File:Lake Ngami, or, Explorations and discoveries during four years' wanderings in the wilds of southwestern Africa (1861) (14783158563).jpg

Identifier: lakengamiorexplo01ande (find matches)
Title: Lake Ngami, or, Explorations and discoveries during four years' wanderings in the wilds of southwestern Africa
Year: 1861 (1860s)
Authors: Andersson, Charles John, 1827-1867
Subjects: Andersson, Charles John, 1827-1867 Ngami, Lake (Botswana) Natural history Hunting
Publisher: New York : Harper & Brothers
Contributing Library: The Library of Congress
Digitizing Sponsor: The Library of Congress

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Damaras receive beads, tobacco, corn, &c. The country between Okamabuti and Otjikango we foundwell watered with copious springs, and covered with a rankvegetation. Otjikango itself, being situated in a valley be-tween high and steep hills, was not unpicturesque. It waswell supplied with water, which in several places oozed outof a kind of vley or marsh—in the rainy season undoubtedlya little lake. We lost no time here, but were again on themove at an early hour on the succeeding morning. 180 OTJIKOTO FOUNTAIN. After a day and -a half travel we suddenly found ourselveson the brink of Otjikoto, the most extraordinary chasm itwas ever my fortune to see. It is scooped, so to say, out ofthe solid limestone rock, and, though on a thousand timeslarger scale, not unlike the Elv-gryta one so commonly meetsin Scandinavia. The form of Otjikoto is cylindrical; its di-ameter upward of four hundred feet, and its depth, as we as-certained by the lead-line, two hundred and fifteen—that is, \
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OTJIKOTO FOUNTAIN. at the sides, for we had no means of plumbing the middle,but had reason to believe the depth to be pretty uniformthroughout. To about thirty feet of the brink it is filledwith water.* * Shortly before reaching Baboon Fountain I should remark that,at a place called Orujo, we saw a cavity of a similar shape, though onan infinitely smaller scale. It consisted of a circular-shaped basin inthe limestone rock ninety feet in diameter by thirty in depth. As it OTJIKOTO KEIVIARKABLE CAVERN. 181 Otjikoto, one of the most wonderful of Natures freaks,is situated at the northern extremity of those broken hillswhich take their rise in the neighborhood of Okamabuti, andin the midst of a dense coppice. So effectually is it hiddenfrom view, that a person might pass within fifty paces of itwithout being aware of its existence. Owing to its steep andrugged sides, cattle have not access to the water; and evena man can only approach this enormous well by means of asteep and slippery foo

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