the Birds of Ngamiland. 3G3 



air for about fifty feet auu then dropping like a stone, with 

 wiugs closed, to the ground. The males alone perform this 

 feat and principally during the breeding-season, but I have 

 seen them do so in the early mornings or evenings in mid- 

 winter. 



After leaving Kokong we had a distance of a hundred and 

 twenty miles to accomplish without water to Lehutitu, which 

 we succeeded in reaching on the eighth day. There were very 

 few sarma or wild melons along this part of the desert, and 

 the oxen were suffering so much from thirst by the fifth day 

 that we were obliged to outspan them and let the driver take 

 them on to the water at Lehutitu, while we remained Avith 

 the wagon vintilthey returned two days later. We were able 

 to reach Lehutitu safely, and remained there for nearly a 

 week to rest the oxen. Lehutitu is another huge shallow 

 salt-pan, dry at the time of our visit, flat as a billiard-tuble, 

 and of a glistening A\hite or grey colour. The central part 

 of the Kalahari is covered with these pans, and they are to 

 be met with in all directions every ten miles or so. Some 

 are covered with grass, others are absolutely bare, and when 

 dry these latter usually shew a considerable deposit of salt 

 and nitrate of soda. 



From Lehutitu there is another long waterless stage of a 

 hundred and thirty miles to Okwa. We Avere fortunate, 

 however, in obtaining a little water for the oxen from a 

 native Avell at a dry pan called Ohe, about thirty-five miles 

 from Lehutitu, but it is only after a good rainy season that 

 Avater can be obtained there. At one end of this pan the 

 natives had dug some shallow pits, which still held a little 

 stagnant and filthy Avater, and the number of Doves Avhich 

 came to drink there every morning quite baffles description. 

 They come in great numbers to all the desert wells, but at Ohe 

 they were in countless thousands, and so ridiculously nervous 

 and easily startled that they spent half the day in attempting 

 to quench their thirst. Battalions wheeled round and round 

 over the pool, aud just as they were about to settle some un- 

 expected movement would startle the Avhole flock, Avhich Avould 

 continue flying round and round as before. There must be 



