SCENTED SKINS OF DESERT GAME. 57 



pical countries, are sometimes converted into luxuriant 

 pastures, after the onset of the rainy season, is incredi- 

 ble, except to those who have witnessed it. No sooner 

 do the life-giving streams of water descend upon the 

 parched-up earth, than the prison doors are unlocked. 

 Everything awakens to a new life, as if from the sleep 

 of death itself. The dry, hard crust is broken up and 

 converted into fertile mud, and as if by the touch of 

 a magician's wand, the thirsty desert is made to 

 blossom as the rose. 



The beauty and fragrance of many of the desert 

 flora at this period has been noticed in the works of 

 numerous travellers a great part of the herbage. in 

 fact consists of different kinds of aromatic plants, which 

 give off their peculiar fragrance the moment they are 

 either wetted, stepped upon, or touched, and during 

 the deliciously cool hours of the lovely tropical nights 

 and early mornings, their scent is generally peculiarly 

 remarkable, the whole air being often at such times 

 laden with their perfume. 



The skins etc. of the wild animals inhabiting these 

 desert regions are in the same way saturated with the 

 prevailing perfume, and Mr. Gordon Gumming, the 

 South African hunter, in several passages throughout 

 his book makes mention of this fact. 



Giraffes, for instance, he tells us, emit a powerful 

 aroma, like the smell of heather honey, as also do 

 elands and blesbucks. Like most other African ante- 

 lopes the skins of these animals when freshly killed 

 exhale a most delicious fragrance, highly scented with 

 the perfume of the flowers and sweet-smelling herbage 

 upon which the animals have been accustomed to lie 

 and feed. 



