THE LAKE OF DEATH

Waipa Post, Volume 42, Issue 3262, 19 February 1931, Page 6

THE LAKE OF DEATH

In the northern part of the mandated territory of South-west Africa are more than 100,000 square miles of almost unexplored country, in the heart of which lies one of the most mysterious and haunting spots to be found in the empire. Etosha Pan, the Lake of Slime, is about 75 miles in length and 50 miles in breadth, and is probably the only animal cem-e tery of its kind in the world. Approached by night from the north-east, the Pan presents a terrifying spectacle (writes a big game hunter in the London News-Chroni-cle). Thousands of bleached skeletons gleam in the moonlight—skeletoms which seem unable to rest even in death, for many still stand in the tortured attitude caused by frantic efforts to escape scores and even hundreds of years ago. Specimens of almost all the creatures known to Africa may be seen from the bush-lined fringe of Etosha Pan, but there is one skeleton that dominates them all. It once belonged to a giant elephant, and crouches just beyond the edge of a spit of firm ground that juts into the swamp. The skeleton of this elephant held one of the finest sets of tusks that I have ever seen, but no money would induce my natives to recover them for me. It was not the slime they feared, but the devils and spirits that they believe inhabit the swamp. But Etosha Pan has mysteries other than its skeleton armies. Thp western side of the Pan is mountainous, and by this road passed the great Boer-trek of the ’sixties. Hundreds of wagons must have passed this way in the flight from the south, and it is said that many misesd the road and disappeared for ever in the depths of the lake. (