PLANTS OF THE DESERT. 39 



bearing, becoming so under circumstances where that 

 appendage is necessary to act ,as a reservoir for preserving 

 its life ; and the same thing occurs in Angola to a species 

 of grape-bearing vine, which is so furnished for the same 

 purpose. The plant to which I at present refer is one of 

 the cucurbitacese which bears a small scarlet-coloured 

 eatable cucumber. Another plant, named I,eroshua, is a 

 blessing to the inhabitants of the Desert. We 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 deliriously cool and refresh- 

 ing. 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 under- 

 ground 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, in- 

 cluding man, rejoice in the rich supply. The elephant, 

 true lord of the forest, revels in this fruit, and so do the 

 different species of rhinoceros, although naturally 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 appre- 

 ciate the common blessing. These melons are not, hcw- 

 ever, 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 



