48 DROUGHT AND GREAT GAME HERDS. 



not an ordinary, but an altogether exceptional occur- 

 rence which only took place at certain seasons of the 

 year. In South Africa this was during the long drought 

 which occurs between the periods of the rains. In 

 years when the rainfall was scanty, or failed altogether, 

 the prolonged spell of dry weather caused the rivers 

 and springs to become dried up, and the whole country 

 assumed the appearance of a desert. 



It will be at once obvious that this entailed the 

 emigration of almost every living creature. These in- 

 numerable herds were then constantly driven onwards 

 by the stress of want; they came as the swallows, or 

 as the snows of winter: and they disappeared again 

 in like manner, and not one of them was left. Drought, 

 or famine, like a destroying angel, was for ever on 

 their track, and like a swarm of locusts in passing 

 over the country they consumed every edible sub- 

 stance in their course, leaving nothing but barrenness 

 behind. As a general rule, where the direction of 

 their wanderings could be traced, it was found that 

 these destructive armies of beasts moved somewhat in 

 the form of a great oval, going out one way and 

 returning by another: thus their whole route passed 

 over different sections of country and often proved a 

 great scourge to the early colonial settlers. 



During dry years even at the present time, stock 

 farmers in the interior of South Africa, in the same 

 country where these great assemblages of game used 

 to congregate, sometimes have the greatest difficulty 

 in preserving the lives of their stock until the return 

 of the rains, and in some parts of the country large 

 areas of land have to be abandoned and great losses 

 of cattle etc. occur. 



