A Long Time After The Period Of Our Visit, The Chief Of The Lake,
Thinking To Make Soldiers Of Them, Took The Trouble To Furnish Them
With Shields.
"Ah!
We never had these before; that is the reason
we have always succumbed. Now we will fight." But a marauding party
came from the Makololo, and our "Friends" at once paddled quickly,
night and day, down the Zouga, never daring to look behind them
till they reached the end of the river, at the point where we first saw it.
The canoes of these inland sailors are truly primitive craft:
they are hollowed out of the trunks of single trees by means of iron adzes;
and if the tree has a bend, so has the canoe. I liked the frank and manly
bearing of these men, and, instead of sitting in the wagon, preferred a seat
in one of the canoes. I found they regarded their rude vessels
as the Arab does his camel. They have always fires in them,
and prefer sleeping in them while on a journey to spending the night on shore.
"On land you have lions," say they, "serpents, hyaenas, and your enemies;
but in your canoe, behind a bank of reed, nothing can harm you."
Their submissive disposition leads to their villages being frequently visited
by hungry strangers. We had a pot on the fire in the canoe by the way,
and when we drew near the villages devoured the contents.
When fully satisfied ourselves, I found we could all look upon any intruders
with perfect complacency, and show the pot in proof of having devoured
the last morsel.
While ascending in this way the beautifully-wooded river,
we came to a large stream flowing into it. This was the River Tamunak'le.
I inquired whence it came. "Oh, from a country full of rivers -
so many no one can tell their number - and full of large trees."
This was the first confirmation of statements I had heard
from the Bakwains who had been with Sebituane, that the country beyond
was not "the large sandy plateau" of the philosophers.
The prospect of a highway capable of being traversed by boats
to an entirely unexplored and very populous region,
grew from that time forward stronger and stronger in my mind;
so much so that, when we actually came to the lake, this idea occupied
such a large portion of my mental vision that the actual discovery
seemed of but little importance. I find I wrote, when the emotions caused
by the magnificent prospects of the new country were first awakened
in my breast, that they "might subject me to the charge of enthusiasm,
a charge which I wished I deserved, as nothing good or great
had ever been accomplished in the world without it."*
-
* Letters published by the Royal Geographical Society.
Read 11th February and 8th April, 1850.
-
Twelve days after our departure from the wagons at Ngabisane
we came to the northeast end of Lake Ngami; and on the 1st of August, 1849,
we went down together to the broad part, and, for the first time,
this fine-looking sheet of water was beheld by Europeans.
The direction of the lake seemed to be N.N.E. and S.S.W. by compass.
The southern portion is said to bend round to the west,
and to receive the Teoughe from the north at its northwest extremity.
We could detect no horizon where we stood looking S.S.W.,
nor could we form any idea of the extent of the lake, except from
the reports of the inhabitants of the district; and, as they professed
to go round it in three days, allowing twenty-five miles a day
would make it seventy-five, or less than seventy geographical miles
in circumference. 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. and 206 Deg., giving an elevation of not much more
than two thousand feet above the level of the sea. We had descended
above two thousand feet in coming to it from Kolobeng.
It is the southern and lowest part of the great river system beyond,
in which large tracts of country are inundated annually by tropical rains,
hereafter to be described. A little of that water, which in the countries
farther north produces inundation, comes as far south as 20d 20',
the latitude of the upper end of the lake, and instead of
flooding the country, falls into the lake as into a reservoir.
It begins to flow down the Embarrah, which divides into the rivers
Tzo and Teoughe.
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