48 THE WATER-MELON. Chai\ II. 



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 

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

 to the depth beneath the soil 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 a herbaceous creeper, and deposits 

 underground a 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 

 Kerne " (Cucumis caffer), the water-melon. 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 Bakwains 

 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 season. Then 

 animals of every sort and name, including man, rejoice in the 

 rich supply. The elephant, true lord of the forest, revels in this 

 fruit, and so do the different species of rliinoceros, although natu- 

 rally so diverse in their choice of pasture. The various kinds of 

 antelopes feed on them with equal avidity, and lions, hyaenas, 

 jackals, and mice, all seem to know and appreciate the common 

 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 water-melon." 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 jjlants 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 



