CHAPTER VIII. 



CLIMATE. 

 Sunsets Glorious Colours A Ground Pig. 



POSSIBLY some people think that sunsets are 

 identical all over the earth ; indeed they are not, 

 but are as different as is the light of our ordinary 

 English moon to the light afforded by the same 

 luminary in the tropics. At sea, in the vicinity of 

 the equator, grand sunsets are known, but they are 

 not to be compared to those that are to be seen 

 here, when the observer looks westward toward 

 the Kalihari Desert. The rarefaction of the atmo- 

 sphere in these plateau lands doubtlessly accounts 

 for this, in conjunction with the total absence of 

 damp. The sun in this part of Africa descends 

 in a mass of deepest crimson lines, which gradually 

 give place to a colour outrivalling gold, which again 

 loses itself in orange, to be replaced by paler 



