3 8 /.'/<; GAME SHOOTING 



No simile seems so apt to me as that of a heavy snow- 

 storm with large flakes, and this uninterruptedly for two or 

 three hours. Though the land before them was not exactly 

 as the Garden of Eden, verily behind them it was a desolate 

 wilderness. As the cold of night came on, they collected on 

 the bushes in enormous masses, eight or ten feet through, for 

 warmth, weighing them completely to the ground, and they 

 took flight again the next morning after the sun was well up. 

 For two days my oxen never put their heads down ; there 

 was nothing found for them to eat. The swarms pass through 

 waste and cultivated land alike, bringing dearth and destruc- 

 tion, and men's hearts fail ; but the adversary has arrayed his 

 forces against them, and through the dense flights sweep the 

 wedge-shaped squadrons of the springkhiin voget, or locust 

 birds : dark and long of wing like swifts, with white patches 

 beneath the pinion. As squadron after squadron wheels and 

 passes over you, the husks of the locusts fall like hail. The 

 birds are in very large numbers and do their work deftly ; 

 before long the air above you is clear, and though the evidence 

 of the curse is upon the earth, and remains, the locusts them- 

 selves are soon got rid of, for everything on two legs and four 

 eats them. The Bushmen follow the flights, feed on them, dry 

 them, and keep them in store. One night, Livingstone and 

 I lost our way, and seeing the light of a fire, made for it. 

 Around it sat a family of Bushmen ; so, heralding our 

 approach from a safe distance, for fear of a flight of arrows, 

 we introduced ourselves. They welcomed us, and offered us 

 guides and a snack of dried locusts. I ate two or three, and 

 they were not so nasty ; something like what old shrimp-shells 

 without the insides might be. These insects are bad enough 

 in their winged, but worse in their early wingless, form, when, 

 as the dreaded ' foot-gangers ' of the Dutch farmer, they roll in 

 living waves over his land, defy all attempts at extermination 

 from their multitude, climb walls, quench lines of small fires 

 placed in the hopes of turning them, cross rivers, millions 

 jumping in, and millions getting over on the living raft. In 



