us, we would repeat the gift on our return.

After exhausting all his eloquence in fruitless attempts to persuade us
to return, the under-chief, who headed the party of Sekomi's messengers,
inquired, "Who is taking them?" Looking round, he exclaimed, with a face
expressive of the most unfeigned disgust, "It is Ramotobi!" Our guide
belonged to Sekomi's tribe, but had fled to Sechele; as fugitives in
this country are always well received, and may even afterward visit the
tribe from which they had escaped, Ramotobi was in no danger, though
doing that which he knew to be directly opposed to the interests of his
own chief and tribe.

All around Serotli the country is perfectly flat, and composed of
soft white sand. There is a peculiar glare of bright sunlight from a
cloudless sky over the whole scene; and one clump of trees and bushes,
with open spaces between, looks so exactly like another, that if you
leave the wells, and walk a quarter of a mile in any direction, it is
difficult to return. Oswell and Murray went out on one occasion to get
an eland, and were accompanied by one of the Bakalahari. The perfect
sameness of the country caused even this son of the Desert to lose his
way; a most puzzling conversation forthwith ensued between them and
their guide. One of the most common phrases of the people is "Kia
itumela", I thank you, or I am pleased; and the gentlemen were both
quite familiar with it, and with the word "metse", water. But there is a
word very similar in sound, "Kia timela", I am wandering; its perfect
is "Ki timetse", I have wandered. The party had been roaming about,
perfectly lost, till the sun went down; and, through their mistaking the
verb "wander" for "to be pleased", and "water", the colloquy went on at
intervals during the whole bitterly cold night in somewhat the following
style:

"Where are the wagons?"

REAL ANSWER. "I don't know. I have wandered. I never wandered before. I
am quite lost."

SUPPOSED ANSWER. "I don't know. I want water. I am glad, I am quite
pleased. I am thankful to you."

"Take us to the wagons, and you will get plenty of water."

REAL ANSWER (looking vacantly around). "How did I wander? Perhaps the
well is there, perhaps not. I don't know. I have wandered."

SUPPOSED ANSWER. "Something about thanks; he says he is pleased, and
mentions water again." The guide's vacant stare while trying to remember
is thought to indicate mental imbecility, and the repeated thanks were
s