Now, according to Livingstone's accounts, these extraordinary rains occur only once in ten or eleven years, with the subsequent abundance of melons. When such an event occurs, not only man, but animals of every description, rejoice over the rich harvest. The elephant, monarch of the forest, fairly revels in the fruit; and the rhinoceros, though his tastes are naturally so very different from the elephant's, is equally fond of it. Not only do the antelopes feed upon it with eagerness, but even the lions, hyenas, jackals, and mice seem to recognize its merits and to appreciate this blessing of an agreeable, succulent food in an arid soil.
True, all of these melons are not eatable. Some are sweet; others are bitter, so that the Boers invariably speak of the fruit as the bitter watermelon, and make no distinction between the varieties.
The natives, in selecting the fruit, strike each melon with a hatchet; and then, to distinguish between the bitter and the sweet ones, apply the tongue to the aperture in each. The bitter melons are harmful, but the sweet ones are considered very wholesome. Bees often convey the pollen from the blossoms of a bitter melon vine to those of a sweet variety and completely change the character and flavor of its fruit.
The inhabitants of the Kalahari Desert consist of the nomadic Bushmen and a tribe said to be the oldest of the Bechuana tribes. The Bushmen are the aborigines of the country, and live in the desert from choice. Their chief food consists of the flesh of game, eked out by such roots, beans, and fruit as the women can collect.
In the hot sandy plains they are generally thin, with wiry frames capable of enduring hardship and privation. Many are of small stature, though by no means dwarfish. Nomadic in their taste, they never cultivate the soil, nor rear any domestic animals, unless it be a few wretched dogs. They possess an intimate knowledge of the habits of the various game animals, and follow them from place to place as their lawful prey.
The descendants of the ancient Bechuana tribes at one time possessed enormous herds of the large horned animals; when despoiled of these, they were driven into the desert, which thus by compulsion became their home.
They are very different in their tastes and habits from the Bushmen. Though subjected to the same influences of climate, and obliged to endure the same thirst, and to subsist upon practically the same food, they stand a race distinct in itself.
They have all the Bechuana love for agriculture and domestic animals. They hoe their gardens annually, though often all they can hope for is a supply of melons and pumpkins. They rear with great care, too, small herds of goats, though they have been known to be obliged to obtain water for them out of small wells with a bit of ostrich eggshell or by the spoonful.
These people have a great dread of strange tribes of Bechuanas, and choose their residences far from the water pits which would naturally attract wayfarers. Not unfrequently they hide all outward signs of such pits by filling them with sand and by making a fire over them.
The women of the desert take great pride in their ability to bear pain. A mother will say to her little girl from whose foot she has just extracted a thorn, "Now, ma, you are a woman; a woman does not cry."