ret. The women repair to the
wells with a score or so of ostrich shells in a bag slung over their
shoulders. Digging down an arm's-length, they insert a hollow reed, with
a bunch of grass tied to the end, then ram the sand firmly around the
tube. The water slowly filters into the bunch of grass, and is sucked
up through the reed, and squirted mouthful by mouthful into the shells.
When all are filled, the women gather up their load and trudge homeward.

Elands, springbucks, koodoos, and ostriches somehow seem to get along
very well without any moisture, except that contained in the grass which
they eat. They appear to live for months without drinking; but whenever
rhinoceroses, buffaloes, or gnus are seen, it is held to be certain
proof that water exists within a few miles.

The passage of the Kalahari was effected, not without considerable
difficulty, in two months, the expedition reaching Lake Ngami on the 1st
of August. As they approached it, they came upon a considerable river.

"Whence does this come?" asked Livingstone.

"From a country full of rivers," was the reply; "so many that no man can
tell their number, and full of large trees."

This was the first actual confirmation of the report of the Bakwains
that the country beyond was not the large "sandy plateau" of
geographers. The prospect of a highway capable of being traversed by
boats to an unexplored fertile region so filled the mind of Livingstone
that, when he came to the lake, this discovery seemed of comparatively
little importance. To us, indeed, whose ideas of a lake are formed from
Superior and Huron, the Ngami seems but an insignificant affair. Its
circumference may be seventy or a hundred miles, and its mean depth is
but a few feet. It lies two thousand feet above the level of the sea,
and as much below the southern border of the Kalahari, which slopes
gradually toward the interior.

Their desire to visit Sebituane, whose residence was considerably
farther in the interior, was frustrated by the jealousy of Lechulatebe,
a chief near the lake, and the expedition returned to the station at
Kolobeng. The attempt was renewed the following year. Mrs. Livingstone,
their three children, and Sechele accompanied him. The lake was reached.
Lechulatebe, propitiated by the present of a valuable gun, agreed to
furnish guides to Sebituane's country; but the children and servants
fell ill, and the attempt was for the time abandoned.

A third expedition was suc