Chapman'' s Travels in South Africa 2 1 1 



ponds (salt pans), with an alirupt bank all round, and the water then, as was 

 usual, nearly up to the top ; but even in ten years a wondeiful change has taken 

 place, the water has gradually diminished, owing no doubt to the general de- 

 siccation going on, and in places where formerly I could swim we have now to 

 go underground for a supply of water. Whenever late and heavy rains fall the 

 natives say that things are very much better, though never as it used to be of old. 

 They say the country is dead" — (vol. ii., p. 62). 



Anderson noticed that the lake is subject to an ebb and flow, 

 which he supposed to be caused by the moon's attraction, but 

 Chapman, rightly considering that the attraction of the moon could 

 have no perceptible influence on such a small body of water, paid 

 more attention to the phenomenon, and found that it was merely 

 caused by the prevailing wind at a particular season (easterly in 

 the morning) driving the water over the very low beach on the 

 opposite shore (as far sometimes as half a-mile) when it is said 

 " to go out and feed," and then receding when the wind subsides 

 in the evening. The same phenomenon extends even to the river 

 opposite the town (which is two miles east of the junction), render- 

 ing the water-mark of the morning and that of the evening very 

 different — (vol. ii., p. 311). 



He also corrects another mistake into which Livingstone and 

 Anderson both fell, in supposing the Botletlie to be an outlet of 

 the N'Gami Lake. He tells us that about thirty years ago, or more, 

 this was indeed the case when the lake extended over perhaps 

 nearly twice the area it occupies now ; but ever since that time it 

 has had two confluences, but no outlet. The waters of the Dzo, 

 dividing, help to supply the lake, but send the largest quantity of 

 water eastward, through Chapo's-lagoon or reedmarsh (the size of 

 which has been under-estimated), into the large Salt Lake. When 

 the Botletlie river is very low, the whole of the water coming from 

 the Dzo into the Tamalukan and Botletlie first flows westward for 

 some distance until it has filled up for a certain distance the deep 

 channel leading lakewards, and not till this is filled up will it have 

 scope to run freely to the eastward, the residue then going west- 

 ward into the lake. Neither the river nor the lake now ever alters 

 its former fulness. The position of the large mochuerie trees on 

 its banks point out the original water-mark. These trees always 

 grow on the water's edge, and, now that the river is receding so 

 far, many die off" every year — (vol. ii., p. 311). 



He tells us, moreover, that it sometimes happens that when the 

 Chobe and the Tso or Dzo, which flows into the Tamalukan out 

 of the Teouge, are full the water runs up the Tamalukan, and the 



