S4 THE KALAHARI DESERT. Ciur. LI. 



some account of the great Kalahari Desert. The space from 

 the Orange River in the south, lat. 29°, to Lake Ngarni in the 

 north, and from about 24° east long, to near the west coast, 

 has been called a desert because, though intersected by the 

 beds of ancient rivers, it contains no running water, and very 

 little in wells. Far from being destitute of vegetation, it is 

 covered with grass and creeping plants ; and there are large 

 patches of bushes and even trees. It is remarkably flat, and 

 prodigious herds of antelopes, which require little or no 

 water, roam over the trackless plains. The Bushmen and 

 Bakalahari prey on the game and on the countless rodentia 

 and small species of the feline race. In general the soil is 

 light-coloured soft sand, nearly pure silica. The beds of the 

 former streams contain much alluvial soil, which being baked 

 hard by the burning sun, rain-water in some places stands in 

 pools for several months in the year. 



The quantity of grass which grows on this remarkable 

 region is astonishing, even to those who are familiar with 

 India. It usually rises in tufts with bare spaces between, or 

 the intervals are occupied by the creeping-jolants, the roots of 

 which, being buried far beneath the soil, feel little the effects of 

 the scorching sun. The number of these which have tuber- 

 ous roots is very great ; a structure which is intended to 

 supply moisture during the long droughts. One of the cu- 

 curbitacese, which produces a small scarlet-coloured eatable 

 cucumber, though not generally tuber-bearing, becomes so 

 here, where that appendage is necessary to act as a reservoir 

 for preserving its life. The same thing occurs in Angola with a 

 species of grape-bearing vine. A vegetable, named Leroshua, is 

 a blessing to the inhabitants of the Desert. It is a small 

 plant, with linear leaves, and has a stalk not thicker than a 

 crow's-quill ; but on digging down a foot or eighteen inches 

 beneath the soil we come to a tuber often as large as the head of 

 a young child. When the rind is removed we find a mass of 

 cellular tissue, filled with fluid much like that in a young 

 turnip, and which, owing to the depth it grows beneath the 

 surface, is generally deliciously cool. Another kind, named 

 Mokuri, is met with in other parts ol the country, and pro- 

 duces a number of tubers, some as big as a manV head, in a 

 circle, of which the circumference is a yard or more from the 



