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* This Is An Instrument Which, When Fastened On The Wagon-Wheel,
Records The Number Of Revolutions Made.
By multiplying this number
by the circumference of the wheel, the actual distance traveled over
is at once ascertained.
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Ramotobi was angry at the slowness of our progress, and told us that,
as the next water was three days in front, if we traveled so slowly
we should never get there at all. The utmost endeavors of the servants,
cracking their whips, screaming and beating, got only nineteen miles
out of the poor beasts. We had thus proceeded forty-four miles from Serotli;
and the oxen were more exhausted by the soft nature of the country,
and the thirst, than if they had traveled double the distance over a hard road
containing supplies of water: we had, as far as we could judge,
still thirty miles more of the same dry work before us. At this season
the grass becomes so dry as to crumble to powder in the hands;
so the poor beasts stood wearily chewing, without taking
a single fresh mouthful, and lowing painfully at the smell of water
in our vessels in the wagons. We were all determined to succeed;
so we endeavored to save the horses by sending them forward with the guide,
as a means of making a desperate effort in case the oxen should fail.
Murray went forward with them, while Oswell and I remained
to bring the wagons on their trail as far as the cattle could drag them,
intending then to send the oxen forward too.
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