Lake Ngami had many famous visitors during the 19th (and into the 20th) century. In 1849
David Livingstone described it as a "shimmering lake, some long and 20 [30 km] 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, except that the builders' heads were "cracked by the fall of the
scaffolding" (
Missionary Travels, chap. 26). One of the illustrations is known to have been made on the basis of a sketch by Mr. Alfred Ryder (1825-1850), son of the artist William Mills Rider (1795 - 1841), a young Englishman who had visited Lake Ngami just a few months before Livingstone arrived there. He had died on his way back. Ryder had made a sketch of the lake and although it was left unfinished, Livingstone persuaded Mrs. Ryder to lend it for the illustration of his book.8 Besides carefully copying the lake scenery, the artist employed by Murray was asked to add a family group into the picture to make it more suitable for Livingstone's purposes.
Charles John Andersson (who published ''Lake Ngami; or, Explorations and Discoveries during Four Years' Wanderings in the Wilds of Southwestern Africa'' in 1856) and
Frederick Thomas Green also visited the area in the early 1850s.
Frederick Lugard led a British expedition to the lake in 1896.
Arnold Weinholt Hodson passed through the area on his journey from
Serowe to
Victoria Falls in 1906.
Ngami Lacuna, a
methane lake on
Saturn's moon
Titan, is named after this lake. ==References==