GAME IN AN AFRICAN DESERT. 69 



green carpet as they grazed peacefully within 300 yards 

 of me. After dark I heard a troop of buffaloes butting 

 each other. Buffaloes and rhinoceri quarrelled all night. 

 At midnight elephants came. I let them go to the water. 

 Three or four large bulls passed on fearlessly, but the females 

 stopped on my spoor, and examined it. At length seeing 

 the males were all right they also ventured down, and 

 bathed for fully half an hour, during which I sat patiently 

 waiting for them, having stalked to within fifteen paces of 

 where they came down. A troop of 200 buffaloes, besides 

 smaller parties had been drinking. It was a striking spec- 

 tacle that ensued buffalo followed buffalo, in a long un- 

 broken line; when they come down the steep bank, they 

 run down full trot, and dash into the water. The long file 

 of elephants as they approached reminded me of a grand 

 Indian military procession."* 



Speaking of the desert tract between the Victoria 

 Falls of the Zambesi and Lake Ngami, which Mr. 

 Chapman crossed in 1863, he observes, 



" The desert yields fruits for the use of man in greater 

 abundance than might at first be supposed berries of several 

 kinds, edible roots, bulbs, etc. During the greater part of the 

 year it is overrun by thousands of elephants, giraffes, rhinoceri, 

 elands and other animals, who stay in it until driven away 

 by the drying up of the waters ; but no sooner do the clouds 

 begin to gather than they turn their faces thither again, linger- 

 ing on its borders until the rain falls on its loose and thirsty 

 sands, when they re-enter triumphantly and dispersing in 

 every direction soon fill it with life, revelling in the sweet 

 luxuriant vegetation." f 



These thirst-lands contain numerous tracts of waterless 

 bush, and some belts of forests consisting of large trees. 



* Travels in the Interior of South Africa comprising Fifteen 

 Years 1 Hunting and Trading (1849 1864), by James Chapman, 

 F.R.G.S., 1868, Vol. ii., pp. 56 and 57. 



f Ibid., Vol. ii., pp. 297 and 298. 



