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."*
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* Letters published by the Royal Geographical Society.
Read 11th February and 8th April, 1850.
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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.
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