Page:Seven Years in South Africa v2.djvu/84

 lake basin. The greater part of the lake-bottom consists of rock, partly bare and partly covered with the deposit from the rain-torrents. While I was taking the measurement of the eastern shore, I came upon a herd of striped gnus, but without being able to shoot one of them. In the brackish waters of the river, and in the pools near its mouth, there were a good many spoonbills and ducks, and for the first time for a long while I noticed some grunters.

After finishing my sketch-chart of the Tsitane lake next morning, I went out and shot a great horned owl that I found in the trees on the bank.

Every depression in the soil round the smaller pans contains salt. However short a time the rainwater may stand in them, vegetation is sure to be checked; the evaporation is rapid, and so great that the ground is continually crusted with large patches of salt some five inches above the soil, which break in when trodden on. In high winds the salt and salt earth are swept along in great white clouds like dust. The edge of the lake was covered with little chalcedonies and milk-pebbles that had been washed down by the rain.

We quitted the shores of the Tsitane salt-pan on the 21st, but as I had understood from the natives that there would be much difficulty in getting water farther on, and I did not wish to impede the progress of the ivory-traders, we parted company, but only to meet again after a fortnight in the valley of the Panda ma Tenka, and yet again a year later at Shoshong.

It was at the salt-pan that I saw my first baobab, the most southerly specimen along my route, although Mauch had seen some further south in the western