S\ CAPTURE OF A BUSHWOMAN. Chap. Ill 



in several parts of it, and Ramotobi assured us that we should 

 suffer no more from thirst. The adjacent country is covered 

 with grass, low thorny scrub, and here and there clumps oi 

 the " wait-a-bit thorn," or Acacia detinens. At Lotlakani (a 

 little reed), another spring further on, we met with twenty-six 

 palmyra-trees, the first we had seen in South Africa. 



The ancient Mokoko must have been joined by other rivers 

 lower down, for it becomes broad, and expands into a large 

 bed, of which the lake to which we were travelling formed 

 but a very small part. Wherever an anteater had made his 

 hole, shells were thrown out identical with the species now 

 alive in the lake. When we left the Mokoko Mr. Oswell 

 happened to spy a Bushwoman running away in a bent posi- 

 tion to escape observation. He took her for a lion, and 

 galloped up to her. She thought herself captured, and offered 

 to deliver up her property, which consisted of a few traps 

 made of cords. When I explained that we only wanted water, 

 and would pay her if she led us to it, she walked briskly before 

 our horses for eight miles, and brought us to Nchokotsa. W T e 

 rewarded her with a piece of meat and a good large bunch of 

 beads. At the sight of the latter she burst into a merry laugh. 



At Nchokotsa we came upon the first of a great number of 

 saltpans, covered with an efflorescence of lime, probably the 

 nitrate. AY hen the pan, which is twenty miles in circum- 

 ference, burst upon our view, the setting sun was casting a 

 beautiful blue haze over the white incrustations, and caused 

 the expanse to look exactly like a lake. Oswell threw up his 

 hat in the air at the sight, and shouted out a huzza which 

 made the poor Bushwoman and the Bakwains think him mad. 

 I was as much deceived as he. We did not dream that the 

 long-looked-for lake was more than three hundred miles 

 distant. The mirage on these salinas is truly marvellous. 

 The waves danced, and the shadows of the trees were reflected 

 in such a perfect manner, that the loose cattle, horses, dogs, and 

 even Hottentots, whose thirst had not been sufficiently slaked 

 by the brackish water of Nchokotsa, hastened towards the 

 deceitful pools. A herd of zebras in the mirage looked exactly 

 like elephants, and Oswell began to saddle a horse in order to 

 hunt them. A sort of break in the haze dispelled the illusion. 



On the 4th of July we went forward on horseback, and again 



