Twelve days after our departure from the wagons at Ngabisane we came to
the northeast end of Lake Ngami; and on August 1, 1849, we went down
together to the broad part, and for the first time this fine-looking
sheet of water was beheld by Europeans. The direction of the lake seemed
to be north-northeast and south-southwest by compass. The southern
portion is said to bend round to the west, and to receive the Teoughe
from the north at its northwest extremity. We could detect no horizon
where we stood looking south-south west, nor could we form any idea of
the extent of the lake, except from the reports of the inhabitants of
the district; and, as they professed to go round it in three days,
allowing twenty-five miles a day would make it seventy-five, or less
than seventy geographical miles in circumference.
Other guesses have been made since as to its circumference, ranging
between seventy and one hundred miles. It is shallow, for I subsequently
saw a native punting his canoe over seven or eight miles of the
northeast end; it can never therefore be of much value as a commercial
highway.
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