With Flashlight and Rifle -* 



as to find a way more easily through the destroyed grass. 

 Directly the first sudden rain falls, fresh green p istures 

 appear very quickly. 



It is not the case that fires burn with such extra- 

 ordinary rapidity that neither man nor beast has time to 

 escape, as one often hears related in descriptions of travels. 

 Hut for hours, days even weeks the mighty conflagra- 

 tion will progress, destroying all in its way, whether 

 grass or shrubs ; sometimes even bringing giant trees to 

 the ground by the persistent licking of its tongues of 

 flame. 



When a great tree has been treated like this it will 

 lie on the hard, dry ground ready for the next year's 

 conflagration. A few days later, if the wind has not 

 been too strong, the traveller will see a complete sketch, 

 so to speak, of the tree and its branches outlined by the 

 ashes on the ground a strange memento mori\ 



The next wind will sweep all away, and no sign of 

 the great fall will remain. 



When the fire burns for hours at a stretch across the 

 plains, then comes the great feast-day for all kinds of 

 animals. And marabous, storks, cranes, birds of prey of 

 all kinds, especially kites, swoop down on the half-burnt 

 locusts or grasshoppers and other small creatures, which 

 now fall to their lot. 



You see other birds, too, such as the gaily coloured 

 rollers, various kinds of swallows, the black " birds of 

 sorrow," snatch their booty from the midst of the hissing 

 flames with extraordinary dexterity. These creatures all 

 know by experience that the fire is nothing very dreadful, 



636 



