The dread of visits from Bechuanas of strange tribes causes the Bakalahari to choose their residences far from water; and they not unfrequently hide their supplies by filling the pits with sand and making a fire over the spot.  When they wish to draw water for use, the women come with twenty or thirty of their water-vessels in a bag or net on their backs.  These water-vessels consist of ostrich egg-shells, with a hole in the end of each, such as would admit one’s finger.  The women tie a bunch of grass to one end of a reed about two feet long, and insert it in a hole dug as deep as the arm will reach; then ram down the wet sand firmly round it.  Applying the mouth to the free end of the reed, they form a vacuum in the grass beneath, in which the water collects, and in a short time rises into the mouth.  An egg-shell is placed on the ground alongside the reed, some inches below the mouth of the sucker.  A straw guides the water into the hole of the vessel, as she draws mouthful after mouthful from below.  The water is made to pass along the outside, not through the straw.  If any one will attempt to squirt water into a bottle placed some distance below his mouth, he will soon perceive the wisdom of the Bushwoman’s contrivance for giving the stream direction by means of a straw.  The whole stock of water is thus passed through the woman’s mouth as a pump, and, when taken home, is carefully buried.  I have come into villages where, had we acted a domineering part, and rummaged every hut, we should have found nothing; but by sitting down quietly, and waiting with patience until the villagers were led to form a favorable opinion of us, a woman would bring out a shellful of the precious fluid from I know not where.

The so-called Desert, it may be observed, is by no means a useless tract of country.  Besides supporting multitudes of both small and large animals, it sends something to the market of the world, and has proved a refuge to many a fugitive tribe—­to the Bakalahari first, and to the other Bechuanas in turn—­as their lands were overrun by the tribe of true Caffres, called Matebele.  The Bakwains, the Bangwaketze, and the Bamangwato all fled thither; and the Matebele marauders, who came from the well-watered east, perished by hundreds in their attempts to follow them.  One of the Bangwaketze chiefs, more wily than the rest, sent false guides to lead them on a track where, for hundreds of miles, not a drop of water could be found, and they perished in consequence.  Many Bakwains perished too.  Their old men, who could have told us ancient stories, perished in these flights.  An intelligent Mokwain related to me how the Bushmen effectually balked a party of his tribe which lighted on their village in a state of burning thirst.  Believing, as he said, that nothing human could subsist without water, they demanded some, but were coolly told by these Bushmen that they had none, and never drank any.  Expecting to find them out, they resolved to watch them night and day.  They persevered for some days, thinking that at last the water must come forth; but, notwithstanding their watchfulness, kept alive by most tormenting thirst, the Bakwains were compelled to exclaim, “Yak! yak! these are not men; let us go.”  Probably the Bushmen had been subsisting on a store hidden under ground, which had eluded the vigilance of their visitors.