XVII A VERY PLEASANT COUNTRY 295 



had fallen on it, but the intervening spaces where 

 the Mopani trees flourish, and where the soil is a 

 sort of light clay, had been transformed into broad, 

 shallow lakes, from a few inches to two feet in 

 depth. Riding across one of these flooded valleys, 

 I came upon a porcupine seated disconsolately on 

 the stem of a fallen Mopani tree — the first of these 

 animals I had ever come across in the daytime. 



The surface floods soon soaked away on the 

 level ground, but every hollow became a lake or 

 pond which held water for a longer or shorter time 

 according to its depth, and when retraversing this 

 same tract of country some five months later, I still 

 found all the larger hollows fairly full, and was 

 therefore able to travel at my leisure with ease and 

 comfort through a country which, in ordinary 

 seasons, would have been quite impassable by 

 bullock waggon at that time of the year. 



Under these conditions, I found this usually 

 arid waste a very pleasant place to wander over. 

 Game, though not very abundant, was still in 

 sufficient numbers to enable me to keep my own 

 people and the several families of Bushmen who 

 had attached themselves to me in rude plenty. 

 Owing to the favourable season, all grazing and 

 browsing animals, including my own cattle, were in 

 very good condition, and my larder seldom lacked 

 the choicest portions of the giraffe, eland, gemsbuck, 

 and springbuck, four of the best animals for the 

 table, when in prime condition, which South Africa, 

 or any other part of the world, can produce. Blue 

 wildebeests were more plentiful than all other 

 species of game, and on the broad, grassy plains 

 which stretch westwards from Metsibutluku — the 

 bitter water — often congregated in herds of from one 

 to two hundred individuals. Here, too, large troops 

 of zebras — Chapman's variety of Burchell's zebra — 

 were often to be met with, as well as small herds of 



