In They Dash Until The Water Is Deep Enough To Be Nearly Level
With Their Throat, And Then They Stand Drawing Slowly In
The Long, Refreshing Mouthfuls, Until Their Formerly Collapsed Sides
Distend As If They Would Burst.
So much do they imbibe, that a sudden jerk,
when they come out on the bank, makes some of
The water run out again
from their mouths; but, as they have been days without food too,
they very soon commence to graze, and of grass there is always
abundance every where. This pool was called Mathuluani;
and thankful we were to have obtained so welcome a supply of water.
After giving the cattle a rest at this spot, we proceeded down
the dry bed of the River Mokoko. The name refers to the water-bearing stratum
before alluded to; and in this ancient bed it bears enough of water
to admit of permanent wells in several parts of it. We had now
the assurance from Ramotobi that we should suffer no more from thirst.
Twice we found rain-water in the Mokoko before we reached Mokokonyani,
where the water, generally below ground elsewhere, comes to the surface
in a bed of tufa. The adjacent country is all covered with low, thorny scrub,
with grass, and here and there clumps of the "wait-a-bit thorn",
or `Acacia detinens'. At Lotlakani (a little reed), another spring
three miles farther down, we met with the first Palmyra trees
which we had seen in South Africa; they were twenty-six in number.
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