Chap. VI. 
ATTEMPTS TO OBTAIN WATEK. 
Ill 
partly also to the amount of irrigation carried on along both banks 
of the stream at the mission station. This latter circumstance 
would have more weight, were it not coincident with the failure 
of fountains over a wide extent of country. 
Without at present entering minutely into this feature of the 
cHmate, it may be remarked that the Kuruman district presents 
evidence of this dry southern region having, at no very distant 
date, been as well watered as the country north of Lake Ngami is 
now. Ancient river-beds and water-courses abound, and the very 
eyes of fountains long since dried up may be seen, in which the 
flow of centuries has worn these orifices from a slit to an oval 
form, having on their sides the tufa so abundantly deposited 
from these primitive waters; and just where the splashings, made 
when the stream fell on the rock below, may be supposed to have 
reached and become evaporated, the same phenomenon appears. 
Many of these fading fountains no longer flow, because the brink 
over which they ran is now too high, or because the elevation of 
the western side of the country lifts the land away from the water- 
supply below; but let a cutting be made from a lower level than 
the brink, and through it to a part below the surface of the water, 
and water flows perennially. Several of these ancient fountaius 
have been resuscitated by the Bechuanas near Kuruman, who 
occasionally show their feeliugs of self-esteem by labouriug for 
months at deep cuttings, which, having once begun, they feel 
bound ia honour to persevere in, though told by a missionary that 
they can never force water to run up hdl. 
It is iuteresting to observe the iudustry of many Boers in this 
region, in making long and deep canals from lower levels up to 
spots destitute of the slightest indication of water existing beneath, 
except a few rushes and a peculiar kind of coarse reddish-coloured 
grass growing in a hollow, which anciently must have been the 
eye of a fountain, but is now filled up with soft tufa. In other 
instances the indication of water below consists of the rushes 
growing on a long sandy ridge a foot or two in height, instead of 
in a furrow. A deep transverse cutting made through the liigher 
part of this is rewarded by a stream of running water. The reason 
why the ground covering this water is higher than the rest of the 
locality is, that the mnds carry quantities of fine dust and sand 
about the country, and hedges, bushes, and trees cause its deposit. 
