of Southern Africa. 417 



from the kraal, near to the pool of mpieture that supplies the 

 natives, and their cattle, with what they were pleased to call 

 water. This was against the wishes of the king, who desired 

 ns to span out near his own hut, no doubt for the better con- 

 venience of begging ; but aware of the crowd that would con- 

 stantly surround us in the midst of the town, we preferred our 

 present situation. 



This pool was in the bed of the Mallopo River; and, con- 

 sidering the quantity of its contents daily consumed, it could 

 not possibly last many days longer. The water at Mallala's 

 (the last chief we visited), was bad enough to turn the sto- 

 mach of a dog, but this was really ten degrees worse ; and it 

 appeared to me impossible that human beings could subsist, 

 for any length of time, upon such execrable filth. One-fourth 

 of it is literally composed of the dung and urine of the cattle 

 and wild beasts, and, for aught I know, not uncontaminated 

 with that of the people ; the other quarter is mud, and the 

 women (many of them with ulcerated legs,) are in the daily 

 habit of wading up to the knees in this delightful slough to 

 get at the cleanest part of it; but to me there seemed to be no 

 choice, it being all the color of cow-dung and urine mixed up 

 together! It was a fortunate circumstance for us that we had 

 still remaining nearly a half-aum of tolerable water, which 

 we had brought from Munchukana, and would be enough for 

 our own use so long as we should stop at this filthy pool. 



The Malappo is said to have its source in the Bamarootzie 

 •ountry, considerably to the N.E. of this place, where it is a 

 constant running stream, and abounds with hippopotami and 

 otters, but if we are to judge from the appearance of its 

 bed here, which resembles what the colonists call a vley, I 

 should presume that it very rarely runs in torrents like the 

 other African rivers. It runs here nearly due West, and 

 afterwards, taking a Southerly direction, joins the Mashow 

 and the Kuruman, after which they are lost in the sand. 



The crowd that now surrounded our wagons surpassed 

 any thing of the kind we had yet seen at any of the other 

 Bichuana towns ; and had they been inclined to injure us, 

 nothing could have saved us, as we were completely wedged 

 in between them. They were, however, far from shewing any 

 hostile spirit, as their enemies had predicted; on the contrary, 

 they looked upon our visit as a circumstance replete with good 

 fortune, especially when we threw away so many handfuls of 

 tobacco to let them scramble for, being the best way of getting 

 rid of our numerous applicants for that universally esteemed 

 plant. This sport pleased them wonderfully, and indeed af- 

 forded us a great deal of amusement, besides giving the 

 savages a great idea of our liberality, yet it did not prevent 



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