low clouds, just rising from those three places and they won't
last long! They are pans, master, and it is mist that rises from them.
There is moisture there may be water there."

"And food for the horses?" I asked him; for our poor brutes were in an
awful state, and we had nothing to give them.

"That may well be," he said, "not on the pans, but near them. And,
master, we must struggle on, and find out; for they cannot fast another
day, and trek another night, without either food or drink."

The rising sun rapidly dispersed the little clouds that Inyati had
pointed out, but we kept on in their direction, though the sand was now
burning hot and the poor animals were suffering frightfully.

Now a few scattered bushes and tufts of bone-dry "toa" grass began to
show in the hollows between the dunes, and at length, on breasting an
unusually high one a veritable mountain of sand, three or four hundred
feet in height a new and marvelous scene stretched before me.

Abruptly from the foot of the steep dune-slope stretched a vast,
glittering expanse of the purest white; to all appearance a snow-
covered lake, spotless and dazzling in the brilliant sunshine. It was
almost a perfect circle in shape and several miles in diameter, and on
all sides it was hemmed in by gigantic dunes.

"Salt, master!" said Inyati. "I have seen such places before, but, wow!
this is a big one! And this is not the pan I seek. No good to us,
master; but is it not strange? Yonder in my land this salt is a
precious thing; for a basketful, one can obtain a fat cow, for a
sackful, two or more young wives! Here is salt enough to buy many
wives, master; but none to gather it or for that matter, no wives to
buy! . . . But water, master, is what we seek, and not salt water or
t'samma. . . . We must cross, master; there on the other side I see
thick bush in the dunes, there may be t'samma there, and the way across
is easy. Come!"

He led the way down the steep slope, dragging his jaded animals after
him. At the edge, where sand ended and salt began, lay many bones,
bleached and white almost as the salt itself, and amongst them were the
bones of men. Snorting and afraid, the animals stepped gingerly on the
smooth, snow-like surface, which yielded but an inch or two to their
tread, and was pleasantly cool to their hooves, parched and cracking
from their long trek in the burning sand. Beneath the white surface was
a moist black mud, and the liquid brine oozed