DESERT REGIONS AFTER RAIN. 311 



of admirable pasture land, and a good deal of heavy 

 bush country, but it is subject to this fatal defect, that 

 during the long dry season its pools dry up and it 

 becomes perfectly waterless; even the game animals, 

 excepting a few well-known kinds, who manage to 

 exist on the sap of plants, being compelled to abandon 

 the district till the return of the rains. A good many 

 cases have occurred where unwary travellers, who had 

 allowed themselves to get caught by the drought, have 

 perished in this great "thirst land," while the sufferings 

 undergone by others, who eventually succeeded in 

 escaping, have been extraordinary. These casualties 

 moreover seem to be even more common in these oc- 

 casionally well-watered and fertile districts, than in the 

 absolutely sterile regions of the Desert Zone. 



Mr. A. H. Bryden in describing the Kalahari, which 

 we have selected as a good typical example of this 

 description of territory, says 



" During the brief weeks of rainfall no land can assume a 

 fairer or more tempting aspect the long grass standing 

 succulent, and elbow-deep; flowers spangle the Veldt in 

 every direction ; the giraffe acacia forests, robed in fresh dark 

 green, reminding one of nothing so much as an English 

 deerpark; the bushes blossom and flourish; the air is full of 

 fragrance ; and pans of water lie upon every hand. Another 

 month and all is drought : the pans are dry again ; the grasses 

 are turning to their winter yellow, and travel is full of diffi- 

 culty." * 



In the above paragraph the treacherous nature of this 

 class of country is well portrayed, and it must be 



* Gun and Camera in Soiith Africa, by H. A. Bryden, 1893, p. 141. 



[The Acacia giraffe here spoken of, is merely a variety of the well- 

 known, and widely distributed Acacia Arabica, which we have noticed 

 on p. 307 as being known in India under the Hindi name Babul]. 



