Lake Ngami is an endorheic

Endorheic

An endorheic basin is a closed drainage basin that retains water and allows no outflow to other bodies of water such as rivers or oceans...

 lake

Lake

A lake is a body of relatively still fresh or salt water of considerable size, localized in a basin, that is surrounded by land. Lakes are inland and not part of the ocean and therefore are distinct from lagoons, and are larger and deeper than ponds. Lakes can be contrasted with rivers or streams,...

 in Botswana

Botswana

Botswana, officially the Republic of Botswana , is a landlocked country located in Southern Africa. The citizens are referred to as "Batswana" . Formerly the British protectorate of Bechuanaland, Botswana adopted its new name after becoming independent within the Commonwealth on 30 September 1966...

 north of the Kalahari Desert

Kalahari Desert

The Kalahari Desert is a large semi-arid sandy savannah in Southern Africa extending , covering much of Botswana and parts of Namibia and South Africa, as semi-desert, with huge tracts of excellent grazing after good rains. The Kalahari supports more animals and plants than a true desert...

. It is seasonally filled by the Taughe River an affluent of the Okavango River

Okavango River

The Okavango River is a river in southwest Africa. It is the fourth-longest river system in southern Africa, running southeastward for . It begins in Angola, where it is known as the Cubango River...

 system flowing out of the western side of the Okavango Delta

Okavango Delta

The Okavango Delta , in Botswana, is the world's largest inland delta. It is formed where the Okavango River empties onto a swamp in an endorheic basin in the Kalahari Desert, where most of the water is lost to evaporation and transpiration instead of draining into the sea...

. It is one of the fragmented remnants of the ancient Lake Makgadikgadi

Lake Makgadikgadi

Lake Makgadikgadi is an ancient lake that existed in what is now the Kalahari Desert in Botswana. It may have once covered as much as 80,000 km² and was 30 m deep...

. Although the lake has shrunk dramatically beginning from 1890, it remains an important habitat for birds and wildlife, especially in flood years.http://www.wilderness-safaris.com/news/detail.jsp?newsitem_id=6466

Lake Ngami had many famous visitors during the 19th (and into the 20th) century. In 1849 David Livingstone

David Livingstone

David Livingstone was a Scottish Congregationalist pioneer medical missionary with the London Missionary Society and an explorer in Africa. His meeting with H. M. Stanley gave rise to the popular quotation, "Dr...

  described it as a "shimmering lake, some 80 miles (128.7 km) long and 20 wide". Livingstone also made a few cultural notes about the people living in this area; he noticed they had a story similar to that of the Tower of Babel

Tower of Babel

The Tower of Babel , according to the Book of Genesis, was an enormous tower built in the plain of Shinar .According to the biblical account, a united humanity of the generations following the Great Flood, speaking a single language and migrating from the east, came to the land of Shinar, where...

, except that the builders' heads were "cracked by the fall of the scaffolding" (Missionary Travels, chap. 26). Charles John Andersson

Charles John Andersson

- References :* at Internet Archive...

 (who published Lake Ngami; or, Explorations and Discoveries during Four Years' Wanderings in the Wilds of Southwestern Africa in 1855) and Frederick Thomas Green

Frederick Thomas Green

Frederick Thomas Green was an explorer, hunter and trader in what is now Namibia and Botswana. From 1850 to 1853 he was in the Lake Ngami area, travelling hunting and trading with his older brother Charles...

 also visited the area in the early 1850s. Frederick Lugard

Frederick Lugard

Frederick John Dealtry Lugard, 1st Baron Lugard GCMG, CB, DSO, PC , known as Sir Frederick Lugard between 1901 and 1928, was a British soldier, mercenary, explorer of Africa and colonial administrator, who was Governor of Hong Kong and Governor-General of Nigeria .-Early life and education:Lugard...

 led a British expedition to the lake in 1896. Arnold Weinholt Hodson

Arnold Weinholt Hodson

Sir Arnold Wienholt Hodson , KCMG was a British colonial administrator who was Governor in turn of the Falkland Islands, Sierra Leone and the Gold Coast.-Background:Hodson was born in Bovey Tracey, Devonshire, in 1881...

 passed through the area on his journey from Serowe

Serowe

Serowe was famed as Botswana's largest village after Molepolole. Serowe has a rich history in Botswana'; it being the capital for the Bamangwato people in the early part of the 20th century and for being the birth place of many of Botswana's Presidents...

 to Victoria Falls

Victoria Falls

The Victoria Falls or Mosi-oa-Tunya is a waterfall located in southern Africa on the Zambezi River between the countries of Zambia and Zimbabwe.-Introduction:...

in 1906.