Notes on N'gmniland. 
383 
shaped fruit and claret-coloured flowers; the stately " Mokuchon "-tree 
and the " Mopororo "-tree (out of the trunks of these last three trees the 
Makuba make their dug-out canoes, the Morporota being considered the 
best) ; the Mochaba," a Ficus, together with others of the Ficits family ; 
vines of various kinds ; and lastly, the Adansonia digitata or Baobab, 
which is found in both zones. 
With regard to the sub-tropical vegetation of the sandbelts, the various 
kinds of thorny acacia predominate south of the 20th parallel of S. Lat., 
amongst which the largest is the Acacia giraffae — in South Africa wrongly 
named the Camelthorn, owing to the Dutch having misnamed the Giraffe 
the " Kameel," whereas Gamelopaixl was meant ; in the same manner the 
leopard {Fclis ijardits) has been misnamed the " tiger." Among the other 
kinds of thorny acacia the more noticeable are the "Moshu" and the 
" Mooka " (mimosa, or sweet-thorn), the latter growing near dongas and 
watercourses which run during the rains. Of other trees, not thorny, the 
" Mocwere" (the Hardekol of the Boers), the " Mogonono," which grows 
in very loose sandy ground (the Makuba exclusively cut their punting poles 
from this tree) ; the Mogkwa," or native teak, but this only grows in a 
few parts in the N. W. of the Batawana Eeserve north of the 20th parallel. 
North of the 20th parallel the Copaifera mopanc predominates, in fact the 
country between Lake N 'garni and the Linyanti or Chobe Eiver is almost 
entirely Mopane veldt, and, as it is w^ell known, where this tree grows 
it excludes every other kind of vegetation, including other under- 
growth. 
As to the Batawana tribe and its origin. The Batawana are an off- 
shoot of the Bamangwato, a Bechuana tribe of which the well-known 
Khama is chief to-day. Somewhere about the year 1800, Tawana, a 
brother of a former Chief Khama, an ancestor of the present one, quarrelled 
with his brother and seceded from him together with his followers. They 
made their way through the Kalahari to Lake N'gami where they settled, 
taking possession of the country, the Makuba, the inhabitants and 
aborigines of N'gamiland, a timid fishing people inhabiting the river- 
system, offering no resistance. Tawana, in the Sechuana language is the 
diminutive of Tau (lion). Ba-Tawana = the people of Tawana. 
The Makuba, Makhalahadi and Masarwa (Bushmen) in N'gamiland are 
subject to and servants of the Batawana. 
The Makuba inhabit the river-system and the Makhalahadi and Masarwa 
the sandbelts. 
The Makuba are of fine physique, with muscles well developed from 
punting their dug-out canoes in the swamps from childhood, but are of a 
timid and childlike disposition, and a very stay-at-home lot. In punting 
they excel, but as they confine their navigation as much as possible to the 
shallows, avoiding deep water as much as they can, they are poor per- 
