54 THE WATERMELON. 



see a small plant with linear leaves, and a stalk not thicker than 

 a crow's quill ; on digging down a foot or eighteen inches beneath, 

 we come to a tuber, often as large as the head of a young child ; 

 when the rind is removed, we find it to be a mass of cellular tis- 

 sue, filled with fluid much like that in a young turnip. Owing 

 to the depth beneath the soi? at which it is found, it is generally 

 deliciously cool and refreshing. Another kind, named Mokuri, 

 is seen in other parts of the country, where long-continued heat 

 parches the soil. This plant is an herbaceous creeper, and depos- 

 its under gound &■ number of tubers, some as large as a man's 

 head, at spots in a circle a yard or more, horizontally, from the 

 stem. The natives strike the ground on the circumference of the 

 circle with stones, till, by hearing a difference of sound, they know 

 the water-bearing tuber to be beneath. They then dig down a 

 foot or so, and find it. 



But the most surprising plant of the Desert is the " Kengwe or 

 Keme" {Cucumis caffer), the watermelon. In years when more 

 than the usual quantity of rain falls, vast tracts of the country are 

 literally covered with these melons ; this was the case annually 

 when the fall of rain was greater than it is now, and the Bak- 

 wains sent trading parties every year to the lake. It happens 

 commonly once every ten or eleven years, and for the last three 

 times its occurrence has coincided with an extraordinarily wet sea- 

 son. Then animals of every sort and name, including man, rejoice 

 in the rich supply. The elephant, true lord of the forest, rev- 

 els in this fruit, and so do the different species of rhinoceros, al- 

 though naturally so diverse in their choice of pasture. The various 

 kinds of antelopes feed on them with equal avidity, and lions, hy- 

 aenas, jackals, and mice, all seem to know and appreciate the com- 

 mon blessing. These melons are not, however, all of them eatable ; 

 some are sweet, and others so bitter that the whole are named by 

 the Boers the "bitter watermelon." The natives select them by 

 striking one melon after another with a hatchet, and applying the 

 tongue to the gashes. They thus readily distinguish between 

 the bitter and sweet. The bitter are deleterious, but the sweet are 

 quite wholesome. This peculiarity of one species of plants bearing 

 both sweet and bitter fruits occurs also in a red, eatable cucumber, 

 often met with in the country. It is about four inches long, and 

 about an inch and a half in diameter. It is of a bright scarlet 



