48 
THE WATEE-MELON. 
Chap. II. 
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 fiuid much hke that in a young turnip. Owing 
to the depth beneath the soil at which it is found, it is generally 
deliciously cool and refreshing. Another kind, named Mokuri, 
is seen in other parts of the country, where long-continued heat 
parches the sod. This plant is a herbaceous creeper, and deposits 
underground 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 chcumference 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 surprismg 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 faU 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, including 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 natu¬ 
rally 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 appreciate the common 
blessing. These melons are not, however, aU 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 melon after another with a hatchet, and appljdng the 
tongue to the gashes. TJiey thus readily distinguish between the 
bitter and sweet. The bitter are deleterious, but the sweet are 
quite wholesome. Tliis pecuharity of one species of plants bearing 
both sweet and bitter fruits occurs also in a red eatable cucumber 
often met with in the country. It is about four inches long, and 
about an inch and a half in diameter. It is of a bright scarlet 
