The Ancient Mokoko Must Have Been Joined By Other Rivers Below This,
For It Becomes Very Broad, And Spreads Out
Into a large lake,
of which the lake we were now in search of formed but a very small part.
We observed that, wherever an ant-eater had made his hole,
shells were thrown out with the earth, identical with those
now alive in the lake.
When we left the Mokoko, Ramotobi seemed, for the first time,
to be at a loss as to which direction to take. He had passed only once
away to the west of the Mokoko, the scenes of his boyhood. Mr. Oswell,
while riding in front of the wagons, happened to spy a Bushwoman running away
in a bent position, in order to escape observation. Thinking it to be a lion,
he galloped up to her. She thought herself captured, and began to deliver up
her poor little property, consisting of a few traps made of cords;
but, when I explained that we only wanted water, and would pay her
if she led us to it, she consented to conduct us to a spring.
It was then late in the afternoon, but she walked briskly before our horses
for eight miles, and showed us the water of Nchokotsa.
After leading us to the water, she wished to go away home,
if indeed she had any - she had fled from a party of her countrymen,
and was now living far from all others with her husband -
but as it was now dark, we wished her to remain. As she believed herself
still a captive, we thought she might slip away by night; so, in order that
she should not go away with the impression that we were dishonest,
we gave her a piece of meat and a good large bunch of beads;
at the sight of the latter she burst into a merry laugh,
and remained without suspicion.
At Nchokotsa we came upon the first of a great number of salt-pans,
covered with an efflorescence of lime, probably the nitrate.
A thick belt of mopane-trees (a `Bauhinia') hides this salt-pan,
which is twenty miles in circumference, entirely from the view of a person
coming from the southeast; and, at the time the pan burst upon our view,
the setting sun was casting a beautiful blue haze over
the white incrustations, making the whole look exactly like a lake.
Oswell threw his hat up in the air at the sight, and shouted out a huzza
which made the poor Bushwoman and the Bakwains think him mad.
I was a little behind him, and was as completely deceived by it as he;
but, as we had agreed to allow each other to behold the lake
at the same instant, I felt a little chagrined that he had, unintentionally,
got the first glance. We had no idea that the long-looked-for lake was still
more than three hundred miles distant. One reason of our mistake was,
that the River Zouga was often spoken of by the same name as the lake,
viz., Noka ea Batletli ("River of the Batletli").
The mirage on these salinas was marvelous.
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