363 INIr. W. 11. Ogilvie-Graut on 



tlie year and is very sliallow ; there were a few small Waders 

 feeding; along the edge and a small family-party of Pink- 

 billed Tcal^ which had evidently bred among some stunted 

 rushes on the south side. We Avere surprised to see also two 

 pairs of Dahchicks with full-grown young. 



From Kakia there is a very long waterless stage of a hundred 

 and sixty miles to a place called Leliutitu, or Lehututu^ the 

 native name for the large Ground Hornhill. Why this vil- 

 lage should be named after it, I do not know, as I never saw 

 or heard one of these birds in the neighbourhood, and we did 

 not meet with them until we reached the marshes of Ngami- 

 land, where they are not uncommon. The road is a com- 

 paratively well-marked one, as several traders" wagons pass 

 along it every year, between Mafeking and Leliutitu, which is 

 a rather important native centre, near the German border. 

 There are a great many large shallow pans between Kakia 

 and Leliutitu which hold water during the height of a good 

 rainy season, and water can then be obtained every day 

 during the journey; but that is a very unpleasant time to 

 travel in the Kalahari, and the pans were all dry when Ave 

 passed in ]May. We obtained water for the oxen, however, 

 at one place called Kokong (the native name for a Gnu), 

 about forty miles from Kakia, where there is a small 

 Barolong village, situated in an enormous basin several 

 miles across. At the bottom of the basin there is a pan and 

 some Avells, which run dry in a bad season. The sides of 

 this depression, which are covered witli short grass, are de- 

 void of the inevitable Kameel-thorn, and here we saw several 

 Avild Ostriches and the Black Knorhaan. There are usually 

 a few isolated pairs of the latter in the open grassy pans 

 throughout the Kalahari, but they are never found in the 

 Kameel-thorn forest, where their place is taken by the iled- 

 crested Bustard, which is very numerous in all the bush- 

 country of the Desert. This handsome bird is a most 

 accomplished ventriloquist. It is most difficult to locate its 

 succession of Avhistling notes, which are such a familiar 

 sound in the Kalahari, unless the bird indulges in its 

 remarkable habit of suddenly shooting, rocket-like, into the 



