Among The Trees May Be Observed Some Species Of The `Ficus Indica',
Light-Green Colored Acacias, The Splendid Motsintsela,
And Evergreen Cypress-Shaped Motsouri.
The fruit of the last-named was ripe,
and the villagers presented many dishes of its beautiful pink-colored plums;
they are used chiefly to form a pleasant acid drink.
The motsintsela
is a very lofty tree, yielding a wood of which good canoes are made;
the fruit is nutritious and good, but, like many wild fruits of this country,
the fleshy parts require to be enlarged by cultivation:
it is nearly all stone.
The course of the river we found to be extremely tortuous; so much so, indeed,
as to carry us to all points of the compass every dozen miles.
Some of us walked from a bend at the village of Moremi to another
nearly due east of that point, in six hours, while the canoes,
going at more than double our speed, took twelve to accomplish
the voyage between the same two places. And though the river
is from thirteen to fifteen feet in depth at its lowest ebb, and broad enough
to allow a steamer to ply upon it, the suddenness of the bendings
would prevent navigation; but, should the country ever become civilized,
the Chobe would be a convenient natural canal. We spent
forty-two and a half hours, paddling at the rate of five miles an hour,
in coming from Linyanti to the confluence; there we found a dike of amygdaloid
lying across the Leeambye.
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