Elands, springbucks, koodoos, and ostriches somehow seem to get along very well without any moisture, except that contained in the grass which they eat. They appear to live for months without drinking; but whenever rhinoceroses, buffaloes, or gnus are seen, it is held to be certain proof that water exists within a few miles.
The passage of the Kalahari was effected, not without considerable difficulty, in two months, the expedition reaching Lake Ngami on the 1st of August. As they approached it, they came upon a considerable river.
"Whence does this come?" asked Livingstone.
"From a country full of rivers," was the reply; "so many that no man can tell their number, and full of large trees."
This was the first actual confirmation of the report of the Bakwains that the country beyond was not the large "sandy plateau" of geographers. The prospect of a highway capable of being traversed by boats to an unexplored fertile region so filled the mind of Livingstone that, when he came to the lake, this discovery seemed of comparatively little importance. To us, indeed, whose ideas of a lake are formed from Superior and Huron, the Ngami seems but an insignificant affair. Its circumference may be seventy or a hundred miles, and its mean depth is but a few feet. It lies two thousand feet above the level of the sea, and as much below the southern border of the Kalahari, which slopes gradually toward the interior.
Their desire to visit Sebituane, whose residence was considerably farther in the interior, was frustrated by the jealousy of Lechulatebe, a chief near the lake, and the expedition returned to the station at Kolobeng. The attempt was renewed the following year. Mrs. Livingstone, their three children, and Sechele accompanied him. The lake was reached. Lechulatebe, propitiated by the present of a valuable gun, agreed to furnish guides to Sebituane's country; but the children and servants fell ill, and the attempt was for the time abandoned.
A third expedition was successful, although the whole party came near perishing for want of water, and their cattle, which had been bitten by the 'Tsetse', died.
This insect—the 'Glossina moritans' of the naturalists—deserves a special paragraph. It is a brown insect about as large as our common house-fly, with three or four yellow bars across its hinder part. A lively, buzzing, harmless-looking fellow is the tsetse. Its bite produces a slight itching similar to that caused by the mosquito, and in the case of men and some species of animals no further ill effects follow. But woe to the horse, the ox, and the dog, when once bitten by the tsetse. No immediate harm appears; the animal is not startled as by the gad-fly; but in a few days the eyes and the nose begin to run; the jaws and navel swell; the animal grazes for a while as usual, but grows emaciated and weak, and dies, it may be, weeks or months after. When dissected, the cellular tissue seems injected with air, the fat is green and oily, the muscles are flabby, the heart is so soft that the finger may be pushed through it. The antelope and buffalo, the zebra and goat, are not affected by its bite; while to the ox, the horse, and the dog it is certain death. The mule and donkey are not troubled by it, nor are sucking calves, while dogs, though fed upon milk, perish. Such different effects produced upon animals whose nature is similar, constitute one of the most curious phenomena in natural history.
Sebituane, who had heard of the approach of his visitors, came more than a hundred miles to meet them. He was a tall, wiry, coffee-and-milk colored man, of five-and-forty. His original home was a thousand miles to the south, in the Bakwain country, whence he had been driven by the Griquas a quarter of a century before. He fled northward, fighting his way, sometimes reduced to the utmost straits, but still keeping his people together. At length he crossed the desert, and conquered the country around Lake Ngami; then having heard of white men living on the west coast, he passed southwestward into the desert, hoping to be able to open intercourse with them. There suffering from the thirst, he came to a small well; the water was not sufficient for his men and his cattle; one or the other must perish; he ordered the men to drink, for if they survived they could fight for more cattle. In the morning his cattle were all gone, and he returned to the north. Here a long course of warfare awaited him, but in the end he triumphed over his enemies, and established himself for a time on the great river Zambesi. Haunted with a longing for intercourse with the whites, he proposed to descend the river to the eastern coast. He was dissuaded from this purpose by the warnings of a native prophet. "The gods say, Go not thither!" he cried; then turning to the west, "I see a city and a nation of black men—men of the water; their cattle are red; thine own tribe are perishing, and will all be consumed; thou wilt govern black men, and when thy warriors have captured the red cattle, let not their owners be killed; they are thy future tribe; let them be spared to cause thee to build." So Sebituane went westward, conquered the blacks of an immense region, spared the lives of the men, and made them his subjects, ruling them gently. His original people are called the Makololo; the subject tribes are styled Makalaka.
Sebituane, though the greatest warrior in the south, always leading his men to battle in person, was still anxious for peace. He had heard of cannon, and had somehow acquired the idea that if he could only procure one he might live in quiet. He received his visitors with much favor. "Your cattle have all been bitten by the tsetse," he said, "and will die; but never mind, I will give you as many as you want." He offered to conduct them through his country that they might choose a site for a missionary station. But at this moment he fell ill of an inflammation of the lungs, from which he soon died.