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remember the last foray,” rejoined the Chief, “when we carried off 
your grandfather’s cattle?” “Certainly we do,” was the answer ; and 
the Chief said, “ Well, since they have been here they have grown like 
that.” The peculiarity was, that the horns of all animals living 
upon the succulent grasses found by the lakes, grew to gigantic 
proportions, such as that before them ; and, in reply to a question 
put to him, he added that this great change in these animals came 
about in less than 30 years ! 
Singular to relate, in one of the adjacent districts, and almost side 
by side with these magnificent beasts, were a small diminutive class of 
cattle, no larger than goats; indeed, he saw a goat on the Brighton 
Esplanade on the previous day which was a good hand higher. 
According to the natives these dwarf oxen were taken from a tribe at 
some distance ; a party of slave dealers having first directed their 
attention to the fact of their being there and assisting them to capture 
them ; the slavedealers securing as many of the wretched people as 
they could for their own vile purposes, and their native allies taking 
the herds of cattle as their share of the plunder. In reply to general 
queries as to how he discovered Lake Ngami, he told a story 
which may be briefly reproduced, though words would not convey a 
notion of the forcible style in which it was delivered. In company 
with Livingstone and several others, while endeavouring to find out 
the whereabouts of the Lake, they entirely ran out of water, and, 
after having suffered thirst for several days, he went out on a 
“voyage of discovery” to see if any was procurable. Suddenly the 
figure of a woman started up before him in the long grass. She, too, 
had been in search of water, and, failing this, was. mashing up a sort 
of wild turnip, which is found in the locality, and which serves as a 
substitute for both meat and drink. Bushmen, indeed, would live three 
or four months upon it alone ; and cattle would also thrive upon this and 
the. bitter water melon, although no other food or drink were given 
them. In terror of her life the woman agreed to show them where 
water might be found, and led them through a quantity of timber, 
when suddenly they came upon a wide expanse ; it appeared to be an 
illimitable stretch of water, but proved to be only an extensive “ salt 
pan,” about sixteen miles across. So powerful, however, was the 
effect of the sun upon the “ pan”—ground over which a river or water 
had passed, leaving a brackish sediment—that it looked exactly like 
water ata distance. The real lake turned out to be 400 miles from 
this spot ; and as to who saw it first, himself or Dr. Livingstone, he 
was quite unable to say. 
