86 LIFE OF DA VID LIVINGSTONE, LL.D. 



Zouga was greater than it is at present. The country generally is 

 unquestionably drying up. Streams and fountains which, in the memory of 

 persons now living, supplied villages with water, are now only dry water- 

 courses ; and as ancient river-beds are now traversed by more modern streams, 

 giving sections which show banks of shells, gravel, and rolled boulders, it is, 

 perhaps, not unreasonable to conjecture that an alteration in the elevation of the 

 entire country is taking place. At present, wherever the bed of the Zouga 

 may lead (perhaps towards the Limpopo ?), water seldom flows far past the 

 Bakarutse villages." 



On the occasion of the third and successful journey, undertaken with the 

 view of meeting Sebituane, his wife and children accompanied him as before. 

 Shobo, a Bushman, undertook to be their guide ; but losing his way, his 

 courage failed him, and he refused to proceed, finally disappearing altogether. 

 Driving on at random, the travellers suffered terrible privations. At last 

 knowing that water was near by the number of birds they saw, and the fresh spoor 

 of the rhinoceros, and other animals, they unyoked the oxen, and they knowing 

 the signs, pushed forward until they came to the Matabe, a tributary of the 

 Tamunakle. Their sufferings were so great for several days that it almost 

 seemed as if his children were doomed to perish before his eyes. This was 

 all the more hard to bear as a supply of water had been wasted by one of the 

 servants. His wife looked at him, despair at the prospect of losing her children 

 in her eyes, but spoke no word of blame. Here the travellers made the 

 acquaintance of that terrible insect, the tsetse, whose bite is so fatal to cattle 

 and horses. It is not much larger than the common house-fly, and is of a 

 brown colour, with three or four bars of yellow in the abdomen. Its bite is 

 fatal to the horse, the ox, and the dog. Within a few days the eyes and nose 

 of the bitten animal begin to run, and a swelling appears under the jaws, and 

 sometimes on the belly. Emaciation sets in, and at the end of three months, 

 when the poor beast is only a mass of skin and bone, purging commences, and 

 it dies of sheer exhaustion. Man, and the wild animals which abound in the 

 district, the goat, the mule, and the ass, enjoy a perfect immunity from its 

 bite. 



On the banks of the Chobe the travellers came across a number of Ma- 

 kololo men, and learning from them that their chief, Sebituane, was absent 

 twenty miles down the river Chobe, Mr. Oswell and Livingstone proceeded 

 in canoes to visit him. He had marched some two hundred miles to welcome 

 the white men into his country. On hearing of the difficulties they had 

 encountered in their endeavours to reach him, he expressed his satisfaction at 

 their having at last succeeded, and added : " Your cattle are all bitten by the 

 tsetse, and will certainly die ; but never mind; I have oxen, and will give you 

 as many as you need." 



In their ignorance they thought little of this ; but the death of forty of 



