122 
MEETING WITH ME. MACABE. 
Chap. VI. 
Mr. J. Macabe returning from Lake Ngami, wliicb be bad 
succeeded in reacliing by going right across the Desert from a 
point a Kttle to the south of Kolobeng. The accounts of the 
abundance of water-melons were amply confirmed by this 
energetic traveller, for having these in vast quantities his cattle 
subsisted on the fluid contained in them for a period of no less 
than twenty-one days; and when at last they reached a supply of 
water they did not seem to care much about it. Coming to the 
lake from the south-east, he crossed the Teoughe, and went 
round the northern part of it, and is the only European traveller 
who had actually seen it all. His estimate of the extent of the 
lake is higher than that given by Mr. Oswell and myself, or 
from about ninety to one hundred miles in ckcumference. 
Before the lake was discovered Macabe wrote a letter in one 
of the Cape papers recommending a certain route as likely to 
lead to it. The Transvaal Boers fined him 500 dollars for writing 
about onze velt,” our country, and imprisoned liim too till the 
fine was paid. I now learned from his own bps that the pubhc 
report of this is true. Mr. Macabe’s companion, Mahar, was mis¬ 
taken by a tribe of Barolongs for a Boer, and shot as he approached 
thek village. When Macabe came up and explained that he was 
an Enghshman, they expressed the utmost regret, and helped to 
bury him. Tins was the first case in recent times of an Enghsh¬ 
man being slain by the Bechuanas. We afterwards heard that 
there had been some fighting between these Barolongs and the 
Boers, and that there had been capturing of cattle on both sides. 
If tliis was true, I can only say that it was the first time that I 
ever heard of cattle being taken by Bechuanas. Tliis was a 
Caffre war in stage the second; the thu’d stage in the develop¬ 
ment is when both sides are equally well armed and afraid of each 
other; the fourth, when the Enghsh take up a quarrel not their 
owm, and the Boers shp out of the fray. 
Two other Enghsh gentlemen crossed and recrossed the Desert 
about the same time, and nearly in the same chrection. On 
retoning, one of them. Captain SheUey, while riding forward on 
horseback, lost himself, and was obliged to find his way alone 
to Kuruman, some hundreds of miles distant. Beaching that 
station shirtless, and as brown as a Griqua, he ivas taken for one 
by Mrs. Moffat, and was received by her with a salutation in 
