In winter, when the water is low, the pools vary from twelve to eighteen inches in depth; the breadth and length range very widely from thirty to 900 feet. The deposit is sometimes as much as three inches in thickness, extending from bank to bank about six or eight inches under the surface of the water like a stout layer of ice, which when broken discloses the real bottom of the pool nearly another foot below. To walk into the pools is like treading upon needle-crystals, and the feet are soon perceptibly covered with a deposit. Where they are very salt, they are never resorted to either by birds or quadrupeds. Anything thrown into them quickly becomes incrusted, but the beautiful red crystals unfortunately evaporate on being exposed to the air, and it was to little purpose that I carried a number of specimens away with me.
I sent Pit again next day to get a supply of salt for our use. This had first to be boiled to free it from the particles of lime, and afterwards to be crumbled up. We wanted it to preserve the flesh of the game we killed.
The bed in which these pans are situated is really an arm of the Nata, having branched off from it to rejoin it again. As I followed it on my way back to the waggon, I came across the last herds of springbocks that we were to see so far to the north; I likewise saw several herds of striped gnus, that here took the place of black gnus, none of which had appeared this side of Shoshong.
A capital shot was made by Theunissen on the following day; he brought down a steinbock at the distance of nearly 300 yards. Being anxious to procure some jackals’ skins, I laid out several bits of meat covered with strychnine over night, and in the morning, I found no less than four of the beasts lying poisoned beside them; the flesh of one of these was afterwards devoured by some of its own kind, and they too all died in consequence, and were discovered in the bush close by. Palm-bushes and baobabs, that flourish in salt soil just as well as in mould, grow very freely about the lower part of the Nata.
So large had my collection now become, that I made up my mind to send a good portion of it to Mr. Mackenzie at Shoshong by the first ivory-traders whom I should meet and could trust to take charge of it. We did not, however, just at this time fall in with any parties returning to the south.
Although we knew that our encampment was liable to attacks from lions, we found it in many other respects so agreeable that we quitted it with regret, and on the 3rd of July started up the left bank of the Nata, along a deep sandy road on the edge of the eastern plain. On our way we saw a herd of zebras grazing about 500 yards off. Theunissen was again anxious to try his skill as a marksman, and creeping on some fifty yards or more, fired from the long grass; he had taken a good aim and one of the zebras fell, but it sprang up and ran for a dozen yards further, when it fell for the second time. We hurried up, and Pit incautiously seized the animal by the head, and narrowly escaped being severely wounded, for the creature with its last gasp made a desperate plunge and tried to bite. As soon as it was dead, we set to work to skin it, carrying away with us all the flesh, except the neck and breast, to make into beltong. About two miles further on, we came to a good halting-place in the wood, where we could finish the process of preparing the skin. Meriko, with his gun, kept watch over our bullock-team, and whilst Pit helped Theunissen to cut up the meat ready for hanging up, I worked away at the skin, and afterwards at the skull.
The same afternoon I took a short stroll round about, and found that although the bushes were thick, the trees generally were scanty; there were, however, some very fine baobabs here and there. Several beautifully wooded islands in the spruit had steep high banks, and there was a pool some hundred yards long that apparently abounded in tortoises and fish. Our time, however, did not allow us to make any complete examination of the spot; it was desirable for us to hurry on with all speed, and to get across the Zambesi, if we could, before the middle of the month, so that we might stay until December in the more healthy highlands on the watershed.
We looked about for lion-tracks, but could see none; and being unaware that lions are accustomed very often to wander away from their usual haunts for a day or more, we thought it would be quite sufficient to put up a low fence; but as the night set in cold and dark with a piercing S.S.W. wind that made us all press closely round the fire, we could only regret our mistake and own that we ought to have made it higher. By eight o’clock the darkness was complete, and the wind, still howling, threatened a singularly uncomfortable night; but we consoled ourselves by recollecting that the zebra-skin would be sufficiently dry in the early morning, when we might move off.
Suddenly, so suddenly that we one and all started to our feet, the oxen began to bellow piteously, and to scamper about the enclosure, breaking down the slight fence that bounded it. Niger commenced barking furiously; the other dog whined in miserable fear underneath the waggon, and the bullocks that did not try to make off, crouched together in a corner and lowed feebly. We could not do otherwise than conclude that we were attacked by lions. It happened that Theunissen had only just left us to shorten the tether of the bullocks, and, jumping on to the box of the waggon, I tried to see where he was. I seized my breech-loader; Pit and Meriko in an instant each held up a firebrand, which threw a gleam of light some distance around. But I could not discover Theunissen. I called louder and louder, and hardly know whether I was more relieved or terrified, when, from amongst the struggling cattle, I heard his voice crying, “Help, help!” We hurried out, and quickly ascertained the cause of his alarm. While he was tightening the bullocks’ tethers, the roar of a lion, apparently close at hand, had put the animals into such a state of commotion, that two of them had got loose from the enclosure; and two others had so entangled Theunissen in the ropes, that he and they had all fallen together. It was undoubtedly due to Niger’s vigilance that the lion had retreated.
