His Estimate Of The Extent Of The Lake
Is Higher Than That Given By Mr. Oswell And Myself, Or From About Ninety
To One Hundred Miles In Circumference.
Before the lake was discovered,
Macabe wrote a letter in one of the Cape papers recommending a certain route
as likely to lead to it.
The Transvaal Boers fined him 500 dollars
for writing about "ouze felt", OUR country, and imprisoned him, too,
till the fine was paid. I now learned from his own lips
that the public report of this is true. Mr. Macabe's companion, Mahar,
was mistaken by a tribe of Barolongs for a Boer, and shot as he approached
their village. When Macabe came up and explained that he was an Englishman,
they expressed the utmost regret, and helped to bury him.
This was the first case in recent times of an Englishman being slain
by the Bechuanas. We afterward heard that there had been some fighting
between these Barolongs and the Boers, and that there had been
capturing of cattle on both sides. If this was true, I can only say that
it was the first time that I ever heard of cattle being taken by Bechuanas.
This was a Caffre war in stage the second; the third stage in the development
is when both sides are equally well armed and afraid of each other;
the fourth, when the English take up a quarrel not their own,
and the Boers slip out of the fray.
Two other English gentlemen crossed and recrossed the Desert
about the same time, and nearly in the same direction.
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