WITH LIVINGSTONE IN SOUTH AFRICA 153 



were old friends : on the other, entire strangers not even recog- 

 nised by the Kafirs who had accompanied us from the south. 



We had turned over a fresh leaf in Nature's book, and it 

 lasted us until the sluggish waters of the Zouga River and Lake 

 Kamadou came in sight, with their lonely palm-trees, and, on 

 the upper reaches of the river, unusually thick bush. You 

 thence passed through a country cut up with narrow sleepy 

 streams, or by the dry barren road, eastward of Lake Kamadou, 

 to the open flats of the Zambesi, the approach from the side of 

 the Chobe being studded with euphorbia-trees, quaint of growth, 

 and excellently named candelabra. Throughout these parts 

 you hardly see a hillock ; so rare, indeed, is the sight, that 

 one tiny, isolated mound is named ' Sisalebue ' ' we are still 

 looking at you ' by the Kafirs, in recognition of the scarcity 

 of even such haycocks. Beyond the Zouga the wonderful 

 abundance of animal life is not maintained. There is game, 

 but not in large herds. The happy hunting grounds in my 

 time began at the Molcpo and ended at the Zouga. 



Throughout South Africa the sparseness of the population 

 has favoured the increase of the game, coupled with the fact 

 that the people were not adequately armed for its destruction. 

 The massing of animals in particular localities, dependent on 

 the waters, which are few and far between, may perhaps have 

 led to an exaggerated idea of the sum total ; but put it as you 

 will, after all real and imaginary deductions from whatsoever 

 cause, there never was a land so full of wild life since ante- 

 diluvian days. It will die out before guns and civilisation, and 

 that quickly, though the fly may bar the way to mounted 

 sportsmen, for there are no dense jungles or inaccessible ranges 

 of mountains for the beasts to fall back upon. 



