Bush Fires 137 



vicinity of the villages, by travellers on footpaths, by 

 hunters in the woods. The wind fans the flames with 

 its powerful and continuous breath, and the fire 

 spreads. Generally started in the evening, it spreads 

 the whole night through with a noise like the 

 rumbling of thunder, licking the trees with its tall, 

 flaming tongues, and advancing with terrifying 

 rapidity. Smoke rises in clouds heavenwards, bearing 

 burning straw, whilst on the ground is a crackling like 

 a fusillade of bursting stems and plants. The wind 

 moderates or increases the roar, and the unbridled 

 element thus sweeps over plains, climbs hill-sides, and 

 rushes across immense stretches of country. Some- 

 times, several days afterwards, a wreath of blue smoke 

 rises in the midst of the mass of black, gray, or white 

 cinders, and of dead tree trunks which have caught 

 fire, showing that the fire smoulders, and that it is 

 slowly continuing its work. Rarely does it cover 

 great distances without being stopped. The natives 

 burn the grass in the vicinity of their villages before- 

 hand to protect them, so that the flames, finding 

 nothing more to burn, stop short. Forests destitute 

 of grass, damp places, and sandy or stony spots also 

 arrest combustion. 



As a rule the speed of the flames on a grassy 

 plain is in direct ratio to the wind. I have seen 

 them sweep along with terrible rapidity, perhaps 

 thirteen miles an hour ; at other times, on the 

 contrary, they were travelling at barely three or four 

 miles. 



If surprised by a conflagration when on the march 



