to cross the river, got his horse bogged in the swampy bank.  Two Bakwains and I managed to get over by wading beside a fishing-weir.  The people were friendly, and informed us that this water came out of the Ngami.  This news gladdened all our hearts, for we now felt certain of reaching our goal.  We might, they said, be a moon on the way; but we had the River Zouga at our feet, and by following it we should at last reach the broad water.

When we had gone up the bank of this beautiful river about ninety-six miles from the point where we first struck it, and understood that we were still a considerable distance from the Ngami, we left all the oxen and wagons, except Mr. Oswell’s, which was the smallest, and one team, at Ngabisane, in the hope that they would be recruited for the home journey, while we made a push for the lake.

Twelve days after our departure from the wagons at Ngabisane we came to the northeast end of Lake Ngami; and on August 1, 1849, we went down together to the broad part, and for the first time this fine-looking sheet of water was beheld by Europeans.  The direction of the lake seemed to be north-northeast and south-southwest by compass.  The southern portion is said to bend round to the west, and to receive the Teoughe from the north at its northwest extremity.  We could detect no horizon where we stood looking south-south west, nor could we form any idea of the extent of the lake, except from the reports of the inhabitants of the district; and, as they professed to go round it in three days, allowing twenty-five miles a day would make it seventy-five, or less than seventy geographical miles in circumference.

Other guesses have been made since as to its circumference, ranging between seventy and one hundred miles.  It is shallow, for I subsequently saw a native punting his canoe over seven or eight miles of the northeast end; it can never therefore be of much value as a commercial highway.  In fact, during the months preceding the annual supply of water from the north, the lake is so shallow that it is with difficulty cattle can approach the water through the boggy, reedy banks.  These are low on all sides, but on the west there is a space devoid of trees, showing that the waters have retired thence at no very ancient date.  This is another of the proofs of desiccation met with so abundantly throughout the whole country.  A number of dead trees lie on this space, some of them imbedded in the mud right in the water.  We were informed by the Bayeiye, who live on the lake, that when the annual inundation begins, not only trees of great size, but antelopes, as the springbuck and tsessebe (Acronotus lunata,) are swept down by its rushing waters; the trees are gradually driven by the winds to the opposite side, and become imbedded in mud.