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As a rule, eager as we were for water, a sort of order prevailed, and every man got his gallon water-bag filled until the supply was exhausted. And generally the owner of the water received due payment. About Christmas-time the water-famine was at its height.

And from the waterworks on the Eastern side of the town the supply had been cut off by the enemy, so that the taps of Gueldersdorp had ceased to yield. Old wells and springs had been reopened, cleaned, and brought into use for drinking purposes, so that of a water-famine there could be no fear.

It was too introspective to have its origin solely in the fact that sheep were dying by thousands, that the stock-routes were as dry of water as the hard sky above us, and that it was a toss-up whether many families in the West should not presently abandon their stations, driven out by a water-famine and worse.

To this day no one can give satisfactory reasons why the water flows continuously from the earth through the pipe of a driven-well. Hence, to the public generally, this mode of obtaining water was new and little understood. At the time of its introduction to Brooklyn a water-famine was threatened.

The Boers cut off the water-supply, and, with contrary ideas of logic, thought that such an action would damp the spirits of Baden-Powell. But that thoughtful and resourceful commander had seen that all the old wells were cleaned, and well filled, so that Mafeking was as secure from a water-famine as it was from the entrance of the Boers.

Fantastic though the theory of their artificial origin appear, it is held by serious astronomers. Its vogue is largely due to Mr. Lowell's ingenious advocacy. He considers the Martian globe to be everywhere intersected by an elaborate system of irrigation-works, rendered necessary by a perennial water-famine, relieved periodically by the melting of the polar snows.