Treking through the country where there were no roads to Kuis, on the Molapo, in Montsioa country, I came upon a small Bushman kraal, six huts in all, evidently a permanent station. A few goats were feeding near them, and in the bushes were four bush girls collecting most beautiful caterpillars of red, yellow, blue, and green, about three inches in length. They told my Hottentot they cook them in milk, and they are very nice. As the people seemed very friendly, I remained the night with my waggon, and was much amused at the dancing and singing in the evening. Happy people! why should they be disturbed in their innocent life? There were old and young, in all eighteen; a quiet and inoffensive family. Far away from other kraals these people lived to themselves; not another family that I could see within fifty miles.
Walking round in the morning to collect some of these caterpillars to put into spirits, I observed many of the thorn trees covered with dead insects, small lizards, frogs, beetles, grasshoppers, locusts, and many other kinds, all beautifully spiked on the long mimosa thorns; nearly every bough had one or more on. I knew at once that it was the larder of the little cruel butcher-bird. The bush seemed to swarm with them, and I have watched them frequently take and spike insects. One caught a frog and carried it to a tree close to where I was concealed, to see how he managed to pierce them so securely. The frog made a kind of scream when he was being taken up, and almost a scream when the large thorn was put through him. But he was not long suspended; when the bird was gone he wriggled himself clear, and fell to the ground, and I put him out of his pain. This butcher-bird is about the size, rather larger than a sparrow, black and white. One killed two canary-birds; both were put on the thorns. They seem never at rest, always looking for game of some kind. They are known in every part of South Central Africa. The Wagt-een-beitje tree is their favourite for impaling their victims.
The mocking-bird is also common; two kinds, one black and white, the other brown. The latter is the most talkative. Both night and day I have watched them on the topmost branches of the lofty trees, and their persistent and energetic mode of keeping up their everlasting talk has kept me awake many nights, as in several parts, where the wood is thick, they seem to occupy every tree and bush.
Snakes are also plentiful down along the Molapo; being out one afternoon with my gun after wild ducks, walking along the banks, all of a sudden a large black mamba snake stood in my path, about ten feet distant; he had raised himself more than two feet from the ground and was coming at me; I had just time to fire into his head before he made his spring. He measured eleven feet seven inches. The poison-fangs are as long as a parrot’s claws. I put him into one of these chimneypot ant-hills to feed the ants; several more I saw the same day, and many puffadders: the largest measured three feet five inches.
All this part of the chief Montsioa’s territory, down past Kuis, and along the Mafeking river, which is his western division, is one of the driest portions of the Kalahara desert; in the winter months the only water to be obtained is in the sand of the river by digging; but in summer there is plenty. A road from Kuruman runs through the desert, down part of the way by the Kuruman river, crossing the Nosop and Oup to Meer, where the Bastards have formed a town: the distance is 240 miles. Before leaving this region I wish to explain the meteorological peculiarities of South Central Africa. When any great change in the atmosphere is about to take place, it has often been remarked by travellers, that in Africa there is lightning and thunder without clouds. I have often remarked this phenomenon, and wondered what could be the cause. Isolated from all society, thrown upon our own resources for occupation and amusement, in these solitary journeys through this vast unknown region, we are more prone to investigate the mysteries of nature than we should if thrown more amongst the busy world. So it was in my case, and knowing there must be some natural law unknown to me, I took my observations accordingly to find it out.
During the long dry season many years ago, when travelling in the central portion of this desert, where this strange lightning and thunder occurred almost every night at certain seasons of the year, when no clouds are visible, all I could discover was, that the flashes seemed to come from one quarter. I was outspanned one day near one of those singular isolated granite hills, so often to be seen in the Kalahara desert, that look more like a ruined temple than the works of nature. I started in the afternoon to climb to its summit, to take observations with my instruments, and found the elevation from base to top to be 278 feet. It would be difficult to find words to convey the exquisite pleasure I felt in standing alone on this lofty eminence, where no white man before ever placed his foot: alone, far from the busy world, its anxieties and troubles; to look at the fair scene beneath and around me, the rich vegetation on the plains (for it was in the month of November, when all is bright and fair), the distant mountains, their quaint outlines softened by space to lovely purple tints, as they fade away into the rosy sky on the horizon! Taking up a position under a huge block of granite, to be out of the sun’s influence, for the thermometer registered 106 degrees in the shade, to take observations, my attention was attracted to some heavy-looking clouds just perceptible above the topmost ridge of some lofty hills in the north-west some twenty miles distant. The sun was shining on them, giving them a pink massive outline. I remained in this position till nearly sundown, when I returned to the waggons; no clouds were visible above the hills when I reached my camp, nothing but the bright glow of the sky, which later on had changed to a purplish-blue, and as night approached came the usual lightning-flashes; my impression was we were going to have a storm, but there were no signs of clouds all night, and a clear sky the next day. On the following day we treked fifteen miles more to the north, and in the afternoon observed, just above the horizon, a line of clouds, similar to those I had seen the day before in the same position, and as evening advanced they appeared to have dispersed, as they became blended with the evening tints, and a casual observer would declare, with every appearance of truth, that there were no clouds to be seen in the sky, although he would see the lightning-flash only, as in no case when these apparently cloudless flashes come, is spark or electric fluid visible. I have been exploring constantly the whole of South Central Africa for twenty-five years, out in the open air nightly; not an evening escaped my observations, therefore I write with some degree of confidence when I state no electric spark is ever seen with this lightning, in consequence of the distance, and partly below the horizon, and occasionally, but very seldom, in the stillness and quiet that pervades everything, the air perfectly calm, the distant nimble of thunder may be heard, and the clouds before morning have vanished. I followed these observations for months, and whenever any clouds were seen just above the horizon before the sun went down, they appeared to vanish as the evening tints deepened. The same result followed year after year.
I once took up my quarters at a small spring flowing from some granite rocks, where I remained six weeks, near the range of hills already described, to hunt and explore; this was the following year, and strange to say, every afternoon heavy masses of clouds just showed their heads above the horizon, covering more than a quarter of a circle, that is, from the west of north to east-north-east, taking up the same position daily; their lovely pink tints faded as evening advanced, no clouds could be seen, and yet nightly we had these flashes. Some may say, surely these clouds must have passed over some portion of the desert, not a great distance from my outspan, and rain have fallen from these storm-clouds; the reply is, for months prior to the rainy season commencing, clouds are formed after mid-day, and follow certain strata in the air, drawn by the electric condition of that portion of the earth’s surface, and discharge the electricity they may contain without rain. I give this because I have on several occasions been stationary for some weeks in the line of country these clouds have taken, year after year, and at the same season. After the sun has passed the meridian, clouds have been collecting, generally from the north-east, and as evening advances, the vivid lightning and the heavy peals of thunder commence, and last for several hours, and then appear to evaporate, and a lovely starlight night succeeds; not a drop of rain has fallen during the storm, and a clear blue sky is seen over the whole of the horizon. In this part of the desert we are seldom below 3600 feet of sea-level, and, taking into consideration the clear and rarefied atmosphere, a flash of lightning and the thunder may be seen and heard at a greater distance than where the atmosphere is more dense. I may further observe, that owing to the rotundity of the earth, and the allowance to be made in every mile, it does not require that the clouds should be very far away to be partly below the horizon. When we place our eye on a level with the ground and look along a flat country, at ten miles’ distance a man must be seventy feet high for his head to be seen above the horizon; therefore, at twenty or thirty miles, a portion of the clouds would be beneath the horizon, not a great distance for sound to be heard on a still evening, or a flash of light to be seen as evening closed in. These storm-clouds, without rain, always precede the rainy season, as also the sand-storms, and those gigantic whirlwinds that may be seen passing over the desert by the dozen, and extending in some instances 1000 feet high, carrying up sand, sticks, and other articles that lie in their course; many of them measure 100 feet through. It is a strange sight to see many of these sand-columns passing along over a plain. I have observed, where the first passes, in the course of the day others follow exactly in the same line: they indicate a change in the weather. The mirage is also of daily occurrence. In travelling through the country, its general features appear to have entirely changed by imaginary lakes, looking so perfectly natural; lofty trees appear to be standing in water; long belts of bush and wood, which the traveller may be approaching, seem suspended in the air, showing their reflection in the vapoury atmosphere between them and the observer, which does not extend above a few feet from the ground: that apparently vanishes as you proceed, but you are passing through it; isolated hills look like islands, by their base being surrounded by this moist air, which is not confined to any particular time of day, but towards the afternoon they are more frequent. If there is any wind, of course there is no mirage, as it disperses the damp air which causes it.
Montsioa territory is rich in cattle, which is sold to colonial traders. The natives also are cultivating their lands for corn, and a great sale in ploughs is the consequence. They are improving in every way, but for the last three years the Boers have laid waste the country, killing the people by hundreds, robbing them of their property, and stealing from them 30,000 head of cattle, besides sheep and goats, causing untold misery amongst a people who never injured them by word or deed. I write this from my own personal knowledge, being there at the time, and having only just returned to this country. The only means of preserving these people, and improving their condition, which is essential also to the prosperity and advancement of the Cape Colony, is to annex their lands.