t 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.

When the lake is full, the water is perfectly fresh, but brackish when
low; and that coming down the Tamunak'le we found to be so clear, cold,
and soft, the higher we ascended, that the idea of melting snow was
suggested to our minds. We found this region, with regard to that from
which we had come, to be clearly a hollow, the lowest point being Lake
Kumadau; the point of the ebullit