THLAKANE WATER-PITfS 
373 
tobacco and a six-foot piece of cloth for their services and 
knowledge, which, I hope, may he of use to other travellers 
in this desert. Five miles more exactly brought us to 
Thlakane, a succession of water-pits, roughly fifteen feet in 
diameter, lying in what might at one time have been a river¬ 
bed, probably conducting water from the Zouga to the Limpopo. 
The neighbourhood is wooded with thorny bush, out of which 
several kohlani trees project high into the air, while, under¬ 
neath, are many ant-heaps, eight feet and more in height, of 
a peculiar pointed shape. 
These pits lay in a chalky formation, and contained brackish 
water hardly fit for use, and also somewhat aperient in its action, 
a bad look-out for our cattle, which were having a rough time 
altogether, first with the mosquitoes and flies, and now with the 
water. We had made forty-six miles on end in twenty-three 
hours. Of course we ourselves had walked the whole way to 
spare the cattle, deeming it advisable not to add our weight to 
that of the cart, for the lake oxen are a poor lot to travel any 
distance without water, to which they are accustomed in great 
quantity from the time they are born, quite unlike the Mong- 
wato oxen, whose owners, cognisant of the long dry journeys 
their cattle will have to endure in the future, water them 
regularly only once every other day, with a view to hardening 
them, an experiment that has proved eminently successful in 
its result. 
Clouds of Namakwa partridges, as they are called, which are 
best described as birds appearing to be a cross somewhere between 
a dove and a partridge, hovered over and settled at the pits to 
drink, giving Hammar a chance of slaughtering great numbers 
with the shot-gun. The flesh was dark and very good eating. 
These birds, when settled in flocks, had the appearance of a 
flock of pigeons, save for the free gait peculiar to pigeons; they 
made comical little runs, and then crouched in the sand, con¬ 
tinuing this mode of advance until they reached the water’s 
edge, where they drank and preened themselves much after the 
manner of pigeons, which they also resemble in size. 
