Chapter 18—The Desert
It was indeed no better than a desert which now lay before the travellers. When, on the 25th of December, they completed the measurement of another degree, and reached the northern boundary of the karroo, they found no difference between the district they had been traversing and the new country, the real desert, arid and scorching, over which they were now about to pass. The animals belonging to the caravan suffered greatly from the dearth alike of pasturage and water. The last drops of rain in the pools had dried up, and it was an acrid soil, a mixture of clay and sand, very unfavourable to vegetation. The waters of the rainy season filtered quickly through the sandy strata, so that the region was incapable of preserving for any length of time a particle of moisture
