274 
THE NEW AFRICA 
appears that the chief kept the horses out of sight for strategic 
reasons best known to himself. However, we never saw him or 
the horsemen again until we reached the lake, but were left in 
charge of a chief called Tschukoorroo, who now took command of 
the expedition. Following the lead of our new guides, we made 
a good eleven miles over a dry sand-belt without water, where 
Hammar knocked up owing to the heat. We sent water back 
to him from a stream we arrived at, running outward from the 
river, twenty yards wide and two feet deep. Here we first heard 
the name Taugche applied to the Cubango, or rather what 
proved afterwards to be only a small branch of this river. In 
the evening Hammar managed to struggle on another few miles, 
and then we were obliged to stop, although the chief was still 
ahead and expected us to come to his camp. We sent a message 
on to him with the information that, owing to the state of affairs, 
we could not come on till the next day. 
We were up betimes, and, taking advantage of the early cool, 
made a good march in a south direction before halting. It was 
a cool, cloudy day with an easterly breeze blowing. As we were 
proceeding in the afternoon a troop of five koodoo crossed our 
track, galloping one hundred and fifty yards ahead of us. 
Several shots I fired failed to bring anything down, although 
I felt certain that one was hit, yet the natives, who were not 
accustomed to see game shot in this way, only laughed at our 
desire to follow up, saying they had no time to waste, and so 
we went on. This day we passed a fine mimosa forest, com¬ 
posed of by far the largest trees we had ever seen; usually 
much smaller, many of them were much over thirty feet high, 
spreading their flat crowns broadly towards each other. 
