crumbled up. We wanted it to preserve the flesh of the game we killed.
The bed in which these pans are situated is really an arm of the Nata, having branched off from it to rejoin it again. As I followed it on my way back to the waggon, I came across the last herds of springbocks that we were to see so far to the north; I likewise saw several herds of striped gnus, that here took the place of black gnus, none of which had appeared this side of Shoshong.
A capital shot was made by Theunissen on the following day; he brought down a steinbock at the distance of nearly 300 yards. Being anxious to procure some jackals’ skins, I laid out several bits of meat covered with strychnine over night, and in the morning, I found no less than four of the beasts lying poisoned beside them; the flesh of one of these was afterwards devoured by some of its own kind, and they too all died in consequence, and were discovered in the bush close by. Palm-bushes and baobabs, that flourish in salt soil just as well as in mould, grow very freely about the lower part of the Nata.
So large had my collection now become, that I made up my mind to send a good portion of it to Mr. Mackenzie at Shoshong by the first ivory-traders whom I should meet and could trust to take charge of it. We did not, however, just at this time fall in with any parties returning to the south.
Although we knew that our encampment was liable to attacks from lions, we found it in many other respects so agreeable that we quitted it with regret, and on the 3rd of July started up the left bank of the Nata, along a deep sandy road on the
