Thinking black; 22 years without a break in the long grass of Central ...

156 THINKING BLACK
and like ships away on the skyline, suspicion the faint
outline of one or two palm-like trees, mere pin-points in
the immensity. Into this desolation we plunge to-day,
our black guides warning us that we will be cheaply
out of it with four days' hard journeying, water the cruel
lack ahead. We are in for Zebulun's portion at last
"They shall suck of treasures hid in the sand." Thus
spurred on, we cut off our first slice of desert in a five
hours' journey, lurching along over tiresome sand, the
joys of a flat-as-a-dining-table path quite lost in the
dragging, deterrent track. Towards the close of the journey
wells dug by former travellers begin to appear, and down
into these we anxiously peer for a sign of water. In vain.
Once and again, and yet again, we draw blank, all as dry
as a kiln. Not enough water to wash your teeth in, not
a drop. N.B, : Dig your well before you are thirsty.
Yet still we swelter on, more than a little hungry, more
than a little hot, more than a little dirty, seeking, ever
seeking the water we find not. Miles and miles of un-
mitigated desert voila tout.
At last our joyless, jaded men will no longer be
beguiled on by hopes of hypothetical water, so they de-
clare they will dig. This they do, right nobly, under a
broiling sun, and although a solid hour of it sees no
result, still they dig on into the second hour with plucky
negro pugnacity and breathing as loud as a forge bellows.
That perspiration streaming from them in the sun, they
call " the salt melting out of the beef." All our superior
sagacity is scorned, the Bihean being quite sure that if