WATER-PLANTS AND WATER. 



505 



roots deep down into the soil, which, at the depth of a foot or two, expand into a tuber 

 of the size of a small melon, which is a mass of watery cellular tissue, like a young 

 turnip. The mokuri, a low creeper, expands under ground into a cluster of tubers, 

 some of them as large as a man's head. The clusters spread out in a circle of a yard 

 in diameter. When a native suspects the existence of such a cluster, he pounds with 

 stones around until a hollow sound tells him that he has found the spot. Many of the 

 animals have sharp hoofs, and instinct points out to them the sites of these watery 

 tubers, to reach which they dig away the sand, as the reindeer digs the snow which 

 conceals the moss which is his food. The kengwe, a kind of gourd, a favorite with 

 man and beast, sometimes covers immense tracts. Macabe once crossed the desert, in 

 a favorable season, and found them so numerous that his cattle lived on them for three 

 weeks, during which they had no water, and when this was reached they seemed quite 

 indifferent to it. Another gourd, the naras, covers many of the low sand-hills. Its 

 fruit, the size of a turnip, is on the outside of a greenish yellow, within of a deep 

 orange, and for three months in the year constitutes the chief food of man and beast in 

 the neighborhood of Walfisch Bay. Its seeds, something like an almond in looks and 

 taste, are carefully gathered, dried, and preserved for food when the fruits have 

 disappeared. 



Judging from the geological character of this African semi-desert, there can be little 

 doubt that water might be found by deep boring almost everywhere ; for as the rain- 

 fall is great during the wet season, and as hardly any of it finds an outlet through 

 rivers, much of it must sink into the sandy soil until it is arrested by beds of clay or 

 underlying rock, and by digging down to these the water would be reached. Wherever 

 and whenever water here exists, there is fertility ; and it may be that the time will 

 come when these now arid plains will be honey-combed with artesian wells, and thereby 

 transformed into a garden. When that time comes, farewell to elephants and lions, to 

 deer and antelopes. Welk, or rather pits, of slight depth, but which contain water 

 throughout the year, except when two years of drought happen together, are not un- 

 frequently found in the Kalahari. These pits are hidden with the utmost care. Some- 

 times the natives fill them up with loose sand, and build a fire over the spot; the 

 ashes would naturally be taken as an indication that here at least no water was to be 

 found beneath the surface. They are careful to establish their huts at a considerable 

 distance from their hidden mine of liquid treasure. When they wish for water, the 

 women set out from the village, carrying their water vessels, which consist of ostrich- 

 shells, with a little hole in the end. A reed of nearly a yard in length, with a bunch 

 of grass fastened to the end, is sunk down through the sand, which is then rammed 

 closely around. By sucking through the reed a vacuum is made in the sponge-like 

 bunch of grass ; into this the water flows and passes through the reed into the mouth, 

 whence it is squirted into the shells. This natural pump is really very efficacious for 

 the shallow depth at which it is used. 



Livingstone relates another circumstance which seems conclusive as to the fact that 

 water exists in the Kalahari, at no very great distance below the surface of the ground. 

 During two successive seasons of extreme drought, in neither of which the rainfall 

 exceeded five inches, and every thing was parched, and the ground so hot that beetles 

 placed upon the surface died in a few seconds, as though they had been placed on a 

 heated plate of iron, a certain species of ants, who form long and deep galleries, were 



