MYSTERIOUS INLAND LAKE. 203 



At dawn of day on the following morning we con- 

 tinued our march through the venerable cameel-dorn 

 forest. The road was extremely heavy, consisting of 

 *^ft, loose sand. Having proceeded about six miles, 

 f;merging from the forest, we entered once more on a 

 <?vide-spreading open country, covered in some parts 

 ivith bushes, and in others only with grass. Another 

 hour brought us to Little Chooi, a large salt-pan, 

 where we obtained water for ourselves and cattle from 

 a deep pit made by men. In sight were a few zebras, 

 ostriches, and springboks. In the forenoon a number 

 of cattle, belonging to Mahura, came to drink at the 

 pit. Some of these carried enormous wide-spreading 

 horns. Mahura and his tribe possess immense herds 

 of cattle, the majority of which they '• lifted" or obtain- 

 ed in war from other Bechuana tribes. Some years 

 before this, Mahura, assisted by another tribe, had at- 

 tacked Sobiqua, king of the Bawangketse, a tribe in- 

 habiting the borders of the great Kalahari desert, whom 

 they routed, and succeeded in driving off the majority 

 of their vast herds. Upon this, Sobiqua and his tribe 

 fled with the remainder of the cattle across a portion 

 of the desert to the westward, and for some years lo- 

 cated themselves on the borders of a vast inland lake. 

 This mysterious lake the natives in the vale of Bakatla 

 state to be situated due west from their position, while 

 the natives of Bamangwato, situated two hundred and 

 fifty miles to the northward, always pointed out to me 

 the northwest as its position. They represented to me 

 that the natives on its banks were possessed of canoes ; 

 that its waters w*ere salt ; and that every day the wa- 

 ters retired to feed, and again returned, by which I un- 

 derstood that this lake, whatever it may be, is afTccted 

 by some tide. 



