Panda: Meeting point of Old Hunters’ Road, Old Cattle Trail
There are two versions of what the name ‘Pandamatenga’ really means. One version says Pandamatenga was named after a renowned elephant hunter named ‘Mutenga’ who used a strategic spot by the bush around the Mpanda trees (rain trees) near the river as his favourite hunting base.
As this version of the story goes, Mutenga was a reliable supplier of ivory to European travellers. Other hunters, mostly European, began to use his spot calling it Mpanda Mutenga.
The other version claims that the name is derived from ‘panda’ meaning ‘market’ and ‘tenga’ meaning ‘to bring.’ The second version comes from the fact that during the Victorian era, Pandamatenga was a renowned spot for hunters, traders and explorers travelling north into Africa – colloquially called Far Interior. European travellers and local hunters wishing to sell ivory, ostrich feathers and animal skins made Pandamatenga their marketplace.
This was after the British trader George Westbeech, often credited with constructing the road from Tati (Francistown) to Kazungula, set up shop in Pandamatenga. Westbeech’s road follows the entire border between Botswana and Zimbabwe to Zambezi River in Kazungula.
Although the A33 road to Pandamatenga, which runs parallel to the Old Hunters’ Road, is now smooth and tarred, the experience of Victorian-era travellers can still be appreciated up to this day.
“The journey to Pandamatenka may be dismissed in a few words. The country is well known, most monotonous and uninteresting.” These are the words from a travelogue of British explorer Frederick Courteney Selous.
The road is still long but not too monotonous like Selous described on his oxen wagon because smooth tar and cars have completely changed travel. There are still occasional elephants that are always grazing by the roadside.
It is believed that Westbeech set up shop at Pandamatenga for the following reasons. “Water was plentiful all year round, and it was a fairly healthy spot even during the rains when malaria was most prevalent.”
Tsetse-fly in the north was causing havoc and Pandamatenga was better off. Another reason he settled, is that “no tribe had claimed ownership of the place even though Batebele under Lobengula used to conduct raids in the area”.
Westbeech ran a relatively big operation at Pandamatenga and at the peak of his business he had about 400 employees comprising Europeans, Bantu, Basarwa from the Kalahari Desert and some South Africans of mixed race.
It was at Panda that travellers heading north would witness the graves of those who had succumbed to malaria at a cemetery built by Westbeech. But Westbeech is credited for facilitating the Europeans to move further into Africa through his Pandamatenga operation.
Today, there is not much left of Westbeech’s legacy in Panda. There is no big market for travellers heading north. There are, however, two filling stations, Kwa Nokeng Truckstop that services the trucks heading to Central and East Africa. This is something Westbeech would be proud of, as his base still serves travel into the ‘far interior’.
The Engen Filling Station mostly services the commercial farmers in the area and their operations are modest as compared to Westbeech’s business about 150 years ago. Panda offers a great opportunity for modern-day adventurers who want to follow in the footsteps of those great Victorian explorers through the Old Cattle Trail and the Old Hunters’ Road.
These are the trails that could diversify tourism and give the modern tourist the experience of Victorian explorers that opened up Africa for European colonisation.