Abstract
II. DR. HOLUB'S third and longest expedition was commenced in March, 1875, and with an account of it the second volume opens. He now proposed to explore Southern Central Africa, and having acquired a great deal of experience during his two previous journeys, was justly in great hopes of success. The route this time selected was first to the Molapo River. As usual great herds of game were from time to time met with, wherever the bush cover was good; then on to his old quarters at Shoshong, where a few days for rest were spent; from Shoshong he journeyed to the great salt-lakes. Elands were now met with, and furnished many a hearty meal. The first salt lake was met on the morning of April the 18th. Away to the west it extended as far as the eye could see, and it took two hours to travel the length of its eastern coast. There was a uniform depth of barely two feet, and it presented a light grey surface edged with stiff arrow-grass and surrounded by dense bush-forest, whilst around about it, in the very thickest of the grass, were considerable numbers of miniature saltpans; indeed every depression in the soil contained salt. The evaporation appeared to be most rapid. This salt-lake was called Tsitane, the same name being also given to.the adjoining river. Here the first Baobab tree was seen; it was a fine specimen, some twenty-five feet in height and nearly fifty-two feet in circumference. Another larger and deeper lake was called by the natives Karri-karri. Here baobabs abounded. The third of the great salt-lakes, called Soa, is the largest; it extends westward bsyond Lake N'gami; it is also very shallow, being only four feet in depth. Travelling on to the banks of the Nata and to Tamasetze with the object of getting to the Zambesi before the middle of the month, he encountered one of Mr. Anderson's servants called Saul. He was out on an ostrich hunt, and though an uncommonly bad shot, managed in the following manner to get more than his fair share of birds and eggs:—“I always,” he told Dr. Holub, “take a man with me, and we look about till we discover a nest, and then we dig a hole pretty close to it in which we hide. The birds come to sit, and it doesn't want a very good shot to knock over an ostrich when it is just at hand. Well, having made sure of one bird, we stick up its skin on a pole near the nest, and except we are seen, and so scare the birds away, a second ostrich is soon decoyed, and I get another chance.” Such “hunting” as this is very likely to destroy the flocks of ostriches in the country around the Klamaklenyana Springs. The country of the Madenassanas was now entered. These people would seem to be serfs to the Bamangwatos. They are a fierce race, tall, and strongly built, the men generally with repulsive countenances, though occasionally some of the women were even nice looking. Their skin is almost black, and their stiff woolly hair hangs down for more than an inch over their temples, while it is either quite short or is kept quite short over the rest of the skull. Many elephant-l.unting parties were met with. One trader had in his two waggons not less than 7000 lbs. of ivory, procured mostly in the district between the Victoria Falls and the mouth of the Chobe. A very short détour off the beaten waggon-track revealed herds of buffaloes, striped gnus, Zulu hartebeests, and zebras, or showed evident tracks of these and lions. Great trees with trunks of sixty feet in height were also met with, and a great many orchids with red blossoms. What a pity that Dr. Holub did not bring home some of these Passing over an account of a rather exciting lion-hunt, in which both lion and lioness got decidedly the better of it, the Jamasetze wood was left on July 20. The author was much struck by the peculiar way in which some of the leguminous trees shed their seeds, the heat of the sun causing the pods to burst with a loud explosion and to cast the seeds to a considerable distance all about. The air near this wood was full of myriads of tiny bees that crept into one's clothes, hair, and ears, making even one's noss tingle with great discomfort. About August the 10th the watershed of the Zambesi district was reached, and, gazing down into the valleys of the Chobe and the Zambesi, the author saw the realisation of some of the dreams of his youth. At Impalera, the Lower Chobe and the Zambesi rivers weie calculated to have a depth of between thirty and forty feet, but the reaches and the rapids make all navigation impracticable.
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Dr. Holub's African Travels 1 . Nature 24, 58–60 (1881). https://doi.org/10.1038/024058a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/024058a0