On the 18th we passed a shallow saltpan, nearly elliptical in shape, about two feet deep, and some hundred yards in its greater length; it contained a very salt, milky-looking fluid. When the weather is dry, fresh water is only to be found in some pools in the rocks at the northern end. The lake lay still and silent in a slight depression in the forest, surrounded by a broad band of bright green sward; neither rushes nor water-lilies rose above its surface, but its shores, sloping gently down, were covered by trees and bushwood, in some parts so impenetrable that only the fleet little duykerbock would have a chance of making its way between the stems; in other places low acacia bushes sprouted up below the underwood from a single stock; flowers were abundant everywhere, and the whole scene was like a dead sea set in the midst of a fragrant and richly-wooded tract of land.
As a mark of esteem for the magnanimous king of the Bamangwatos, I gave this lake the name of Khame’s Salt-pan. On the shore I found fragments of greenstone and chalcedony, and further back, amongst the thorn-bushes, quartzite and limestone. There were numerous vestiges of the smaller gazelles, gnus, zebras, and giraffes, all of which, find rich pasturage on the plains extending east and west of the Limpopo.
KHAME’S SALT-PAN.
Amongst the trees I was particularly struck by one, the wood of which I afterwards learned was of great value; this was a mimosa, known amongst the Boers as the “Knopi-dorn;” it often grows straight up to the height of fifty feet, without a single bifurcation; its yellowish-grey bark is covered by excrescences sometimes two inches long, with sharp, hooked thorns at their ends. The timber is in use for building purposes, but it is considered a material especially adapted for making waggons.
In the afternoon we passed some salt-pools, in which I was surprised to find some half-starved fish. The fish themselves were not of any uncommon kind; to me the perplexing thing was how they could have made their way to so great a height above the table-land, and the only explanation I could give was that they had been carried thither by birds.
Evening overtook us in the valley of the upper Sirorume, just at the spot where the stream makes its way over interesting shelves of sandstone, thence to turn south, and then south-south-east to join the Limpopo.
While proceeding through the sandy forest in the inner bend of the Sirorume, we noticed from the waggon an appearance in the ground as though the long grass had been flattened by a heavy roller six or seven feet wide. It proved to be an elephant-track, and two Bamangwatos on their way to the Transvaal informed us that it was made by a herd of the great small-tusked elephants that were known to be wandering about the boundaries of Sekhomo’s and Sechele’s territory. I entertained no doubt that it was the same herd of which I had heard before, and which continued to haunt the same region for two years afterwards, when it was destroyed by the Damara emigrants.
At no great distance ahead of us the river-valley made a turn, above which, westwards and southwards as far as the eye could reach, stretched a dense underwood. Soon afterwards we descended for the second time into the river-valley of the Sirorume, designated by the English as the “brack reeds.” Here for miles both ways the river-bed is flat, and forms a sort of fen overgrown with rushes. I crossed this no less than three times, on each occasion finding it very prolific in puff-adders. Our search for drinking-water proved unavailing, and as our stock of meal was rapidly diminishing, we felt the necessity of hurrying on as quickly as possible; but on the 21st we came on the top of the table-land upon one of those unexpected rain-pools, which I described in my account of my first journey.
Three days before, I had shot two specimens of the puff-adder (Vipera arietans), each over three feet long, and as thick as my arm; they had heart-shaped heads, and two very long and crooked fangs. The scaly skin of this snake varies in colour from yellow to dark brown, consisting of alternate light and dark bands. It is to be met with almost everywhere between the sea and the Zambesi, but is far more abundant in some districts than in others; especially frequenting places overgrown by thorns, as less liable to be visited by snake-eagles. Most of the specimens I saw were lying dormant on the margins of thickets, or on the edges of pathways, coiled round and round, and flat as a platter; their sluggishness is quite remarkable, and I noticed more than one in pools of water from which they could never escape. So sharply are the fangs bent backward, that the puff-adder does not inflict a wound in the same way as the ordinary species; it has to turn the front part of its body quite back, lower its head, and in this position to fling itself at its victim; this it is capable of doing from a distance of several feet, and I have been a witness of this mode of attack both in Cape Colony and in Natal.