DK. LIVINGSTONE.

Waka Maori, Volume 10, Issue 6, 24 March 1874, Page 71

DR. LIVINGSTONE.

( Continued from the Waka of 10th March, 1874.) Our Native friends will remember that, in a previous part of this sketch, we alluded to a great tract of country lying to the north of Kuruman, and called the Kalahari Desert, which the chief Sechele assured Dr. Livingstone it would be impossible for him to pass. For fifty years the Europeans had been aware, from information received from the Natives, that a large lake existed in this desert, called Lake Ngami. Its position had been correctly pointed out by the Natives, who had visited it when rains were more copious in the desert than in more recent times, and many attempts had been made to reach it by passing through the desert in the direction indicated ; but it was found impossible even for Natives, who were more capable of enduring thirst than Europeans. Dr. Livingstone determined to penetrate to this lake, if possible, by going round instead of through the • desert. Sekomi, the chief of the Bamangwato tribe, a section of the Bakwains, residing in the Bakaa Mountains district, was acquainted with a route which he kept carefully to himself, because the lake country abounded in ivory, and he obtained large quantities thence periodically at but small cost to himself. Sechele sent men to Sekomi, asking leave for Dr. Livingstone to pass along his path, accompanying his request with the present of an ox. Sekomi's mother refused permission, because she had not been propitiated. This produced a fresh message; and the most honorable man in the Bakwain tribe, next to Sechele, was sent with an ox for both Sekomi and his mother. This, too, was met by refusalIt was said, "The Matebele, the mortal enemies of the Bechuanas; are in the direction of the lake, and, should they kill the white man, we shall incur great blame from all his nation."

_ The Kalahari Desert has been called a desert simply "because it contains no running water, and very little water in wells. It is not destitute of vegetation and inhabitants, for it is covered with, grass and a great variety of creeping plants ; besides which, there are large patches of bushes and even trees. It is remarkably flat, but intersected in different parts by the beds of ancient rivers ; and prodigious herds of certain antelopes, which require little or no water, roam over the trackless plains. The "antelope" is .an animal similar to the deer, which you have heard is used for food. The inhabitants, Bushmen and Bakalahari, prey on the game and on the countless rats and small species of the feline race which subsist on these. In general, the soil is a lightcoloured soft sand. The beds of the ancient rivers contain much alluvial soil; and as that is baked hard by the burning sun, rain water stands in pools in some of them for several months in the year. Numbers of creeping plants grow in this region, which, having their roots buried far beneath the soil, feel little the effects of the scorching sun. Great numbers of these plants have tuberous roots, which supply nutriment and moisture when, during the long droughts, they can be obtained nowhere else. A small plant, named the Leroshua, is a blessing to the inhabitants of the desert. It has long slender leaves, and a stalk not thicker than a pipe stem; but on digging down a foot or eighteen inches, a tuber is found, often as large as a child's head; when the rind is removed, this is found to be a mass of cellular tissue, filled with fluid much like that in a young turnip. Owing to the depth beneath the soil at which it is found, it is generally deliciously cool and refreshing. Another plant, named Mokuri, deposits underground a number of tubers, some as large as a man's head, at spots in a circle a yard or more from the stem. The Natives strike the ground on the circumference of the circle with stones, till, by hearing a difference of sound, they know the water-bearing tuber to be beneath. They then dig down about a foot, and find it. But the most surprising plant of the desert is the Kengwe, or Kerne, the water-melon. In years when more than the usual quantity of rain falls, vast tracts of the country are literally covered with these melons. This was the case annually when the fall of rain was greater than it has been of late years. The Bakwains then send trading parties every year to the lake. It happens commonly once every ten or eleven years. Then animals of every sort, including man, rejoice in the rich supply. The elephant, the true lord of the forest, revels in this fruit, and so do the different species of other animals, both large and small. These melons, however, are not all eatable; some are sweet, and others very bitter. The bitter are deleterious, but the sweet are wholesome. The human inhabitants of this tract of country consist of Bushmen and Bakalahari. The Bushmen are exceptions in language, race, habits, and appearance. They never cultivate the soil, nor rear any domestic animal, save wretched dogs. Their chief subsistence is the flesh of game, and what the women collect of" roots and fruits of the desert. The Bakalahari are traditionally reported to be the oldest of the Bechuana

tribes, and they are said to have possessed enormous herds of large cattle, until they were despoiled of them and driven into the desert by a fresh migration of their own nation. They hoe their gardens annually, though often all they can obtain is a supply of melons and pumpkins. 'They carefully rear small herds of goats; lifting water for them out of small wells with a bit of ostrich egg-shell, if they have no other utensil. They generally attach themselves to influential men in the different Bechuana tribes living adjacent to the desert, in order to obtain supplies of spears, knives, tobacco, and dogs, in exchange for the skins of the animals they may kill. Some of these skins are very handsome, and the Bakwains make them up into mantles, some of which are worn by the inhabitants, and some sold to traders. Many find their way to China. The Bakwains sell these mantles in the South for heifer calves, cows being the highest form of riches known, —as money is with the Europeans. They often asked Dr. Livingstone "if Queen Victoria had many cows." The dread of visits from Bechuanas of strange tribes causes the Bakalaharito choose their residences far from water ; and they frequently hide their supplies by filling the pits with sand and making a fire over the spot. The manner in which they obtain water from the wet sand is as follows :—The women tie a bunch of grass to one end of a reed about two feet long, and insert it in a hole dug as deep as the arm will reach; then they ram down the wet sand firmly round it, and suck up the water through the reed into the mouth, from which it is discharged into the water vessels. These water vessels consist of ostrich-egg shells, with a hole in the end of each, like a Maori calabash. When a number of these eggshells are filled, they are taken home and carefully buried. The great Kalahari Desert has proved a refuge to many a fugitive tribe as their lands were overrun by the tribe of the Caffres called Matebele. The Bakalahari, the Bakwains, the Bangwaketze, and the Bamangwato, all fled thither; and the Matebele marauders, who came from the well-watered East, perished by hundreds in their attempts to follow them. Ealse guides led them on a track where, for hundreds of miles, not a drop of water could be found, and they perished in consequence. Many Bakwains perished too. Such was the desert which Dr. Livingstone was now preparing to cross, —a region formerly of terror to the Bechuanas, from the numbers of serpents which infested it, and fed on the mice ; and from the intense thirst which they often endured when their water vessels were insufficient for the distauce to be travelled before reaching the wells. At this time a party of the people of the lake came to Kolobeng,- a settlement distant about 200 miles north of Kuruman, stating that they were sent by Lechulatebe, the chief, to ask Livingstone to visit that country. They brought such flaming accounts of the quantities of ivory to be found there, that the Bakwain guides became exceedingly anxious to succeed in reaching the lake. This was fortunate, as the way the strangers had come was

impassable for waggons. At the end of May, two European friends of Dr. Livingstone joined Hm—Oswald and Murray; and, on the Ist of June, 1849, all the party made a start for the unknown region. The party consisted of about twenty men, and they had with them some eighty oxen and a score of horses. Their most experienced guide was one of Seehele's people. His name was Kamotobi, and he had spent his youth in the desert upon which they were now about to enter. We cannot pretend to give a detailed account of the progress of the party through the desert. Their oxen and horses sometimes suffered greatly from want of water, but upon the whole they were fortunate in finding water in the wells. They were frequently deceived by large plains of salt, which uuder the rays of the sun appeared like lakes of water. In some cases the resemblance was so perfect that the the loose cattle, the horses, dogs, and even the Hottentots, ran off towards the deceitful pools. At length, on the 4th of July, they arrived" at a river called the Zouga, running to the north-east. There was a village on the opposite side inhabited by a tribe of the Bakurutse. The people were friendly, and informed them that the river came out of* Lake Ngami. This gladdened their hearts, for they were now certain of reaching the lake. The inhabitants of the village told them they might be a moon on the way, but that they had the river at their feet, and by following it they would at last reach the lake. JSfext day two of the Bamangwato, who had been sent on before by Sekomi to drive away all Bushmen and Bakalahari from their path, so that they should not assist or guide the party, came and sat down by their fire. After an apparently friendly conversation, they proceeded to fulfil the instructions of their chief. They ascended the Zouga in front, and circulated a report that the object of the party was to plunder all the tribes living on the river and lake ; but when they got half way up the river, their principal man sickened of fever, turned back some distance, and died. The villagers connected his death with the injury he was attempting to do Livingstone's party. They saw through Bekomi's reasons for wishing to prevent the progress of the party ; and though they came at first armed, kind and fair treatment soon produced perfect confidence. After proceeding about ninety-six miles up the bank of this beautiful river, they left all their oxen and waggons, except one team and one small waggon, at a place called JSTgabisane, in the hope that they would be recruited for the home journey, and then pushed on for the lake. The Bechuana chief of the lake region, who had sent men to Sechele for Livingstone to visit him, now sent orders to all the people on the river to assist them, and they were well treated by the Bakoba people on the river. These people have never been known to fight. They have a tradition that their forefathers, in their first essays at war, made their bows of a species of palm tree,

and when these "broke they gave up fighting altogether. They have invariably submitted to the rule of every horde which has overrun the countries adjacent to the rivers on which they specially love to dwell. They are not at all skilful in making canoes. They hollow them out of the trunks of trees with an iron adze, and if the tree has a bend so has the canoe. Dr. Livingstone ascended the river with them in one of their canoes, in preference to sitting in the waggon. always have fires in their canoes, and prefer sleeping in them while on a journey to spending the night on shore. "On land you have lions,""they say 5> " serpents, and your enemies ; but in your canoe > behind a bank of reed, nothing can harm you." Twelve days after the departure of the party from the waggons at Ngabisane they arrived at the "'northeast end of Lake Ngami; and'on the Ist of August, 18i9, they went down to the broad part, and, for the first time, the lake was beheld by Europeans. Looking S.W. from the N.E. end they could detect no horizon, nor could they form any idea of the extent of the lake. Judging from the Native reports, they supposed its circumference to be lessthan one hundred miles. The water is shallow at.the north-east end, for they saw a Native poling his canoe along for seven or eight miles. When the lake is full it is perfectly fresh, but brackish when low. The Zouga Eiver flows from the north-east end of the lake some 200 miles in a south-easterly direction, where it enters a small lake called Kumadau, about four miles broad and twelve long. When the water has been more than usually abundant, it flows some distance beyond Kumadau in a north-easterly direction, in the bed first seen by Livingstone's party on the 4th of July ; but before it finds its way much beyond Kumadau, the upper supply ceases to run, and the rest becomes evaporated. Dr. Livingstone's chief object in going to Lake Ngami was to visit Sebituane, the great chief of the Makololo, who w r as reported to live some 200 miles beyond. Lechulatebe was the chief of the people at the lake were Livingstone now was, a section of the Bamangwato called Batauana. On the day after arriving at the lake, Livingstone applied to this chief for guides to Sebituane. As he was much afraid of that chief he objected, fearing lest other white men should go thither also, and give Sebituane guns; whereas,-if the traders went to him alone, the possession of firearms would give him such a superiority that Sebituane would be afraid of him. He refused to permit any guides to go, and sent men with orders to the natives to refuse the party a passage across the river. The party then determined to return south to Kolobeng. They again descended the Zouga, and Livingstone describes the trees which adorn the banks as magnificent. The natives make pitfalls on the banks, to entrap the animals as they come to drink. . These are about eight feet deep, about four feet wide at the

top, and gradually decrease till they are only about a foot wide at the bottom. This is intended to make the animal wedge himself more firmly in by his weight and struggles. Reeds and grass are laid across the top; above this the sand is thrown, and watered so as to appear exactly like the rest of the spot. The excavated earth is removed to a distance, so as not to excite suspicion in the minds of the animals. Old elephants have been known to precede the herd and whisk off the coverings of the pitfalls on each side all the way down to the water. There have been instances in which the old among these sagacious animals haye actually lifted the-young out of the trap. The muzzle of this animal is"very different to that of any other quadruped. It is, properly speaking, the nose, extended to about eight feet long, and terminated by a couple of nostrils. But besides serving as an organ of smell, it performs all the functions of a strong and dexterous arm. It is capable of uprooting small trees, and of laying hold of the most minute objects. Many of the Maoris have seen the pet elephant which the Duke of Edinburgh brought with him to Auckland. Livingstone says they found the elephants in prodigious numbers on the southern bank of the Ihey came to bathe and drink by night; and after having slaked their thirst, they evince their horror of pitfalls by setting off in a straight line to the desert, and never diverge till they are eight or ten miles off' The party observed also a great variety of other animals on the banks of this river. Great shoals of fish come down annually with the access of water. They are caught in nets/ There is one kind so large that when a man carries one over his shoulder, its tail reaches the ground. It is very fat, and is called by the natives " mosala." They also spear fish with a javelin having a light handle, which readily floats to the surface. They show great dexterity in harpooning the hippopotamus with a barbed blade, and the canoe is attached to him in whale fashion, and the animal cannot rid himself of it, exceptby smashing it, which he not unfrequently does by his teeth, or by a stroke of his foot. We referred to this animal at the commencement of this sketch, in the Waka of 24th February. (To he continued?)