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Updated: June 22, 2025
In its litter of corrugated-iron roofs, and in the church and the racecourse, which are the first-fruits everywhere of Anglo-Celtic civilisation, one sees the seeds of the great city of the future. It is the obvious depot for the western Transvaal upon one side, and the starting-point for all attempts upon the Kalahari Desert upon the other. The Transvaal border runs within a few miles.
Skirting the edge of the Kalahari desert for some time they afterwards deviated from their course through want of water, and visited Pitsana, where a great concourse of natives had gathered, consisting of the different sections of the Barolong tribe, who had been driven from their country the previous year during the invasion of the Mantatees.
A mother will address her little girl, from whose foot a thorn is to be extracted, with, "Now, ma, you are a woman; a woman does not cry." A man scorns to shed tears. When we were passing one of the deep wells in the Kalahari, a boy, the son of an aged father, had been drowned in it while playing on its brink. When all hope was gone, the father uttered an exceedingly great and bitter cry.
Great numbers of the tribes formerly living under the Boers have taken refuge under his sway, and he is now greater in power than he was before the attack on Kolobeng. Having parted with Sechele, we skirted along the Kalahari Desert, and sometimes within its borders, giving the Boers a wide berth.
Fraser's hotel, which was always a stage nearer Mafeking, whither I was anxious to return eventually. As a matter of fact, there was no alternative resting-place. It was impossible to pass south to Kimberley, to the west lay the Kalahari Desert, and to the east the Transvaal.
It would not be influenced by any streams in the Kalahari, for there, as in a corresponding part of the Nile, there would be no feeders. It is to be remembered that the great ancient river which flowed to the lake at Boochap took this course exactly, and probably flowed thither until the fissure of the falls was made.
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.
During the four following days, from the 11th to the 14th of July, Mrs. Weldon and her companions remarked that this portion of the territory had decidedly changed. It was no longer a deserted country; it was also a desert, and they might have compared it to that Kalahari explored by Livingstone on his first voyage. The arid soil recalled nothing of the fertile fields of the upper country.
This phenomenon takes place in the driest parts of the desert, and in places where, to an ordinary observer, there is not a sign of life. Having been once benighted in a district of the Kalahari where there was no prospect of getting water for our cattle for a day or two, I was surprised to hear in the fine still evening the croaking of frogs.
This expedition, which resulted in the discovery of Lake Ngami, set out from the missionary station at Kolobeng on the 1st of June, 1849. The way lay across the great Kalahari desert, seven hundred miles in breadth. This is a singular region. Though it has no running streams, and few and scanty wells, it abounds in animal and vegetable life.
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