XI OSTRICHES, ZEBRAS, ANTELOPES 223 



which Livingstone mentions by the name " Ngwa," 

 and which is known to Khama's people at the present 

 day as " Goh-ha." 



By the time that the last elephant was disposed of, 

 and mv scattered followers had reassembled, it was 

 late in the afternoon, and we were all of us terribly 

 distressed for want of water ; so, as there was a 

 moon, I resolved to wait for the cool of night to get 

 back to the river. 



Although we had followed upon the spoor of our 

 victims for a great distance, they had pursued a zig- 

 zag course, so that we were not so far away from the 

 marsh as I had imagined. Still, it was not much before 

 midnight that our ears were at length greeted by the 

 distant croaking of many thousands of frogs, and a 

 ^QyN minutes later I was having calabashes of water 

 poured over my head, and washing some of the dirt 

 from my grimy person. By good luck we had hit off 

 the marsh pretty close to our encampment, which we 

 at length reached about half an hour afterwards. 



During the next two days, whilst most of my 

 Kafirs were away chopping out the tusks of the five 

 elephants, I took my two gun-carriers with me and 

 examined the country farther on ahead. I found that 

 just beyond my encampment the country between 

 the marsh and the torcst-clad sand-belt opened out 

 into an enormous alluvial flat, scattered over which 

 were here and there patches of bush and clumps of 

 tall acacia trees. After leaving the sand-belt and 

 getting a good distance out into this flat in the 

 direction of the marsh, the top of Mount Umgooloo 

 at length appeared in the distance, rising higher 

 and higher above the tree-tops as I proceeded. On 

 this flat I saw several ostriches, and great numbers of 

 zebras and tsessebe antelopes. 



