THE DESERTS OF SOUTH AFRICA.
The deserts of South Africa, which include the great Kalahari, are, strictly speaking, savannas.
This section of what we might term semi-deserts lies between 20° and 30° south latitude. It is about one thousand miles long and seven hundred miles wide. The great Kalahari Desert is in the center of this vast area. Naturally, we should look for a variety of physical features in so vast a territory.
On its outer edges the desert tract of South Africa consists of broad plains. These are intersected by rugged, though not very lofty, mountains.
During the wet season these plains are covered with a rich, succulent herbage. This disappears, however, in the dry season. Under the scorching heat it is literally burned off, and leaves the ground parched and dusty.
At intervals in this territory may be found vast tracts overgrown with low bushes covered with thorns. These thorny bushes grow in such dense masses that the traveler is compelled to cut his way through them.
The colonists of South Africa give the name "Wait-a-bit" to this bush. Its short, hooked thorns check the progress of the traveler and compel him to wait a bit at almost every step he takes in advance.
Andersson, an early explorer, once came upon a forest of thornless trees in this section. In his journal he describes his feelings at the sight: "I do not think that I was ever so surprised in my life. I hesitated to trust my senses. Even the dull faces of my attendants seemed to relax from their usual heavy, unintelligent cast, and to express joy at the novel scene."
The climate is characterized by a brief wet season, when the rain falls in torrents. This season is succeeded by months of complete drought. During these droughts water can be found only in solitary fountains, appearing at rare intervals, or in a few stagnant pools.
Accounts of travelers are filled with the record of suffering that has been endured in this region, by man and beast, just from the lack of water.
Although this country may seem uninviting in many respects, yet to the sportsman it seems a veritable paradise. In no other section of the globe has he so many species of large game to choose from.
South Africa is like a vast zoölogical garden. Here are found the giraffe, the gigantic wild boar, the clumsy hippopotamus, and the rhinoceros. Leopards and hyenas seek their prey here among the many species of the antelope family.
Lions lurk on every side. Elephants haunt the lonely pools, where they seek to quench their thirst.
Ostriches, zebras, deer, springboks, and many other animals, the names of which we do not find in any zoölogy, make their home here.
Naturally, with so much animal life to be supported, there must be the need of vegetable growth.
The beasts of prey find no difficulty in appeasing their hunger; but the animals of the grazing families would fare badly, had not Nature provided them with the proper instinct for seeking their food. This instinct leads them to wander far and wide wherever herbage is to be found.
The region forms so large a pasture ground that it would be unlikely that the whole expanse would suffer from drought at any one time.
As the deer and the antelope families wander in search of fresh pasturage, the beasts of prey, eager for their food, follow in their wake.
In this peculiar region, nature has provided several plants especially adapted to the limitations of the soil. These plants seem to store up food, and even water, under what seems to be the dry sand of this sterile tract.
One such plant has a low stalk not much larger than the quill of a crow's feather. This plant sends its roots down into the sandy soil. At a depth of one or two feet the root expands into a tuber. This tuber is about the size of a small melon. It consists of a mass of watery, cellular tissue, much like a young turnip.
Another variety of plant is a low creeper. It expands into a cluster of tuberous roots. Some of these tubers are as large as a man's head. The clusters sometimes measure a yard in diameter.
A native searching for one of these clusters pounds the ground with stones, till a hollow sound indicates the spot where he will find the prize.
Many of the animals dig away the sand with their sharp hoofs from these spots, which instinct teaches them to find, just as the reindeer finds the moss of the Arctic regions buried beneath the snow.
A kind of gourd grows in great abundance, covering large tracts. Both men and animals are very fond of it.
One traveler relates that in crossing the desert, during the season for these gourds, he found them in great abundance. So numerous, in fact, were they, that he and his cattle lived on them for three weeks. During this interval no water was to be had. When a supply of water was reached, all seemed to have lost their liking for it.
Another variety of gourd seeks the low sand hills. It has a fruit about the size of a turnip. The outside of this fruit is of a greenish yellow; the inside is of a deep orange color.
In the neighborhood of Walfish Bay man and beast live upon this gourd almost exclusively for three months in the year.
The seeds of this plant look and taste something like an almond. When the season of the fruit is over, the seeds, which have been carefully gathered, dried, and preserved, are used for food.
Geologists are of the opinion that by boring deep enough in almost any section of this semi-desert territory of South Africa water might be found.
The rainfall in the wet season is very great. Scarcely any of this rainfall finds an outlet through the rivers.
Much of it must sink down through the sand till it reaches beds of clay or strata of rock. Here the water would be held as in a basin, and man, by digging, could obtain it.
Wherever subterranean supplies of water are to be found there are possibilities for the fertilization of the soil.
The perforating of the arid plains of South Africa with artesian wells would soon transform them into luxuriant gardens.
In the Kalahari, pits of slight depth are not unfrequently found. These contain water throughout the year, unless there have been two successive years of drought.
The natives hide these pits with the utmost precaution. Sometimes they fill them with loose sand and build a fire over them. This is to mislead any one searching for water. One would scarcely expect to find water under a heap of ashes.
When the natives build their huts, they are careful to locate them at some distance from these hidden mines of liquid treasure.
It is a curious sight to see the women of a village start out from their huts for a supply of water. Their water vessels are a string of ostrich eggshells, with a small hole in the end of each shell.
The women make use of a reed for drawing water. This is nearly a yard long, and has a bunch of grass fastened to the end.
The reed, with its bunch of grass, is sunk down through the sand. The sand is then packed closely around it.
Placing her mouth at the upper end of the reed, the woman who wishes to fill her shells makes a vacuum in the sponge-like bunch of grass by sucking through the reed. The water from the pit flows into the grassy sponge, thence up through the reed into the mouth, when, by a dexterous movement, it is thrown into the water vessels.
The women are very skillful in the use of this primitive pump, and it answers very well for water at so little depth.
Livingstone believed that water existed in the Kalahari at no great depth below the surface. He reasoned from these circumstances: For two successive seasons there had been an extreme drought. During neither of these droughts had more than five inches of rain fallen. Everything was parched. The ground was so hot that if beetles were placed upon it, they were killed in a few seconds, as if they had been placed upon a sheet of hot iron. He noticed that a certain species of ants which always dig their tunnels deep into the ground, did not seem affected by the heat. He opened some of their chambers, curious to learn the reason, and invariably found that the walls were moist.
The inhabitants of this territory are of varied character. Many of them are of the very lowest types of mankind. Others are far superior, and seem susceptible to civilization and education.
In their home life they cultivate their garden patches with a great deal of care and no little skill. They rear small herds of goats, though often forced to dig water for them by the spoonful, as we might say.
In their way they are keen traders. Their trade, though primitive, answers all their needs. They barter the skins of animals that they have slain, for spears, knives, tobacco, and other articles.
Livingstone, in his travels across the Kalahari, speaks of the hot wind which blows over the desert from north to south occasionally. This wind feels as if it came from an oven. Fortunately, it rarely lasts longer than three days. It resembles the harmattan of North Africa.
Many years ago, when missionaries first entered the country, this wind came loaded with fine reddish sand.
Now it does not come laden with sand, but it is so drying in its effects as to shrink even the best seasoned English wood. Hence all wooden articles become warped.
This wind comes strongly charged with electricity. A bunch of ostrich feathers held for a few seconds against it becomes charged as if by an electrical machine. If one should grasp the bunch, it would give forth a sharp, crackling sound.
Livingstone noticed this electrical state of the atmosphere when traveling in a wagon with one of the native chiefs. The fur of the chief's mantle became, through a slight friction, quite luminous. Livingstone rubbed it smartly with his hand, and found it gave out quite bright sparks, with distinct crackling noises.
Turning to the chief, Livingstone said, "Do you see this?" His reply was, "The white man did not show us this; we had it long before white men came into the country,—we and our forefathers of old."