Page:Lake Ngami.djvu/376

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page has been validated.
368
GHANZÉ.

CHAPTER XXX.

Ghanzé.—Spotted Hyæna.—The Rhinoceros.—Where found.—Several Species.—Description of Rhinoceros.—Size.—Appearance.—Age.—Strength.—Speed.—Food.—Water.—The Young.—Affection.—Senses.—Disposition.—Gregarious.—Indolence.—Domestication.—Flesh.—Horns.—The Chase.—Mr. Oswell's Adventures with Rhinoceroses.—A Crotchet.—Where to aim at the Rhinoceros.—Does not bleed externally when wounded.—Great numbers slain annually.

Ghanzé, according to the interpretation of my Griqua, signifies very large, and yet very small. Absurd as this explanation may appear, there is, nevertheless, some aptness in it. The "very large" means that from the moisture of the ground there is an indication of much water, while the real quantity is trifling. Ghanzé is a peculiar and dreary-looking place, consisting of an extensive hollow with innumerable small stones scattered over its surface, and one side fenced by a natural limestone wall three to five feet in height. The whole is hemmed in with thorn coppices intersected by numerous footpaths, the work of those huge creatures, the elephant and the rhinoceros, who have probably wandered here for ages in undisputed sway. Here and there an "iron-tree," the mythological progenitor of the Damaras, stands majestically forth, shooting its wide-spreading branches high into space.

Ghanzé, it would appear, has been long known to the Bechuanas and the Griquas. A party of the latter, I was told, reached it many years previously to my arrival in a despairing state, having been obliged to abandon their wagons in the Kalahari. The body of men from whom I obtained my interpreter had also visited it. It had even been frequented by