64 ATTEMPTS TO OBTAIN WATER. 



contained, within the memory of people now living, 

 hippopotami, and pools sufficient to drown hoth men and 

 cattle. This failure of water must be chiefly ascribed to 

 the general desiccation of the country, but partly also to 

 the amount of irrigation carried on along both banks of 

 the stream at the mission-station. This latter circum- 

 stance would have more weight were it not coincident 

 with the failure of fountains over a wide extent of 

 country. 



Without at present entering minutely into this feature 

 of the climate, it may be remarked that the Kuruman dis- 

 trict presents evidence of this dry southern region having 

 at no very distant date, been as well watered as the country 

 north of Lake Ngami is now. Ancient river-beds and 

 water-courses abound, and the very eyes of fountains long 

 since dried up may be seen, in which the flow of centuries 

 has worn these orifices from a slit to an oval form, having 

 on their sides the tufa so abundantly dej)osited from these 

 primitive waters; and just where the splashings, made 

 when the stream fell on the rock below, may be supposed 

 to have reached and evaporated, the same phenomenon 

 appears. Many of these failing fountains no longer flow, 

 because the brink over which they ran is now too high, or 

 because the elevation of the western side of the country 

 lifts the land away from the water-supply below; but let a 

 cutting be made from a lower level than the brink, and 

 through it to a part below the surface of the water, and 

 water flows perennially. Several of these ancient fountains 

 have been resuscitated by the Bechuanas near Kuruman, 

 who occasionally show their feelings of . self-esteem by 

 laboring for. months at deep cuttings, which, having once 

 begun, they feel bound in honor to persevere in, though 

 told by a missionary that they can never force water to run 

 up hill. 



During the period of my visit at Kuruman, Mr. Moffat, 

 who has been a missionary in Africa during upward of forty 

 years, and is well known by his interesting work, "Scenes 



