210 AFRICAN NATURE NOTES CHAP. 



live in the waterless parts of Western South Africa ; 

 and at certain times of year a kind of small water- 

 melon grows in the Kalahari in great profu- 

 sion, which, as long as it lasts, renders all wild 

 animals entirely independent of drinking water. 

 Oxen and horses soon get accustomed to these wild 

 melons and thrive on them, and human beings can 

 make tea or coffee from their juice. 



Now, the occurrence of wild melons and tubers 

 which contain a great deal of water, probably ex- 

 plains the otherwise unaccountable fact that large 

 antelopes and other animals are able to exist in the 

 most arid portions of South-West Africa at a time 

 of year when there is absolutely no surface water ; 

 but in the country to the south of the Mababi the 

 Bushmen stated emphatically that giraffes never 

 dug up the water-containing tubers of which I have 

 spoken. My own belief is that, although they must 

 be able to go without water for a much longer time 

 than most animals, they must nevertheless drink 

 periodically throughout the year. It is possible 

 that in the recesses of the Kalahari the giraffes may 

 obtain the fluid they require from the wild water- 

 melons like other animals, or in periods of prolonged 

 drought they may migrate to the neighbourhood of 

 the Botletlie and other rivers. To the east and north 

 of the Botletlie, a glance at a good map will show 

 that giraffes could never be more than fifty or sixty 

 miles from permanent water. When I was hunting 

 elephants on the Chobi river, in the 'seventies of 

 last century, elephants were in the habit of drinking 

 early one night in that river, and then travelling 

 straight away into the waterless country to the west, 

 and I am sure they got their next drink, either 

 twenty-four or possibly forty-eight hours later, in 

 the overflow of the Okavango, known by the natives 

 living on the Mababi as the Machabi. These ele- 

 phants, which had become excessively wary, through 



