No One Would Own Them; There They Had Remained,
And, Coming On The Trail Of The People, Long After Their Departure
From The Scene Of Conflict, It Was Plain They Had
"Held O'er The Dead Their Carnival."
Hence The Disgust With Which They Were Viewed.
On our way from Khopong, along the ancient river-bed which forms the pathway
to Boatlanama, I found a
Species of cactus, being the third I have seen
in the country, namely, one in the colony with a bright red flower,
one at Lake Ngami, the flower of which was liver-colored, and the present one,
flower unknown. That the plant is uncommon may be inferred from the fact
that the Bakwains find so much difficulty in recognizing the plant again
after having once seen it, that they believe it has the power of changing
its locality.
On the 21st of January we reached the wells of Boatlanama, and found them
for the first time empty. Lopepe, which I had formerly seen a stream
running from a large reedy pool, was also dry. The hot salt spring
of Serinane, east of Lopepe, being undrinkable, we pushed on to Mashue
for its delicious waters. In traveling through this country,
the olfactory nerves are frequently excited by a strong disagreeable odor.
This is caused by a large jet-black ant named "Leshonya".
It is nearly an inch in length, and emits a pungent smell when alarmed,
in the same manner as the skunk. The scent must be as volatile as ether,
for, on irritating the insect with a stick six feet long,
the odor is instantly perceptible.
Occasionally we lighted upon land tortoises, which, with their unlaid eggs,
make a very agreeable dish. We saw many of their trails
leading to the salt fountain; they must have come great distances
for this health-giving article. In lieu thereof they often devour wood-ashes.
It is wonderful how this reptile holds its place in the country. When seen,
it never escapes. The young are taken for the sake of their shells;
these are made into boxes, which, filled with sweet-smelling roots,
the women hang around their persons. When older it is used as food,
and the shell converted into a rude basin to hold food or water.
It owes its continuance neither to speed nor cunning. Its color,
yellow and dark brown, is well adapted, by its similarity
to the surrounding grass and brushwood, to render it indistinguishable;
and, though it makes an awkward attempt to run on the approach of man,
its trust is in its bony covering, from which even the teeth of a hyaena
glance off foiled. When this long-lived creature is about
to deposit her eggs, she lets herself into the ground by throwing the earth up
round her shell, until only the top is visible; then covering up the eggs,
she leaves them until the rains begin to fall and the fresh herbage appears;
the young ones then come out, their shells still quite soft,
and, unattended by their dam, begin the world for themselves.
Their food is tender grass and a plant named thotona, and they frequently
resort to heaps of ashes and places containing efflorescence of the nitrates
for the salts these contain.
Inquiries among the Bushmen and Bakalahari, who are intimately acquainted
with the habits of the game, lead to the belief that many diseases prevail
among wild animals. I have seen the kokong or gnu, kama or hartebeest,
the tsessebe, kukama, and the giraffe, so mangy as to be uneatable
even by the natives. Reference has already been made to the peripneumonia
which cuts off horses, tolos or koodoos. Great numbers also of zebras
are found dead with masses of foam at the nostrils, exactly as occurs
in the common "horse-sickness". The production of the malignant carbuncle
called kuatsi, or selonda, by the flesh when eaten, is another proof
of the disease of the tame and wild being identical. I once found a buffalo
blind from ophthalmia standing by the fountain Otse; when he attempted to run
he lifted up his feet in the manner peculiar to blind animals.
The rhinoceros has often worms on the conjunction of his eyes;
but these are not the cause of the dimness of vision which will make him
charge past a man who has wounded him, if he stands perfectly still,
in the belief that his enemy is a tree. It probably arises from the horn
being in the line of vision, for the variety named kuabaoba,
which has a straight horn directed downward away from that line,
possesses acute eyesight, and is much more wary.
All the wild animals are subject to intestinal worms besides. I have observed
bunches of a tape-like thread and short worms of enlarged sizes
in the rhinoceros. The zebra and elephants are seldom without them,
and a thread-worm may often be seen under the peritoneum of these animals.
Short red larvae, which convey a stinging sensation to the hand,
are seen clustering round the orifice of the windpipe (trachea) of this animal
at the back of the throat; others are seen in the frontal sinus of antelopes;
and curious flat, leech-like worms, with black eyes, are found
in the stomachs of leches. The zebra, giraffe, eland, and kukama
have been seen mere skeletons from decay of their teeth
as well as from disease.
The carnivora, too, become diseased and mangy; lions become lean
and perish miserably by reason of the decay of the teeth.
When a lion becomes too old to catch game, he frequently takes to killing
goats in the villages; a woman or child happening to go out at night
falls a prey too; and as this is his only source of subsistence now,
he continues it. From this circumstance has arisen the idea that the lion,
when he has once tasted human flesh, loves it better than any other.
A man-eater is invariably an old lion; and when he overcomes his fear of man
so far as to come to villages for goats, the people remark,
"His teeth are worn, he will soon kill men." They at once acknowledge
the necessity of instant action, and turn out to kill him.
When living far away from population, or when, as is the case in some parts,
he entertains a wholesome dread of the Bushmen and Bakalahari,
as soon as either disease or old age overtakes him, he begins
to catch mice and other small rodents, and even to eat grass;
the natives, observing undigested vegetable matter in his droppings,
follow up his trail in the certainty of finding him scarcely able to move
under some tree, and dispatch him without difficulty.
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