e costumes of our travellers.

For full twenty miles the plain was wasted bare. Not a bite could the
beasts obtain, and water there was none. The sun during the day shone
brightly,--too brightly, for his beams were as hot as within the
tropics. The travellers could scarce have borne them had it not been
that a stiff breeze was blowing all day long. But this unfortunately
blew directly in their faces, and the dry karoos are never without dust.
The constant hopping of the locusts with their millions of tiny feet had
loosened the crust of earth: and now the dust rose freely upon the wind.
Clouds of it enveloped the little caravan, and rendered their forward
movement both difficult and disagreeable. Long before night their
clothes were covered, their mouths filled, and their eyes sore.

But all that was nothing. Long before night a far greater grievance was
felt,--the want of water!

In their hurry to escape from the desolate scene at the kraal, Von Bloom
had not thought of bringing a supply in the wagon--a sad oversight, in a
country like South Africa, where springs are so rare, and running
streams so uncertain. A sad oversight indeed, as they now learnt--for
long before night they were all crying out for water--all were equally
suffering from the pangs of thirst.

Von Bloom thirsted, but he did not think of himself, except that he
suffered from self-accusation. He blamed himself for neglecting to bring
a needful supply of water. He was the cause of the sufferings of all the
rest. He felt sad and humbled on account of his thoughtless negligence.

He could promise them no relief--at least none until they should reach
the spring. He knew of no water nearer.

It would be impossible to reach the spring that night. It was late when
they started. Oxen travel slowly. Half the distance would be as much as
they could make by sundown.

To reach the water they would have to travel all night; but they could
not do that for many reasons. The oxen would require to rest--the more
so that they were hungered; and now Von Bloom thought, when too late, of
another neglect he had committed--that was, in not collecting, during
the flight of the locusts, a sufficient quantity of them to have given
his cattle a feed.

This plan is often adopted under similar circumstances; but the
field-cornet had not thought of it: and as but few locusts fell in the
trails where the animals had been confined, they had therefore been
without food since t