We took but little notice of the natives, as obtaining water was of greater interest at that moment than the prosecution of ethnological studies.  Charlie worked away down the well with perfect unconcern, while the rest of us were occupied in hauling up the sand from below and keeping the blacks at a distance.  Wonderfully cunning fellows they were!  I was standing close by a Winchester which lay on the ground; one man came up, patting me all over and grinning in the most friendly way, and all the time he worked away with his foot to move the rifle to his mate beside me.  However, he did not succeed, nor another who tried the same trick on Godfrey, and after a time they all retired, for reasons best known to themselves, leaving only the old man and the children behind.

Godfrey pressed the old man into our service and made him cut bushes for a shade; it seemed to me that an axe was not just the best thing for a man who would probably sooner have used it against us than not, so he was deposed from his office as woodcutter.  As soon as the well was ready for baling I walked off to see if anything of interest could be found, or if another camp was anywhere near.  The instant the old Jew saw me sling a rifle over my shoulder he ran like a hare, yelling as he went.  He was answered by similar calls not far off.  As he ran he picked up his spears from a bush, and I could see the marks of the weapons of the rest of the tribe, which had been planted just over the rise of sand.  They evidently knew all about a rifle, yet we were still over a hundred miles in a bee-line from Hall’s Creek.  I saw their fleeing figures scattering in all directions, and followed up some tracks for some distance without finding anything of interest.

I noticed a considerable change in the country to the East, over which there spread a forest of desert oak, and near the sandhills thickets of ti-tree.  The well seems to be at the head of an ill-defined watercourse, which, lower down, runs between an avenue of bloodwoods.  Close to the well are several large ant-heaps, and from the sandhill above it little can be seen; but north of the well one mile distant is a high ridge of sand, from which is visible a prominent square hill, bearing 334 degrees distant eighteen miles; this stands at the Eastern end of a tableland, and is named Mount Bannerman, after my sister-in-law.  The well had an abundant supply, though a little hard to get at, as it was enclosed by two rocks very close together, necessitating a most cramped position when baling with a saucepan on the end of a stick.

By daylight we had watered all the camels and were glad to rest under the shade we had made with boughs.  Our rest lasted three days to allow Prempeh, who was very poorly, to recover.  The flies, as usual, worried us unmercifully, but I was so thankful to regain once more my sense of hearing that I rather enjoyed their buzzing.  I had for some weeks been so deaf that unless I had my attention fixed on something, I could not hear at all.  I must have been a great bore to my companions very often, for frequently they talked for a long time to me, only to find that I had not heard a word!