NCHOKOTSA.— SALT-PANS. 91 



attempts to visit him, he dispatched three detachments of his men 

 with thirteen brown cows to Lechulatebe, thirteen white cows to 

 Sekomi, and thirteen black cows to Sechele, with a request to each 

 to assist the white men to reach him. Their policy, however, 

 was to keep him out of view, and act as his agents in purchasing 

 with his ivory the goods he wanted. This is thoroughly African ; 

 and that continent being without friths and arms of the sea, the 

 tribes in the centre have always been debarred from European in- 

 tercourse by its universal prevalence among all the people around 

 the coasts. 



Before setting out on our third journey to Sebituane, it was 

 necessary to visit Kuruman ; and Sechele, eager, for the sake of 

 the commission thereon, to get the ivory of that chief into his 

 own hands, allowed all the messengers to leave before our re- 

 turn. Sekomi, however, was more than usually gracious, and 

 even furnished us with a guide, but no one knew the path beyond 

 Nchokotsa which we intended to follow. When we reached that 

 point, we found that the main spring of the gun of another of 

 his men, who was well acquainted with the Bushmen, through 

 whose country we should pass, had opportunely broken. I never 

 undertook to mend a gun with greater zest than this ; for, under 

 promise of his guidance, we went to the north instead of west- 

 ward. All the other guides were most liberally rewarded by 

 Mr. Oswell. 



We passed quickly over a hard country, which is perfectly flat. 

 A little soil lying on calcareous tufa, over a tract of several 

 hundreds of miles, supports a vegetation of fine sweet short grass, 

 and mopane and baobab trees. On several parts of this we found 

 large salt-pans, one of which, Ntwetwe, is fifteen miles broad and 

 one hundred long. The latitude might have been taken on its 

 horizon as well as upon the sea. 



Although these curious spots seem perfectly level, all those in 

 this direction have a gentle slope to the northeast: thither the 

 rain-water, which sometimes covers them, gently gravitates. This, 

 it may be recollected, is the direction of the Zouga. The salt 

 dissolved in the water has by this means all been transferred to 

 one pan in that direction, named Chuantsa ; on it we see a cake 

 of salt and lime an inch and a half thick. All the others have an 

 efflorescence of lime and one of the nitrates only, and some are 



