"Safari, Sogoodi." From Caprivi we're been following the Kavango river down into the Okovango swamps. There is to the east of the swamps the Sidilo hills where I heard that there were a few bushmen that still lived in their traditional way. I persuaded the others that this was really one of the most worthwhile sights of the entire trip. Bushmen are to me a facinating folk especially after having met some for the first time in the Kalahari. Untouched by the ever encroaching western civilization and still painting pictures on the same rocks as their forefathers two thousand years previously. It won’t be to much time before they too get up-to-date using auto lack to spay the rocks. My excitement for this excursion was contagious so we excitedly we headed eastward.

I will not speak of a road not wanting to wrong or insult any such form of this subject. No it was not a road but rather a half cleared part of bush that if anything just lead from one hole to the next. To watch Kieth's facial expression captured the interest of us all. As if he was at the dentist, having major extraction surgery without any form of anaesthetic and every time the landrover hit a bump his face would contought syncronised to the crunching sound of distorted metal. Even Nigel stared amazed that any such expression was possible. This was possibly not quite what was needed to calm the situation. 

Nigel was the driver and his amasment caused him to hit a tree and half knock the back axle right of the chassy. To make matters worse Kieth had banged his head on the window which finally caused him to comment on Nigel's driving and Nigel in general.

"Oh, dont be a stupid ass!" said Keith and held his sore head, "I believe you did that on purpose. I have no idea where you bought you drivers license but I am sure that it was a special offer." 

Nigel was speeding along again at about forty miles an hour. Now forty miles an hour is no great speed when one is on a German autobahn but on this small and bumpy track in Botswana it was in my estimation about thirty five miles to fast. Nobody said anything. Commenting on Nigels driving had become a sore point and was apt to cause slight disagreement and get Keith to sulk again.

At this point Nigel swerved, braked heavily, skidded, came to a stop got out and stretched his legs. The food hamper fell onto the floor and all the things came out and Jane started to cry. I was somewhat surprised, but I did not loose my temper. I asked him pleasantly enough what that was for. I shall not repeat what Nigel said to me. I may have been to blame, the subject being some what touchy, I admit, but nothing excuses such violence of language and coarsness of expression, especially in a man who has been carefully brought up, as I know Nigel has been.

Nigel, however said he had driven enough for a bit and proposed that I should take a turn, so I took the drivers seat.

Keith considered Nigel to be somewhat less than half witted , an imbecile and wished that he had never met him. He mentioned that he not only wanted to kill him but that he should like to slaughter the whole of his family and all his friends and relations and then burn down his house. This seemed to me to be going a bit too far but Keith insisted that it was not one little bit to far and that he would go and sing comic songs on the ruins.

I was vexed to hear Keith go on in this bloodthirsty strain. We never ought to let our instincts of justice degenerate into mere vindictiveness. I realized that it would be a long while before I would be able to persuade Keith to take a more Christian view of the subject and at least spare the friends and relations.

By now Keith was really mad and insisted on having a go at just everything. He moaned that he never saw Jon doing any work and what good was he anyway if all he was caperble of doing was forgetting to replace radiator caps and getting the landrover stuck in sand, and as far as Jane was concerned she could lump it with her continual efforts to be tidy and clean. this was after all a safari.

He wanted to get out and have a drink. I pointed out that we were miles from any pub and then he went on about the trip and what was the good of it anyway and that was everyone who came on it to die of thirst. I reminded him that there was a gallon jar of lime huice in the hamper and plenty of water in the water tank and the two only wanted mixing to make a cool and refreshing beverage.

Then he flew off about lime juice, and such like Sunday school slops as he termed them, ginger beer, raspberry syrup ect, ect. He said they produced dyspepsia and ruined body and soul alike, and that they were the cause of half the evil in the world.

It is always best to let Keith have his head when he gets like this. After he has pumped himself out he becomes sulky and quiet.

I did not want to choose sides but I feel it my duty to agree with Keith as far as Nigel's driving was concerned. Nigel's driving had proved something less than perfect and it was his seemingly unique method of changing gear that brought about this opinion. He would rev the engine till it nearly shook the contents from the roof, then he would let go of the clutch and jam it into a randomly selected gear then swear lightly under his breath. Once he even managed to get it into the correct gear but I personally never saw him repeat this feat.

Okavango is not really the most practical of places to be on four wheels there being vast areas of water and not so vast areas of good old terra firma. I strongly feel that a landrover has a few design problems the lack of amphibiousness being no small handicap. Being so practical, capable and sensible as we all know I am, I impressed on the others that we should head deeper into the swamps. I noticed that the others were for staying on the road so did not press the point any further. Jon was clenching his fists as if to say it was my fault that my last suggestion had not delivered quite what I has promised. Jane can get in quite a fuss when she does not get her own way and Kieth just burst into tears. Nigel was keen that is if he was allowed to drive.

We found ourselves short of water at Maun so we took the water canister and went over to to the Duck Inn to beg for some.

Nigel was our spokesman. He put on a winning smile and asked if they could spare us a little water. The old gentleman replied that we could take as much as we wanted but that we should leave the rest. Nigel was overjoyed at his success, thanked the man and asked where he kept it. The elderly gentleman said that it was where it had always been and that was right behind us. Nigel said that he still did not see it which made the man feel sorry for him that his eyesight was so bad and carefully pointed out the river. He said the was enough in there to take as was there to see.

Nigel had grasped the idea and was appalled and said that we can't drink the river. The old fellow agreed but said that we could drink some of it and it was what he had drunk for the last fifty years.

Nigel told him that his appearance, after the course, did not seem a sufficiently good advertisement for the brand; and that he would prefer it from a pump.

We got some from a cottage a little higher up. I dare say that it was only river water if we had known but we did not know, so it was all right. What the eye does not see the stomach does not get upset over.

We tried river water once, later on in the season, but it was not a success. We stopped to have tea. Our water canister was empty and it was a case of going without tea or taking water from the river. Jon was for chancing it. He said it would be all right if we boiled the water. He mentioned that the various germs of poison present in the water would be killed by boiling. So we filled our kettle with water from the river and boiled it. We were very careful to see that it did boil well.

We had made the tea and were just settling down comfortably to drink it when Nigel, with his cup half drawn to his lips paused and exclaimed that he saw something in the river and wondered what it was. Jane and I followed his gaze, and saw, coming down the river one of the quietest and most peaceful sheep I have ever seen. I have never met a sheep who seemed more contented more easy in its mind. It was floating dreamily on its back, with its four legs stuck up strait in the air. It was what I would call a full bodied sheep with a well developed chest. On he came serene, dignified and calm.

Nigel said he didn't want any tea and emptied his cup into the water. Keith did not feel thirsty and followed suit. I had drunk half mine and wished I had not. I asked Jane if she thought I was likely to have typhoid. She said that she thought there was a very good chance indeed that I escape it. Anyhow I should know in a fortnight whether I had it or not.

If we were to see anything of the swamps then it meant that we would have fly in and although Jon did not like airplanes he was teased into coming along. The plane bounced all over the place but did eventually come to a stop. The landing strip was a short cleared strip of land that we first had to fly over to chase the animals that seemed to think that it was a community center. I was relieved but I could see that relief was a word which did not describe what Jon was feeling. He had thrown up on the first bounce, been shaken to the side, thrown up again and was now just sitting there with a pale and perspiring face. It was the best I could do not to laugh.

That did not stop Nigel though. He really did see the circumstances as being the most screamingly funny thing he had ever seen in his entire life. It only made Jon awfully wild. He could not see anything to laugh at and he told Nigel so and Nigel only laughed the more. I never saw a man laugh so much. Jon had quite lost his temper by now and pointed out what a driveling maniac of an imbecile idiot he was; but Nigel only roared the louder. And then just as Jon got out a cloth to clean his messed trousers he noticed that it was not his clothes that were soiled but Nigel's; whereupon the humor of the situation struck him for the first time. The more he looked at Nigel's trousers, the more they both roared with laughter.

"Aren't you you going to clean it up?" said Nigel between shrieks. Jon could not answer him for a while, he was laughing so, but at last, between peals he managed to jerk out: "The vomit is on your Trousers, not mine!" I never saw a mans face change from lively to severe so suddenly in all my life before.

"What!" he yelled, springing up. "You silly cuckoo! Why can't you be more careful with what you're doing? You're not fit to fly in human company you're not."

I tried to make him see the fun of the thing but he could not. Nigel can be very dense at seeing a joke sometimes.

The smell of Nigel's trousers played no minor part in the selection of mocorrow partners. A mocorrow is a sort of roughly cut indigenous canoe that is the main form of transportation in the swamps. For the tourists anyway. Each mocorrow became two passengers except for Nigel's. He was on his own with the luggage. A man at the stern would punt the thing from island to island through the reeds and down the river. Had Nigel's driver not had such a bad personal odor he to would no doubt have objected to sharing a boat with Nigel but it seemed that the two were destined to become good friends.

We had decided to spend a few days relaxing, occasionally trying to catch some fish and basically getting a little browner. It was important that one looked the part and without a deep and dark suntan who would believe that we were really on a trans continental safari.

I spent a number of hours fishing. Okavango is a great fishing center. Oh there is some great fishing to be had there. The river abounds in pike bream tigerfish and catfish not to mention another two or three hundred small verieties that are no good for fishing. Basically you can sit and fish for them all day.

Some people do. I was one of them. There is never anything that gets caught though except reeds and weed but that has nothing to do of course with fishing. The local fisherman's guide does not say anything about catching anything. It simply says it is a good station for fishing. From what I have seen of the district I am quite prepared to bear out this statement.

There is no spot in the world where you can get more fishing or where you can fish for a longer period. Some only fish for a day and others for a whole week. You can come and fish for a whole year if you want: It will all be the same.

The anglers guide said that there are a delicious variety of fresh water beam to be had here but there the anglers guide is wrong. The fish may be about here. Indeed I know for a fact that they are. You can see them in shoals when you look over the edge of the canoe. The come and stand half out of the water and beg for biscuits and if you go and bathe they get in your way and irritate you. But they are not to be had by a bit of worm on a hook nor anything like it, not they.

I am not a good fisherman myself. I devoted a considerable amount of attention to the subject at one time and was getting on, as I thought, fairly well; but the old hands told me that I should never be any real good at it and advised me to give it up. They said that I was an extremely good thrower and that I seemed to have plenty of gumption for the thing, and quite enough constitutional laziness. But they were sure I would never make anything of a fisherman. I had not got enough imagination.

They said that as a poet or a reporter or anything of that kind, I might even be satisfactory but to gain any respect in the angler community would require more power of invention than I appeared to possess. In short I was just not up to the exaggeration that is required.

Some people are under the impression that all that is required to make a good fisherman is the ability too tell lies easily and without blushing; but this is a mistake. Mere bold fabrication is useless; Anyone can manage that. It is in the circumstantial detail, the embellishing touches of probability, the general air scrupulous almost of pedantic veracity, that the experienced angler is seen.

Anyone can come in and say "Oh, I caught fifteen bream this morning" or "I landed a tiger weighing eighteen pounds and measuring three feet from tip to tail."

There is no art, no skill, required for that sort of thing. It shows pluck that is all. No your experienced angler would scorn to tell a lie that way. His method is a stud in itself.

He comes in quietly with his hat on, appropriates the most comfortable chair, lights his pipe and commences to puff in silence. He lets the youngsters brag away for a while and remarks as he cleans the ask from his pipe.

"well, I had a haul on Tuesday evening that its not much good me telling anybody about"

"Oh! Whys that?" they always with certainty ask.

"Because I don't expect anyone to believe me if I did." he replies calmly and without even the hint of bitterness in his tone. At this stage the groundwork has been laid. He has the full attention of the whole house and they want to hear his story.

I you are ever in the area and have an evening to spare I should like to advise you to drop into the pub in one of these fishing camps over here and just take a seat. You will most certainly meet a few of these gentlemen who will tell you enough fishy stories in half an hour to give you indigestion for a month.

The only fish that I saw caught while I was there was by a fisheagle and did impress me more than just a little bit. Keith has this new super camera with motor winder and zoom lens and automatic tea machine when the photographer needs a break. As this bird swept out of the sky his hands were all over the camera and he missed it completely. He did get a lot of photos of out of focus water lilies though so it was not all in vain.

Jon said he had often longed to take to punting for a change. Punting is not as easy as it looks. As in rowing, you soon learn to get along and handle the craft, but it takes long practice before you can do this with any dignity and without getting water up your sleeve.

One young man I knew had a very sad accident happen to him the first time he tried to learn punting. He had been getting on so well that he had grown quite cheeky over the business, and was walking up and down the mocorrow with a careless grace that was fascinating to watch. Up he would march near to the fore of the boat, plant his pole, and then just run along right to the end. This is no method that any of the local tribesmen implement but it was grand to watch anyway.

And it would have gone on being grand to watch if he had not unfortunately, while looking round to enjoy the scenery, taken just one step more than was any necessity for, and walked of the boat altogether. The pole was firmly fixed in the mud and he was left clinging to it while the boat drifted away. It was an undignified position for him. The locals saw this in a different light yelling out, if I may so freely translate as "Come and see a real white monkey on a stick."

I could not go to his assistance, because, as ill luck would have it we had not taken the proper precaution to bring out a spare pole with us. I could only sit and look at him. His expression as the pole slowly sank with him I shall never forget; There was so much thought in it.

I watched him gently go down in the water and saw him scramble out onto an island, sad and wet. I could not help laughing, he looked such a ridiculous figure. I continued to chuckle to myself about it for some time and then it suddenly forced upon me that I had very little to laugh at when I came to think of it. Here I was, alone in a canoe, without a pole, drifting helpless down midstream possibly towards a waterfall. The likelihood of a waterfall was indeed minimal due to Okovango being flatter than Holland but at the time I was not thinking in cool calm and collected thoughts. I began to feel very indignant with my friend for having stepped overboard and gone off in that way. He might, at all events have left me the pole. I drifted on for about a quarter of a mile, and then I came in sight of two old fishermen. I shouted so much that the fish were up and away but they did lend me a pole anyway. I was glad that happened to be there.

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