We had our misgivings, for the spades were soon produced; but our guides, despising such new-fangled aid, began in good earnest to scrape out the sand with their hands.

The only water we had any promise of for the next seventy miles--that is, for a journey of three days with the wagons--was to be got here.

By the aid of both spades and fingers two of the holes were cleared out, so as to form pits six feet deep and about as many broad.

Our guides were especially earnest in their injunctions to us not to break through the hard stratum of sand at the bottom, because they knew, if it were broken through, "the water would go away." They are quite correct, for the water seems to lie on this flooring of incipient sandstone.

The value of the advice was proved in the case of an Englishman whose wits were none of the brightest, who, disregarding it, dug through the sandy stratum in the wells at Mohotluani: the water immediately flowed away downward, and the well became useless.