noon
The ache of my bones was so great that I found myself crying like a baby . What between pain and weakness and nervous exhaustion , I was almost at the end of my tether , and should have fainted dead away if a halt had not been called . But about midday , after we had crossed the track from Blaauwildebeestefontein to the Portuguese frontier , we came to the broad , shallow drift of the Klein Labongo . It is the way of the Kaffirs to rest at noon , and on the other side of the drift we encamped . I remember the smell of hot earth and clean water as my horse scrambled up the bank . Then came the smell of wood-smoke as fires were lit . It seemed an age after we stopped before my feet were loosed and I was allowed to fall over on the ground .