It Resembles A Deserted Eastern Garden,
Where All The Embankments And Canals For Irrigation Can Be Traced,
But Where, The Main Dam And Sluices Having Been Allowed To Get Out Of Repair,
Only A Small Portion Can Be Laid Under Water.
In the case of the Zouga
the channel is perfect, but water enough to fill the whole channel
never
Comes down; and before it finds its way much beyond Kumadau,
the upper supply ceases to run and the rest becomes evaporated.
The higher parts of its bed even are much broader and more capacious
than the lower toward Kumadau. The water is not absorbed so much as lost
in filling up an empty channel, from which it is to be removed
by the air and sun. There is, I am convinced, no such thing in the country
as a river running into sand and becoming lost. The phenomenon,
so convenient for geographers, haunted my fancy for years; but I have failed
in discovering any thing except a most insignificant approach to it.
My chief object in coming to the lake was to visit Sebituane,
the great chief of the Makololo, who was reported to live some
two hundred miles beyond. We had now come to a half-tribe of the Bamangwato,
called Batauana. Their chief was a young man named Lechulatebe.
Sebituane had conquered his father Moremi, and Lechulatebe
received part of his education while a captive among the Bayeiye.
His uncle, a sensible man, ransomed him; and, having collected
a number of families together, abdicated the chieftainship
in favor of his nephew.
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