SHOSHONG, a town in the British protectorate of Bechuanaland, the chief settlement of the Eastern Bamangwatos, is situated in a glen at the foot of a range of Primary rocks on the Shoshon, a periodically flowing brook which flows eastwards into the Limpopo or Uri river. It lies about 400 miles north of Kimberley, with which it was connected by road and telegraph under Sir Charles Warren's administration. For white mentraders, hunters, and explorers - it is and must always be a place of primary importance, as three great routes, from Griqualand West, the Orange Free State, and the Transvaal, meet at this point and again branch off north to the Zambesi, north-east to the Matabele and Mashona countries, and north-west to the Western Batnanawato and Damaraland. Shoshong is thus a main gateway between Southern and Central Africa. The site was originally chosen as easily defensible against the Matabele. Water is scarce, and the present king, Khama, has taken over a well dug by one of the traders, the use of which he permits on the payment of a water-rate of £1 per month per family. Altogether there are 7000 to 8000 native huts in Shoshong, and the population is estimated at from 15,000 to 30,000. The white inhabitants - mostly English traders - number about 20. A flourishing mission station of the London Missionary Society, preceded for many years by a station of Hermannsburg Lutheran Missionary Society was founded in 1862, and has exercised a great influence on the history of the town and tribe. There is a brick-built church, erected in 1867.

See Mackenzie, Ten Years illirth of the Orange Diver, 1S71 ; Holub, Seven Years in South Africa, 1881 ; Further Government Correspondence respecting the affairs of the Transvaal, 1886.