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Page 31
"Let us go and look," I put in, and hopelessly enough we scrambled up
the sandy sides of the hillock, Umbopa leading. Presently he stopped
as though he was petrified.
"/Nanzia manzie/!" that is, "Here is water!" he cried with a loud
voice.
We rushed up to him, and there, sure enough, in a deep cut or
indentation on the very top of the sand koppie, was an undoubted pool
of water. How it came to be in such a strange place we did not stop to
inquire, nor did we hesitate at its black and unpleasant appearance.
It was water, or a good imitation of it, and that was enough for us.
We gave a bound and a rush, and in another second we were all down on
our stomachs sucking up the uninviting fluid as though it were nectar
fit for the gods. Heavens, how we did drink! Then when we had done
drinking we tore off our clothes and sat down in the pool, absorbing
the moisture through our parched skins. You, Harry, my boy, who have
only to turn on a couple of taps to summon "hot" and "cold" from an
unseen, vasty cistern, can have little idea of the luxury of that
muddy wallow in brackish tepid water.
After a while we rose from it, refreshed indeed, and fell to on our
"biltong," of which we had scarcely been able to touch a mouthful for
twenty-four hours, and ate our fill. Then we smoked a pipe, and lay
down by the side of that blessed pool, under the overhanging shadow of
its bank, and slept till noon.
All that day we rested there by the water, thanking our stars that we
had been lucky enough to find it, bad as it was, and not forgetting to
render a due share of gratitude to the shade of the long-departed da
Silvestra, who had set its position down so accurately on the tail of
his shirt. The wonderful thing to us was that the pan should have
lasted so long, and the only way in which I can account for this is on
the supposition that it is fed by some spring deep down in the sand.
Having filled both ourselves and our water-bottles as full as
possible, in far better spirits we started off again with the moon.
That night we covered nearly five-and-twenty miles; but, needless to
say, found no more water, though we were lucky enough the following
day to get a little shade behind some ant-heaps. When the sun rose,
and, for awhile, cleared away the mysterious mists, Suliman's Berg
with the two majestic Breasts, now only about twenty miles off, seemed
to be towering right above us, and looked grander than ever. At the
approach of evening we marched again, and, to cut a long story short,
by daylight next morning found ourselves upon the lowest slopes of
Sheba's left breast, for which we had been steadily steering. By this
time our water was exhausted once more, and we were suffering severely
from thirst, nor indeed could we see any chance of relieving it till
we reached the snow line far, far above us. After resting an hour or
two, driven to it by our torturing thirst, we went on, toiling
painfully in the burning heat up the lava slopes, for we found that
the huge base of the mountain was composed entirely of lava beds
belched from the bowels of the earth in some far past age.
By eleven o'clock we were utterly exhausted, and, generally speaking,
in a very bad state indeed. The lava clinker, over which we must drag
ourselves, though smooth compared with some clinker I have heard of,
such as that on the Island of Ascension, for instance, was yet rough
enough to make our feet very sore, and this, together with our other
miseries, had pretty well finished us. A few hundred yards above us
were some large lumps of lava, and towards these we steered with the
intention of lying down beneath their shade. We reached them, and to
our surprise, so far as we had a capacity for surprise left in us, on
a little plateau or ridge close by we saw that the clinker was covered
with a dense green growth. Evidently soil formed of decomposed lava
had rested there, and in due course had become the receptacle of seeds
deposited by birds. But we did not take much further interest in the
green growth, for one cannot live on grass like Nebuchadnezzar. That
requires a special dispensation of Providence and peculiar digestive
organs.
So we sat down under the rocks and groaned, and for one I wished
heartily that we had never started on this fool's errand. As we were
sitting there I saw Umbopa get up and hobble towards the patch of
green, and a few minutes afterwards, to my great astonishment, I
perceived that usually very dignified individual dancing and shouting
like a maniac, and waving something green. Off we all scrambled
towards him as fast as our wearied limbs would carry us, hoping that
he had found water.
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