It Lies Two Thousand Feet Above The Level Of The Sea,
And As Much Below The Southern Border Of The Kalahari, Which Slopes Gradually
Toward The Interior.
Their desire to visit Sebituane, whose residence was considerably farther
in the interior, was frustrated by the jealousy of Lechulatebe,
a chief near the lake, and the expedition returned to the station at Kolobeng.
The attempt was renewed the following year.
Mrs. Livingstone,
their three children, and Sechele accompanied him. The lake was reached.
Lechulatebe, propitiated by the present of a valuable gun, agreed to furnish
guides to Sebituane's country; but the children and servants fell ill,
and the attempt was for the time abandoned.
A third expedition was successful, although the whole party
came near perishing for want of water, and their cattle,
which had been bitten by the `Tsetse', died.
This insect - the `Glossina moritans' of the naturalists -
deserves a special paragraph. It is a brown insect about as large
as our common house-fly, with three or four yellow bars
across its hinder part. A lively, buzzing, harmless-looking fellow
is the tsetse. Its bite produces a slight itching similar to that
caused by the mosquito, and in the case of men and some species of animals
no further ill effects follow. But woe to the horse, the ox, and the dog,
when once bitten by the tsetse. No immediate harm appears;
the animal is not startled as by the gad-fly; but in a few days
the eyes and the nose begin to run; the jaws and navel swell;
the animal grazes for a while as usual, but grows emaciated and weak,
and dies, it may be, weeks or months after.
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