226 THRILLING ADVENTURES. 



face, marked with the figure of a black nose-band and head- 

 stall, imparting altogether to the animal the appearance of 

 being clad in half-mourning. Its copious black tail literally 

 sweeps the ground ; a mane reversed, and a tuft of flowing 

 black hair on the breast, with a pair of straight slender horns 

 (common to both sexes,) three feet in length, and ringed at 

 the base, completing the portrait. During the chase, I passed 

 under the nose of three rhinoceroses, which, on my return, I 

 was unable to find. Richardson had fallen in with a troop 

 of five lions, one of which he wounded, but being deserted by 

 the Hottentots, was unable to follow among the brushwood ; 

 and my horse was so completely exhausted, that I was obliged 

 to drag him home, carrying the saddle myself. 



" Prodigious swarms of locusts passed overhead to the east- 

 ward during the greater part of the day, and were followed 

 by such dense flights of birds as almost to darken the air. 

 The springhaan vogel, as the latter is called by the colonists, 

 is about the size of a swallow, with numerous speckles like 

 the starling, and is said to subsist almost exclusively upon 

 the destructive insects with which it literally vies in point of 

 numbers. The ravages committed by the locusts, whose deso- 

 lating visits have been the theme of naturalists and historians 

 in all ages, have too probably been witnessed by the majority 

 of my Indian readers ; but Africa, more especially the 

 northern parts of it, would appear to be a quarter of the globe 

 even more frequently and more severely subjected to the 

 scourge of their inroads than Asia. Often have the lands on 

 the frontier of the colony been totally laid waste by the mi- 

 gratory swarms, which, as usual, have been followed by all 

 the horrors of famine ; whilst to the wandering Bushman, 

 who has neither flocks nor herds to perish for lack of nou- 

 rishment no garden nor cornfields of which to lament the 

 devastation, the intrusion, so appalling to the grazier and 

 agriculturalist, proves a source of joy rather than of sorrow. 

 Following up their devouring hosts, he feeds upon them as 



