514 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1914. 
The effects of such a drought open a vast field for research, of which 
almost every ascertained fact would be of the most vital importance 
to the inhabitants of South Africa. Not to the naturalist only are 
these facts of interest and value. To the farmer their study would 
afford an essential arm in his struggle for existence. In an article 
such as this it is possible to touch on a few of these facts only. Many 
experiments and comparative measurements were made which might 
be of some value for the purposes of exact research, but a detail of 
them would hardly be admissible here. J will confine myself there- 
fore to a brief description of the more immediately perceptible effects 
of the drought on surface water, on plants, and on animals—facts 
that would strike any observant visitor. 
It is impossible, unless one saw, to conceive the scene of utter 
desolation—that once famous hunting ground between Gaul and 
Magalakwen, extending northward from the mountains, to the 
Limpopo and constituting the lateral watersheds between the three 
river systems. The two rivers, Magalakwen (‘‘the strength” or 
‘stronghold of the crocodile’’) and Palala (‘‘the hinderness,” ‘‘ the 
stoppage,’”’ ‘“‘the impossible’’), bearing in their native names proof 
of their former greatness, are to-day mere ribbands of sand winding 
through desolate sand dunes to the Limpopo. For some distance 
along their course one can still secure water by digging holes in the 
sand. It will try the reader’s faith to learn that in the entire district 
of Waterberg there is at the date of writing with perhaps one excep- 
tion, no running river or spruit, and Waterberg is, I believe, consider- 
ably larger than the Free State. In the north of the district there 
is a tract over 4,000 square miles in extent in which there is no single 
drop of water running or stagnant above the surface of the ground. 
Schimmel-perd-se-pan, the last great center of elephant hunting 
in the Transvaal, received its name from the legendary feat of an 
intrepid voortrekker, who, braving its dangerous subaqueous weeds, 
swam his horse across the pan with a quarter of an eland behind the 
saddle. Now there is never more water in the pan than can be 
covered with a lady’s pocket handkerchief. The water supply con- 
sists of a tiny pool deep under a sheltering rock, and at the time of 
writing this has shrunk away till nothing is left but a patch of damp 
sand. Similarly have all the famous old waters of the great hunting 
days disappeared for the first time withi the memory of man, 
although to those who had an opportunity of studying their annual 
shrinkage their fate has for many years been a foregone conclusion. 
Tambootie, a huge marsh, always dangerous to cross; Sandmans- 
fontein, a beautiful strong spring im the hills, named after the only 
hunter who attempted to make his home there in the old days; 
Bobbejans Krans, where the water boiled out under a precipice and 
where the finest Kaffir cattle in the middle veld were to be seen three 
