306 NATURE AND SPORT IN SOUTH AFRICA 



Not until we had passed Khama's town of Palachwe, 

 and entered the waterless tracts of the North Kala- 

 hari, did we see any quantity of game. In the 

 North Kalahari, and along the southern bank of 

 the Botletli river, Ngamiland, we found and pro- 

 cured specimens of giraffe, Burchell's zebra, eland, 

 brindled gnu (blue wildebeest), lechwe water-buck, 

 springbok, and some of the smaller antelopes. 

 Tsesseby and pallah are becoming very scarce; of 

 roan antelope we only found spoor once or twice. 

 The elephant had disappeared, save for one small 

 troop we heard of south of Lake Ngami. This troop 

 has since been destroyed by the Batauana hunters 

 round the lake. The rhinoceroses, black and white, 

 and the buffalo, had disappeared. The lion is still 

 plentiful along the Botletli river, but owing to the 

 number of native guns, it is not often seen, and 

 we only found spoor occasionally round our wagons. 

 The hippopotamus still survives, albeit in diminishing 

 numbers, in Lake Ngami and the Botletli. How 

 plentiful elephants must have been forty years ago 

 one could see by the deep paths, leading to the water, 

 left by these animals. When one remembers that 

 within two years of the discovery of Lake Ngami 

 in 1849, by Livingstone, Oswell, and Murray, nine 



neighbourhood of Vrybiirg, for the first time for nine or ten 

 years. This is a hopeful sign, attributable to preservation by 

 a few farmers in the Western Transvaal. 



