LIONS ROUND THE WAGGONS. 17 



here it is thick bush, composed mostly of stunted 

 thorn-trees (acacias), whose thorns are white and 

 about four inches long. We stayed four days on 

 the Crocodile River, as our oxen wanted rest. The 

 lions were roaring round the waggons at night, in 

 hopes of getting at the oxen. We have the latter 

 carefully tied up to the waggons at night, and two 

 or three immense fires lighted to keep them off. 



" It is impossible, we find, to get to Lake Ngami 

 now, as there are a hundred miles to go, through 

 heavy sand without water, to get there. Frank 

 still thinks of going to the Victoria Falls, through 

 Mosilikatze's Country, byway of the Tati River, and 

 I intend to go as far as the Tati. . . . Every morn- 

 ing here lots of women go out to collect locusts, 

 which swarm a short distance off and are the only 

 food the natives get now, as their crop of corn has 

 failed and they are half starving. They have a few 

 little goats, but there is hardly any grass, and only 

 one very small stream of water about two miles off." 



Frank Oates also writes the same day as 

 follows : — 



"You have, I hope, got our letters written from 

 Pretoria, the capital of the Transvaal. Since then 

 we have not come more than 250 miles, if as much, 

 and have been about a month in doing it. Buckley 

 and Gilchrist have accompanied us, making, with our 

 waggons, three waggons in all, and I think we shall 

 probably go on together for some time at any rate. 

 The present idea is for us all to go together to the 

 Tati, a river marked in the recent maps, where gold 



c 



