Coming To The Lake From The Southeast, He Crossed The Teoughe,
And Went Round The Northern Part Of It, And Is The Only European Traveler
Who Had Actually Seen It All.
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. On returning,
one of them, Captain Shelley, while riding forward on horseback,
lost himself, and was obliged to find his way alone to Kuruman,
some hundreds of miles distant. Reaching that station shirtless,
and as brown as a Griqua, he was taken for one by Mrs. Moffat,
and was received by her with a salutation in Dutch, that being the language
spoken by this people. His sufferings must have been far more severe
than any we endured. The result of the exertions of both Shelley and Macabe
is to prove that the general view of the Desert always given by the natives
has been substantially correct.
Occasionally, during the very dry seasons which succeed our winter
and precede our rains, a hot wind blows over the Desert from north to south.
It feels somewhat as if it came from an oven, and seldom
blows longer at a time than three days. It resembles in its effects
the harmattan of the north of Africa, and at the time the missionaries
first settled in the country, thirty-five years ago,
it came loaded with fine reddish-colored sand. Though no longer
accompanied by sand, it is so devoid of moisture as to cause
the wood of the best seasoned English boxes and furniture to shrink,
so that every wooden article not made in the country is warped.
The verls of ramrods made in England are loosened, and on returning to Europe
fasten again. This wind is in such an electric state
that a bunch of ostrich feathers held a few seconds against it
becomes as strongly charged as if attached to a powerful electrical machine,
and clasps the advancing hand with a sharp crackling sound.
When this hot wind is blowing, and even at other times, the peculiarly strong
electrical state of the atmosphere causes the movement of a native
in his kaross to produce therein a stream of small sparks.
The first time I noticed this appearance was while a chief
was traveling with me in my wagon. Seeing part of the fur of his mantle,
which was exposed to slight friction by the movement of the wagon,
assume quite a luminous appearance, I rubbed it smartly with the hand,
and found it readily gave out bright sparks, accompanied with distinct cracks.
"Don't you see this?" said I. "The white men did not show us this,"
he replied; "we had it long before white men came into the country,
we and our forefathers of old." Unfortunately, I never inquired the name
which they gave to this appearance, but I have no doubt there is one for it
in the language. Otto von Guerrike is said, by Baron Humboldt, to have been
the first that ever observed this effect in Europe, but the phenomenon
had been familiar to the Bechuanas for ages. Nothing came of that, however,
for they viewed the sight as if with the eyes of an ox.
The human mind has remained here as stagnant to the present day,
in reference to the physical operations of the universe,
as it once did in England. No science has been developed,
and few questions are ever discussed except those which have
an intimate connection with the wants of the stomach.
Very large flocks of swifts (`Cypselus apus') were observed
flying over the plains north of Kuruman. I counted a stream of them,
which, by the time it took to pass toward the reeds of that valley,
must have numbered upward of four thousand. Only a few of these birds
breed at any time in this country. I have often observed them,
and noticed that there was no appearance of their having paired;
there was no chasing of each other, nor any playing together.
There are several other birds which continue in flocks, and move about
like wandering gipsies, even during the breeding season, which in this country
happens in the intervals between the cold and hot seasons,
cold acting somewhat in the same way here as the genial warmth of spring
does in Europe. Are these the migratory birds of Europe,
which return there to breed and rear their young?
On the 31st of December, 1852, we reached the town of Sechele,
called, from the part of the range on which it is situated, Litubaruba.
Near the village there exists a cave named Lepelole;
it is an interesting evidence of the former existence of a gushing fountain.
No one dared to enter the Lohaheng, or cave, for it was the common belief
that it was the habitation of the Deity.
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