FINDING WATER. 45 



our cattle watered, by digging down in the bottom of 

 a well. 



At Mashiie — where we found a never-failing supply of 

 pure water in a sandstone rocky hollow, — we left the road 

 to the Bamangwato hills, and struck away to the north 

 into the Desert. Having watered the cattle at a well 

 called Iyobotani, about N.W. of Bamangwato, we next 

 proceeded to a real Kalahari fountain, called Serotli. The 

 country around is covered with bushes and trees of a 

 kind of leguminosae, with lilac flowers. The soil is soft 

 white sand, very trying to the strength of the oxen, as 

 the wheels sink into it over the felloes and drag heavily. 

 At Serotli we found only a few hollows like those made 

 by the buffalo and rhinoceros when they roll themselves 

 in the mud. In a corner of one of these there appeared 

 water, which would have been quickly lapped up by our 

 dogs, had we not driven them away. And yet this was 

 all the apparent supply for some eighty oxen, twenty 

 horses, and about a score of men. Our guide, Ramotobi, 

 who had spent his youth in the Desert, declared that, 

 though appearances were against us, there was plenty of 

 water at hand. We had our misgivings, for the spades 

 were soon produced ; but our guides, despising such new- 

 fangled aid, began in good earnest to scrape out the sand 

 with their hands. The only water we had any promise 

 of for the next seventy miles — that is, for a journey of 

 three days with the waggons — was to be got here. By 

 the aid of both spades and fingers two of the holes were 

 cleared out, so as to form pits six feet deep and about as 

 many broad. Our guides were especially earnest in their 

 injunctions to us not to break through the hard stratum 

 of sand at the bottom, because they knew, if it were 

 broken through, " the water would go away." They are 

 cmite correct, for the water seems to" lie on this flooring of 

 incipient sandstone. The value of the advice was proved 

 in the case of an Englishman whose wits were none of the 

 brightest, who, disregarding it, dug through the sandy 

 stratum in the wells at Mohotludni : — the water imme- 

 diately flowed away downwards, and the well became use- 

 less. When we came to the stratum, we found that the 

 water flowed in on all sides close to the line where the 

 soft sand came into contact with it. Allowing it to collect, 

 we had enough for the horses that evening ;"but as there 

 was not sufficient for the oxen, we sent them back to 



