The transmutation
was sometimes employed by me with good effect when speaking with the natives,
as an illustration of our own great change and resurrection.
The soil is sandy, and there are here and there indications
that at spots which now afford no water whatever there were formerly
wells and cattle stations.
Boatlanama, our next station, is a lovely spot in the otherwise dry region.
The wells from which we had to lift out the water for our cattle are deep,
but they were well filled. A few villages of Bakalahari were found near them,
and great numbers of pallahs, springbucks, Guinea-fowl, and small monkeys.
Lopepe came next. This place afforded another proof
of the desiccation of the country. The first time I passed it,
Lopepe was a large pool with a stream flowing out of it to the south;
now it was with difficulty we could get our cattle watered
by digging down in the bottom of a well.
At Mashue - where we found a never-failing supply of pure water
in a sandstone rocky hollow - we left the road to the Bamangwato hills,
and struck away to the north into the Desert. Having watered the cattle
at a well called Lobotani, about N.W. of Bamangwato, we next proceeded
to a real Kalahari fountain, called Serotli.
