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.