far before we found the camp of which we had come in search right before us. It was now deserted.
Standing in the middle of the river-bed, I could see a considerable number of pools all full of a salt fluid, the colour of which was a deep red; the soil around was covered with a salt deposit, and fragments of salt beautifully crystallized and resting on a stratum of clay an inch or more thick, were scattered about. Close to these were lying the poles and stakes with which the salt had been broken out of the pools. The departure of the Matabele troop allowed us to examine everything without fear of molestation.
In winter, when the water is low, the pools vary from twelve to eighteen inches in depth; the breadth and length range very widely from thirty to 900 feet. The. deposit is sometimes as much as three inches in thickness, extending from bank to bank about six or eight inches under the surface of the water like a stout layer of ice, which when broken discloses the real bottom of the pool nearly another foot below. To walk into the pools is like treading upon needle-crystals, and the feet are soon perceptibly covered with a deposit. Where they are very salt, they are never resorted to either by birds or quadrupeds. Anything thrown into them quickly becomes incrusted, but the beautiful red crystals unfortunately evaporate on being exposed to the air, and it was to little purpose that I carried a number of specimens away with me.
I sent Pit again next day to get a supply of salt for our use. This had first to be boiled to free it from the particles of lime, and afterwards to be
