Page:Seven Years in South Africa v2.djvu/86

 Some Masarwas bearing traces of the red salt-crust on their ankles came to us offering some baobab-fruit, and asking for maize and tobacco in exchange. We had not much time to spend either in bartering commodities or in exploring the shore of the lake, as the rain came on and compelled us to hurry forwards, otherwise I do not doubt I should have discovered a number of natural curiosities.

At the north-east end of the lake, at one of the principal creeks I crossed the Mokhotsi river, which flows northwards, and carries off the superfluous water of the shallow salt-pan.

Our way next led through a dense mapani-forest, after which we had to cross a dried-up stream sixty feet wide, and from ten to sixteen feet deep, having a decided fall towards the east, and on account of the fine trees that adorned its banks called by the Masarwas the Shaneng, or beautiful river. Parallel to this was a spruit, which the Dutch hunters called Mapanifontein; it is fed by a number of springs, and as it receives a portion of the water of the Shaneng whenever that stream is overfull, its deeper parts are hardly ever dry at any period of the year. I cannot resist the opinion that the Shaneng is an outlet either of the Zooga river or of the Soa salt-lake, and that it empties itself into the Matliutse or one of its affluents. In the course of the afternoon I killed a great bird that was chasing lizards, known amongst the colonists as the jackal-bird.

Towards the evening of the 23rd Anderson overtook us again, and travelling on together we traversed a wood called the Khori, and passing a deserted Masarwa village near the ford, we arrived in good