Missionary Travels and Researches in South Africa, David Livingstone [novels for teenagers .TXT] 📗

lies the River Mokoko;" which, though we passed along it, I could not perceive to be a river-bed at all.

After breakfast, some of the men, who had gone forward on a little path with some footprints of water-loving animals upon it, returned with the joyful tidings of "metse", water, exhibiting the mud on their knees in confirmation of the news being true. It does one's heart good to see the thirsty oxen rush into a pool of delicious rain-water, as this was. In they dash until the water is deep enough to be nearly level with their throat, and then they stand drawing slowly in the long, refreshing mouthfuls, until their formerly collapsed sides distend as if they would burst. So much do they imbibe, that a sudden jerk, when they come out on the bank, makes some of the water run out again from their mouths; but, as they have been days without food too, they very soon commence to graze, and of grass there is always abundance every where. This pool was called Mathuluani; and thankful we were to have obtained so welcome a supply of water.

After giving the cattle a rest at this spot, we proceeded down the dry bed of the River Mokoko. The name refers to the water-bearing stratum before alluded to; and in this ancient bed it bears enough of water to admit of permanent wells in several parts of it. We had now the assurance from Ramotobi that we should suffer no more from thirst.

Twice we found rain-water in the Mokoko before we reached Mokokonyani, where the water, generally below ground elsewhere, comes to the surface in a bed of tufa. The adjacent country is all covered with low, thorny scrub, with grass, and here and there clumps of the "wait-a-bit thorn", or `Acacia detinens'. At Lotlakani (a little reed), another spring three miles farther down, we met with the first Palmyra trees which we had seen in South Africa; they were twenty-six in number.

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. It is never, I believe, seen in perfection, except over such saline incrustations.

Here not a particle of imagination was necessary for realizing the exact picture of large collections of water; the waves danced along above, and the shadows of the trees were vividly reflected beneath the surface in such an admirable manner, that the loose cattle, whose thirst had not been slaked sufficiently by the very brackish water of Nchokotsa, with the horses, dogs, and even the Hottentots ran off toward the deceitful pools. A herd of zebras in the mirage looked so exactly like elephants that Oswell began to saddle a horse in order to hunt them; but a sort of break in the haze dispelled the illusion. Looking to the west and northwest from Nchokotsa, we could see columns of black smoke, exactly like those from a steam-engine, rising to the clouds, and were assured that these arose from the burning reeds of the Noka ea Batletli.

On the 4th of July we went forward on horseback toward what we supposed to be the lake, and again and again did we seem to see it; but at last we came to the veritable water of the Zouga, and found it to be a river running to the N.E. A village of Bakurutse lay on the opposite bank; these live among Batletli, a tribe having a click in their language, and who were found by Sebituane to possess large herds of the great horned cattle. They seem allied to the Hottentot family. Mr. Oswell, in trying to cross the river, got his horse bogged in the swampy bank. Two Bakwains and I managed to get over by wading beside a fishing-weir. The people were friendly, and informed us that this water came out of the Ngami. This news gladdened all our hearts, for we now felt certain of reaching our goal. We might, they said, be a moon on the way; but we had the River Zouga at our feet, and by following it we should at last reach the broad water.

Next day, when we were quite disposed to be friendly with every one, two of the Bamangwato, who had been sent on before us by Sekomi to drive away all the Bushmen and Bakalahari from our path, so that they should not assist or guide us, came and sat down by our fire.

We had seen their footsteps fresh in the way, and they had watched our slow movements forward, and wondered to see how we, without any Bushmen, found our way to the waters. This was the first time they had seen Ramotobi.

"You have reached the river now," said they; and we, quite disposed to laugh at having won the game, felt no ill-will to any one. They seemed to feel no enmity to us either; but, after an apparently friendly conversation, proceeded to fulfill to the last the instructions of their chief.

Ascending the Zouga in our front, they circulated the report that our object was to plunder all the tribes living on the river and lake; but when they had got half way up the river, the principal man sickened of fever, turned back some distance, and died.

His death had a good effect, for the villagers connected it with the injury he was attempting to do to us. They all saw through Sekomi's reasons for wishing us to fail in our attempt; and though they came to us at first armed, kind and fair treatment soon produced perfect confidence.

When we had gone up the bank of this beautiful river about ninety-six miles from the point where we first struck it, and understood that we were still a considerable distance from the Ngami, we left all the oxen and wagons, except Mr. Oswell's, which was the smallest, and one team, at Ngabisane, in the hope that they would be recruited for the home journey, while we made a push for the lake. The Bechuana chief of the Lake region, who had sent men to Sechele, now sent orders to all the people on the river to assist us, and we were received by the Bakoba, whose language clearly shows that they bear an affinity to the tribes in the north.

They call themselves Bayeiye, i.e., men; but the Bechuanas call them Bakoba, which contains somewhat of the idea of slaves. They have never been known to fight, and, indeed, have a tradition that their forefathers, in their first essays at war, made their bows of the Palma Christi, and, when these broke, they gave up fighting altogether.

They have invariably submitted to the rule of every horde which has overrun the countries adjacent to the rivers on which they specially love to dwell.

They are thus the Quakers of the body politic in Africa.

A long time after the period of our visit, the chief of the Lake, thinking to make soldiers of them, took the trouble to furnish them with shields. "Ah! we never had these before; that is the reason we have always succumbed. Now we will fight." But a marauding party came from the Makololo, and our "Friends" at once paddled quickly, night and day, down the Zouga, never daring to look behind them till they reached the end of the river, at the point where we first saw it.

The canoes of these inland sailors are truly primitive craft: they are hollowed out of the trunks of single trees by means of iron adzes; and if the tree has a bend, so has the canoe. I liked the frank and manly bearing of these men, and, instead of sitting in the wagon, preferred a seat in one of the canoes. I found they regarded their rude vessels as the Arab does his camel. They have always fires in them, and prefer sleeping in them while on a journey to spending the night on shore.

"On land you have lions," say they, "serpents, hyaenas, and your enemies; but in your canoe, behind a bank of reed, nothing can harm you."

Their submissive disposition leads to their villages being frequently visited by hungry strangers. We had a pot on the fire in the canoe by the way, and when we drew near the villages devoured the contents.

When fully satisfied ourselves, I found we could all look upon any intruders with perfect complacency, and show the pot in proof of having devoured the last morsel.

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