AN AMAZING EXISTENCE 177 



Brabies, — a vley which probably does not con- 

 tain water more than once in five years. This 

 development of separate species in localities 

 so close to each other, suggested that local 

 conditions had not materially changed for a 

 very long period. No vley was found to con- 

 tain more than a single variety. These quaint 

 creatures swim through their little hour of fully 

 developed life and, when the drying up of the 

 water kills them, the eggs they contain are 

 freed. Then these are blown hither and thither 

 among the dust of the desert until another ad- 

 ventitious shower fills the vley in which they 

 were generated, and some chance wind-gust 

 carries a few of them into the water. The in- 

 definite preservation of the life-germ on the 

 occasionally almost red-hot surface of the 

 desert is little short of miraculous. 



Yes, — the Brabies vley must have existed 

 under approximately similar conditions from 

 an immensely remote antiquity. It is probable 

 that in comparatively recent times rain was 

 more plentiful in Bushmanland (as there is 

 reason to believe it was generally throughout 

 South Africa), than it now is. For there were 

 evidences that Brabies was once a centre of 

 population. Pottery, obviously of Bushman 

 manufacture, abounded. If one broke a frag- 



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