Other Guesses Have Been Made Since As To Its Circumference,
Ranging Between Seventy And One Hundred Miles.
It is shallow,
for I subsequently saw a native punting his canoe over seven or eight miles
of the northeast end; it can never, therefore, be of much value
as a commercial highway.
In fact, during the months preceding
the annual supply of water from the north, the lake is so shallow
that it is with difficulty cattle can approach the water
through the boggy, reedy banks. These are low on all sides, but on the west
there is a space devoid of trees, showing that the waters have retired thence
at no very ancient date. This is another of the proofs of desiccation
met with so abundantly throughout the whole country. A number of dead trees
lie on this space, some of them imbedded in the mud, right in the water.
We were informed by the Bayeiye, who live on the lake,
that when the annual inundation begins, not only trees of great size,
but antelopes, as the springbuck and tsessebe (`Acronotus lunata'),
are swept down by its rushing waters; the trees are gradually driven
by the winds to the opposite side, and become imbedded in mud.
The water of the lake is perfectly fresh when full, but brackish when low;
and that coming down the Tamunak'le we found to be so clear, cold, and soft,
the higher we ascended, that the idea of melting snow was suggested
to our minds. We found this region, with regard to that
from which we had come, to be clearly a hollow, the lowest point
being Lake Kumadau; the point of the ebullition of water,
as shown by one of Newman's barometric thermometers, was only between
207-1/2 Deg.
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