RUMINATING ANIMALS. 97 



only are to be found : these are fast falling before 

 the march of civilization, and are only to be seen in 



verdure the evening before, covered with thousands, and 

 reaped level with the ground. Instances have been known 

 of some of these prodigious droves passing through flocks 

 of sheep, and numbers of the latter carried along with the 

 torrent, being lost to their owners, and becoming a prey to 

 the wild beasts. As long as these droughts last, their in- 

 roads and depredations continue ; and the havock commit- 

 ted upon them is of course great, as they constitute the 

 food of all classes ; but, no sooner do the rains fall, than 

 they disappear, and, in a few days, become as scarce on 

 the northern borders as in the more protected districts of 

 Bruentjes-Hoogte-Camdebor. 



" The African colonists themselves can form no concep- 

 tion of the cause of the extraordinary appearance of these 

 animals; and, from their not being able to account for it, 

 those who have not been eye-witnesses of these scenes con- 

 sider their account as exaggerated ; but a little more mi- 

 nute inspection of the country south of the Orange River 

 solves the difficulty at once. The immense desert tracts 

 between that river and our colony, westward of the Zeekoe 

 river, destitute of permanent springs, and therefore unin- 

 habitable by human beings for any length of time, are, not- 

 withstanding, interspersed with stagnant pools, and ' vleys' 

 or natural reservoirs of brackish water, which, however bad, 

 satisfies the game. In these extensive boundless plains, 

 Springboks multiply, undisturbed by the hunter (except 

 when occasionally a Bosjesman is by starvation driven to 

 make the attempt), until the country literally swarms with 

 them ; when perhaps one year, out of four or five, a lasting 

 drought leaves the pools exhausted, and parches up the 

 soil, naturally inclined to sterility. Want, then, princi- 

 pally of water, drives those myriads of animals either to 

 the Orange River, or to the colony, when they intrude in 

 the manner above described. But when the bountiful 

 thunder-clouds pour their torrents upon our burnt-up coun- 

 try, reanimating vegetation> and restoring plenty to all 



