One morning about eleven o’clock, as we were outspanned in an open plain about 300 yards from a small pool of water, our oxen, horse, and a few goats grazing on the opposite side of the waggons, several of my boys asleep, the Bushmen and the women cooking some flesh in the hot embers, we saw seven lions leisurely walking up to the water. After drinking, they went to a small rise, bare of grass and sandy, and commenced playing, some lying down, others jumping over them, growling in their deep bass voice, acting the same as cats at play. This lasted twenty minutes, when they as leisurely walked away, taking no notice of us whatever. If I had fired and wounded any, they might have come at us, which would have been dangerous to our oxen, by dispersing. When an ox or a horse smells a lion, they will bolt away anywhere, and some might have been lost, therefore we left them alone and enjoyed so unusual a sight, watching the movements of these beautiful but dangerous kings of the forest, in their wild and natural state in the wilds of Africa.
The Kalahara, that portion, on the borders of Damara and Ovampolands for 300 miles, becomes much more densely wooded and hilly. Some of the mountains attain a height of 8000 feet, in which lead, copper, iron, and coal, also limestone, both white and dark grey, crop up everywhere. Granite forms the hills. The Black and White Nosop and the Elephant river, and their several branches, drain all this region. The country is very dry, rain seldom falls, and when it does, it comes down with a rush, which soon passes away; but the vegetation is excellent, fine timber and thick bush predominate over this vast but little inhabited country. The road from Walfish Bay on the west coast passes through, in an easterly direction, to Lake N’gami, Zambese, Ba-Mangwato, and other territories on the east. The road is difficult to travel for want of water, but when the country is more opened up, means will be found for procuring it by well-sinking and pumps, to make it as easy to travel as any part of Africa. There are several permanent watering-places now along this route. In the dry season it is three and four days’ trek between them, but as it is limestone nearly all the way, water can be procured by digging wells. The country is subject to drought, more particularly in the southern portion of the desert, consequently there is more game to be found in the northern region. Elephants are seen in troops of two or three hundred, also the zebra, and the various antelopes, giraffes, rhinoceros, wild boar, and others.
The country is very favourable for rearing cattle; large numbers of horses are yearly taken through the desert from the Orange River Free State to Damaraland, and exchanged for Damara oxen, which are found to make the best trek oxen, having small hoofs and being nimble on their feet; they are compact and strong. Another advantage is that they are bred on sour grass; when they arrive in the colony, it is sweet, which improves their condition.
April 30th.—At Hoab, a lovely, calm morning, after a heavy rain last night, at a vlei; there are several large ones in this open grass country that contain water at this time of year, being the rainy season. This station is on the desert-track from the lake to Ovampoland.
Outspanned under a large tree; boys employed skinning a koodoo, killed early this morning by one of my Bushmen guides with his poisoned arrow. The arrow-head is of bone, very small, the shaft two feet in length, and the bow two feet six inches. The shaft, close to the head for four inches, is covered over with their poison, which, in penetrating the flesh, paralyses the animal; the flesh killed in this manner is very good, and has no bad effect on those who partake of it. Several Bush people have come to our camp begging for food; they look poor and miserable, their only covering being a few pieces of ragged skins thrown over their shoulders. Several of the grown-up boys and girls had not even that to cover them. They are complete wanderers in the desert; no home or fixed abode, but live on roots, berries, insects, and anything they may by chance shoot: I gave them some flesh, and a fire to cook it.
The hot winds, which are very oppressive, come in waves, and are very enervating, more particularly in the dry season, when they dry up everything. The wood-work of the waggons shrinks to such an extent, that the wheels are kept together by ropes of raw hide bound round them; and your own system becomes so dried-up, that the natural functions of your body partly cease to act; to remedy this, fat is absolutely necessary, and nature craves after it. You will see the desire after fat in the native tribes, not only to grease their skin, to protect it from the sun, but to use as medicine.
When treking, some days afterwards, we were overtaken by one of those gigantic whirlwinds so common in all tropical countries. We were entirely enveloped in it; everything that is loose in the way of clothes is carried up hundreds of yards. One of my boys had his hat taken by the current, and it fell nearly a quarter of a mile from where he lost it. Many of these whirlwinds may be seen at one time passing over the desert.
At this outspan, late in the afternoon, sitting on my camp-stool where my boys were skinning a buffalo I had shot, I saw in the distance a Bushman coming. When near enough to distinguish, I saw it was a Bush girl, tall and well-made, and for a wonder quite fat; she was marked over every part of her body—face, legs, and arms—with white stripes, like the stripes of the zebra, and had nothing else on. She came up, holding out an old piece of leopard-skin. My Bushman spoke to her, but could get no answer. I gave her some tobacco, when, dropping the skin, she walked to the fire and sat down. We gave her a piece of cooked meat, thinking she might be hungry, which she took, and after remaining some ten minutes, got up and walked away in the same direction she came; but no word could we get from her. She was even strange to my Bushman. It was a strange visit, and a strange mode of decorating herself. The only other occasion on which I fell in with Bushmen so marked was more to the cast, nearly 300 miles, when nearly a dozen came to my waggon, to tell me I had that day ridden over a grave where a few days before they had buried one of their people. The stripes may have something to do with death, but the Bushmen I have spoken to know nothing of such custom.
One of the vleis, which was full of water, appeared to be full of frogs, from the noise they made at night; going down, next morning, I found several small ones, having a peculiar appearance. Catching one, which was very narrow in its body compared to its length, and having a short tail, I concluded at once from its general shape that it was half-lizard and half-frog. It had all the action of the frog in its long leaps, without any attempt at running; all the others were of the same form, and with tails. I brought it to the waggon to take its measure, viz. from front of head to commencement of tail one and a half inch, length of tail three-quarters of an inch, beautifully marked with green and light-yellow spots. Not having any means of preserving it, I took it back to the vlei, where there were hundreds sitting on the bank; as I neared them they jumped into the water and disappeared. The Bushman brought in to-day several ostrich eggs, quite fresh from the nest, which we had cooked in our large iron pots, mixed with a little flour—a kind of omelet; one is sufficient for three persons. The Bushman took me to a nest that the old birds had been sitting on for some time; there were eighteen in the centre, and fourteen on the outside, formed into a circle round them, which are kept for food for the young birds, which lasts them a few days when hatched; the hen bird then takes and teaches the chicks to eat grass.
Thursday, 18th.—Our camp was visited by a party of traders and Korannas on their way from Meer down South—the chief Puffadder, old Mr Ryland, from Kopie’s farm and Low Blaat, four waggons, and a lot of cattle, horses, and sheep. They remained the afternoon and night, and started early the next day for Kebeum. They told me a trader on the border of Great Namaqualand, going down to Walfish Bay, had been shot, and his waggon and everything seized by the Gobabis Hottentots for plunder, and that the country was in a fearful state of tribal wars. I told them of my little affair with the Bushman Hottentot at Quassam; they said I was most fortunate to escape as I did, particularly with all my belongings, as they are noted as a nest of thieves, and have robbed traders of everything.