GREAT LONG GRASS FIRES. 2QI 



Thus the mirage is often spoken of by the Arabs as 

 Bahr-Es-Sheitan, that is to say the Sea, or waters of 

 Satan. 



When the long grass, with which many of these 

 great tracts of bush country are covered, and among 

 which the trees are dotted about, becomes desiccated 

 by drought, it is usually the practice of the natives 

 to set fire to it, with the double purpose of rendering 

 travelling more easy, and of encouraging the rapid 

 growth of young grasses, immediately the rains begin 

 to fall, which then at once becomes the resort of 

 game of every kind. And as might be supposed, 

 when this is set on fire, the spectacle is often both 

 grand and terrible; the whole country in fact frequently 

 becomes, on these occasions, one mass of raging flame, 

 the line of fire extending over a front many miles in 

 breadth, through which it is wonderful that any 

 vegetable substance can pass and still escape de- 

 struction. 



Dr. Livingstone states that he has seen flames thirty 

 feet high, shooting up into the air ; accompanied by 

 dense volumes of black smoke, while the atmosphere 

 was filled with the charred remains of burnt grass, 

 pieces of which were falling all around, as thickly as 

 a shower of black snow. * The injury to vegetation 

 is however not so great as might be supposed : the 

 rapidly passing wave of flame merely^singeing, without 

 destroying, most of the trees; while the roots of the 

 herbage remain wholly unaffected by it;~and the ensuing 

 rains immediately convert the bare and blackened 

 surface into a fairy-like scene of exceeding richness 

 and beauty. Nevertheless these^annual fires undoubtedly 



* Expedition to the Zambesi, by David Livingstone, 1865? p. 5 2 ^. 



