Page:Seven Years in South Africa v2.djvu/503

 a day’s journey from Mamusa, our way led over the Quagga Flats. The grass was low and the soil dry, consequently the game, which is generally very abundant, had retreated to moister and better concealed districts. I found the underwood very dense in the shallow valley at the source of the Maretsane.

Water-birds were plentiful at a saltpan at which I arrived on the 1st of November, but unfortunately at this date I had so many indications of a return of fever, that neither here nor at the Calvert or Helmore lakes, was I in a condition to enjoy any sport.

Continuing my journey three days later, I paid a visit to the Harm Saltlake, where some Boers contrive to make a miserable livelihood by hunting and by selling salt.

The Mackenzie and the Livingstone saltpans lay in the next day’s route, and after a drive of some hours over marshy soil, we came to a pond encircled by tall sedge, in the middle of which there seemed to be a rock-pool; as far as I know, it is the only one of the kind on the plain between the Harts and Molapo. As we approached we were almost deafened by the chorus of bird-cries that rose from its banks. We put up for the night in two deserted huts that had belonged to some Dutch hunters, who had left the tokens of their calling behind them in a great accumulation of the bones of the gnus and antelopes they had killed. I was sorry that there was no boat at hand in which I could make an investigation of the bottom of the pond. Besides the numerous swamp-birds and water-fowl, there was a great variety of finches in the sedge; and before night closed in, it was a remarkable sight to see the thousands of