136 MEETING WITH MR. MACABE. 



cabe returning from Lake Ngami, which he had succeeded in reach- 

 ing by going right across the Desert from a point a little to the 

 south of Kolobeng. The accounts of the abundance of water- 

 melons were amply confirmed by this energetic traveler ; for, hav- 

 ing these in vast quantities, his cattle subsisted on the fluid con- 

 tained in them for a period of no less than twenty-one days ; and 

 when at last they reached a supply of water, they did not seem 

 to care much about it. Coming to the lake from the southeast, 

 he crossed the Teoughe, and went round the northern part of it, 

 and is the only European traveler who had actually seen it all. 

 His estimate of the extent of the lake is higher than that given 

 by Mr. Oswell and myself, or from about ninety to one hund- 

 red miles in circumference. Before the lake was discovered, 

 Macabe wrote a letter in one of the Cape papers recommending 

 a certain route as likely to lead to it. The Transvaal Boers 

 fined him 500 dollars for writing about "ouze felt," out coun- 

 try, and imprisoned him, too, till the fine was paid. I now learned 

 from his own lips that the public report of this is true. Mr. Ma- 

 cabe's companion, Mahar£ was mistaken by a tribe of Barolongs 

 for a Boer, and shot as he approached their village. When Ma- 

 cabe came up and explained that he was an Englishman, they ex- 

 pressed the utmost regret, and helped to bury him. This was the 

 first case in recent times of an Englishman being slain by the Be- 

 chuanas. We afterward heard that there had been some fio-ht- 

 ing between these Barolongs and the Boers, and that there had 

 been capturing of cattle on both sides. If this was true, I can 

 only say that it was the first time that I ever heard of cattle be- 

 ing taken by Bechuanas. This was a Caffre war in stage the sec- 

 ond ; the third stage in the development is when both sides are 

 equally well armed and afraid of each other ; the fourth, when the 

 English take up a quarrel not their own, and the Boers slip out 

 of the fray. 



Two other English gentlemen crossed and recrossed the Desert 

 about the same time, and nearly in the same direction. On re- 

 turning, one of them, Captain Shelley, while riding forward on 

 horseback, lost himself, and was obliged to find his way alone 

 to Kuruman, some hundreds of miles distant. Reaching that 

 station shirtless, and as brown as a Griqua, he was taken for one 

 by Mrs. Moffat, and was received by her with a salutation in 



