me to a land where the