CHAP. VIII. ANECDOTES OF AXTELOPES. 371 



a sign of life to be seen anywhere, save, perhaps, a few 

 locusts that had escaped the fire, or a solitary hawk sitting 

 motionless on the top of an ant-heap. The immense flats of 

 the Free State, or Trans Vaal, after a great fire has recently 

 passed over them, present, perhaps, as perfect an idea of 

 utter desolation as could well be conceived, — the whole 

 country seeming almost Hterally to be in sackcloth and 

 ashes, while the air, charged with gas such as may some- 

 times be observed in the glare of an intensely hot sun, 

 is filled for days afterwards with minute blacks. 



These fires are sometimes very picturesque, and one 

 which I saw a short time previously to this was so much 

 so as to merit description. The spot on which it took place 

 was a flat of some three miles broad and two long, bounded 

 by two streams, which, at the flirther end, converged 

 until they formed a narrow path of not more than a hun- 

 dred yards broad, the tall tambuti grass, some six or eight 

 feet long, then giving place to equally dry reeds of double 

 the height. The streams then made an outward curve, 

 though the reeds continued up to the foot of a low range 

 of hills a few hundred yards beyond. It was autumn, 

 the season during which the annual grass-burnings for 

 the sake of insuring young grass during the winter take 

 place, and the fire ha^^Lng been Ht on each side of the 

 broader end of the flat in fifty or sixty places, presented 

 soon after dark a most peculiar appearance. The wind was 

 light and variable, and the numerous lines of fire retreated 

 and advanced, or joined together, and after a bright flare 

 for a few seconds, died out, and in general moved about 

 in a curious and irregular manner as they were influenced 

 by it. But little imagination was requu-ed to see in the 



