FEMALE GRANTS GAZKLI.ES TAKING TO FLIGHT 



Velt Conflagrations 



EVERY year a large portion of the East African 

 velt is devastated by oreat conflagrations. Coal- 



*< O O 



black tree-trunks are seen where the rainy season had 

 left all fresh and green. Everything has been quickly 

 burnt by the whirlwind of flumes that has rushed through 

 the district. 



At the commencement of the drought you see at 



O J 



nightfall a spot of fire here and there in the distance. 

 The small red o-low increases until the whole horizon is 



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ablaze. These are conflagrations in places where the 

 grass is already dried up, perhaps on the slopes of distant 

 hills, which burn night after night like huge bonfires, 

 lighting up the country for miles. Wherever prairies are 

 in Africa this state of things is found. My friend 

 Dr. Richard Kanclt, the discoverer of the sources of the 

 Nile, has the same thing to tell us about Central Africa 

 in his remarkable book Caput Nili. 



When the dryness has become general, the native 

 himself as well as the traveller will often light a fire, so- 



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