African Nature Notes and Reminiscences

by Frederick Courteney Selous

INCIDENTS OF A JOURNEY THROUGH THE NORTHERN KALAHARI

Southern Rhodesia—Country farther west still a primeval wilderness—Seldom traversed by white men—Scarcity of water—Remarkable rain-storm—Porcupine flooded out—Every hollow filled with water—All game in good condition—Many varieties encountered—Large herd of elephants—Four large bulls—Wariness of elephants—Lions roaring near camp—Search for them on the following morning—Large male seen and chased into thick bush—Successful encounter with a second male.

Southern Rhodesia, in which vast territory is comprised Matabeleland, Mashunaland, Manicaland, and part of Gazaland, is now a well-known country traversed by railways and supporting a considerable white population, the bulk of which, however, is confined to the mining districts and to the towns of Bulawayo, Salisbury, Umtali, and Gwelo. But between the western frontier of Southern Rhodesia and the swamps of the Okavango river there stretches a broad expanse of primeval wilderness which the recent development of European activity in all parts of Africa has left entirely untouched.

The reason for this is not far to seek, since the whole of this country is, in the first place, entirely without hills or indeed stone of any kind, and therefore cannot contain gold; and in the second, entirely without rivers, and therefore as a rule a sun-scorched waste, almost destitute of surface water, except during the rainy season.

Thus it has been left an unexplored wilderness which has seldom been traversed by white men, except on certain well-known routes, such as the old waggon trails from Tati to Pandamatenka and from Bamangwato to the Mababi river, and even on these I have travelled in dry seasons seventy and a hundred and twenty miles respectively without water.

Occasionally, however, when exceptionally heavy rains have fallen during the past wet season, this desert land becomes a very pleasant country to travel in. Such a year was 1884. Towards the end of May of that year, a full six weeks after the usual close of the wet season, the most extraordinary rain-storm I have ever experienced swept over the desert to the west of Matabeleland. I was at that time travelling slowly westwards by bullock waggon, following no track, but making my way across country under the guidance of Masarwa Bushmen from one pool of water to another.

One afternoon dense masses of black clouds gathered in the west, and presently spread over the whole sky. There was neither thunder nor lightning, but towards evening a strong wind sprang up, and soon afterwards a steady rain began to fall, at first light, but ever increasing in intensity, until soon after dark it was coming down in such a way that I thought it impossible that it could last long. But all through that night and until midday the following day, the heavy rain never ceased to fall. During the afternoon, however, the sky again grew lighter and the rain gradually ceased. By midnight the stars were shining from a cloudless sky.

Early the following morning I rode out to see the effect of this unprecedented downpour, and found the face of the country completely changed. On the sand ridges no difference was apparent, as the thirsty soil had easily absorbed all the rain that had fallen on it, but the intervening spaces where the Mopani trees flourish, and where the soil is a sort of light clay, had been transformed into broad, shallow lakes, from a few inches to two feet in depth. Riding across one of these flooded valleys, I came upon a porcupine seated disconsolately on the stem of a fallen Mopani tree—the first of these animals I had ever come across in the daytime.

The surface floods soon soaked away on the level ground, but every hollow became a lake or pond which held water for a longer or shorter time according to its depth, and when retraversing this same tract of country some five months later, I still found all the larger hollows fairly full, and was therefore able to travel at my leisure with ease and comfort through a country which, in ordinary seasons, would have been quite impassable by bullock waggon at that time of the year.