82 MEETING WITH MR. MACABE. Chap. VI. 



tribes, formerly living under the Boers, have taken refuge 

 under his sway, and he is now greater in power than before 

 the attack on Kolobeng. 



Having parted with Sechele, we skirted along the Kalahari 

 Desert, and sometimes went within its borders, giving the 

 Boers a wide berth. A larger fall of rain than usual had 

 occurred in 1852, which completed a cycle of eleven or 

 twelve years, when the same phenomenon is reported to have 

 happened on three occasions. An unusually large crop of 

 melons had appeared in consequence. We had the pleasure 

 of meeting with Mr. J. Macabe returning from Lake N garni, 

 which he had reached by going right across the Desert from a 

 point a little to the south of Kolobeng. His cattle had 

 subsisted on the water-melons for twenty-one days ; and when 

 they reached water did not seem to care much about it. 

 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 " onze velt," our country, and imprisoned him 

 till the fine was paid. I now learned from his own lips that 

 this story was true. His companion, Mahar, was mistaken by 

 a tribe of Barolongs for a Boer, and shot as he approached 

 their village. When Macabe came up and explained that the 

 victim was an Englishman, they expressed the utmost regret, 

 and helped to bury him. We afterwards heard that there had 

 been some fighting between these Barolongs and the Boers, 

 and that there had been capturing of cattle on both sides. If 

 the report was true, it was the first time that I ever knew 

 of cattle being taken by Bechuanas. This was a Caffre war 

 in stage the second ; the third stage 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. 



During the dry seasons which succeed our winter and 

 precede our rains, a hot wind occasionally blows over the 

 Desert from north to south. It feels as if it came from an 

 oven, and seldom lasts longer than three days at a time. It 

 resembles in its effects the harmattan of the north of Africa, 

 and at the time the missionaries first settled in the country, 

 thirty-five years ago, it came loaded with fine reddish-coloured 



