from the ground.  She seemed also paralysed with cold.  Her little mite of a calf had to be killed.  We milked the mother as well as we could while she was lying down, and we fed and watered her—­at least we offered her food and water, but she was in too great pain to eat.  Camel calves are, in proportion to their mothers, the most diminutive but pretty little objects imaginable.  I delayed here an additional day on the poor creature’s account, but all our efforts to raise her proved unsuccessful.  I could not leave the poor dumb brute on the ground to die by inches slowly, by famine, and alone, so I in mercy shot her just before we left the place, and left her dead alongside the progeny that she had brought to life in such a wilderness, only at the expense of her own.  She had been Mr. Tietkens’s hack, and one of our best riding camels.  We had now little over forty miles to go to reach the dam, and as all our water had been consumed, and the vessels were empty, the loads now were light enough.  On the 3rd of September we arrived, and were delighted to find that not only had the dam been replenished, but it was full to overflowing.  A little water was actually visible in the lake-bed alongside of it, at the southern end, but it was unfit for drinking.

The little reservoir had now six feet of water in it; there was sufficient for all my expected requirements.  The camels could drink at their ease and pleasure.  The herbage and grass was more green and luxuriant than ever, and to my eyes it now appeared a far more pretty scene.  There were the magenta-coloured vetch, the scarlet desert-pea, and numerous other leguminous plants, bushes, and trees, of which the camels are so fond.  Mr. Young informed me that he had seen two or three natives from the spot at which we pitched our tents, but I saw none, and they never returned while we were in occupation of their property.  This would be considered a pretty spot anywhere, but coming suddenly on it from the dull and sombre scrubs, the contrast makes it additionally striking.  In the background to the south were some high red sandhills, on which grew some scattered casuarina of the black oak kind, which is a different variety from, and not so elegant or shady a tree as, the finer desert oak, which usually grows in more open regions.  I have not as yet seen any of them on this expedition.  All round the lake is a green and open space with scrubs standing back, and the white lake-bed in the centre.  The little dam was situated on a piece of clay ground where rain-water from the foot of some of the sandhills could run into the lake; and here the natives had made a clumsy and (ab)original attempt at storing the water, having dug out the tank in the wrong place, at least not in the best position for catching the rain-water.  I felt sure there was to be a waterless track beyond, so I stayed at this agreeable place for a week, in order to recruit the camels, and more particularly to enable another cow to calve.  During this interval