- SOUTH AFRICA FIFTY YEARS AGO 37 
the flats between the Orange and Molopo Rivers were full of 
_ sameness, they were also full of antelope, gnu, and quagga. 
_ These, with the bird and insect life, were all fresh, and made 
_ the world very bright around us. These upland flats have 
- been so often described, that I will not bore the reader un- 
' necessarily with an account of them, and besides, I am not 
writing of the country or its appearance, but have merely under- 
_ taken to try and give some idea of the game that once held 
possession of it ; and, indeed, I doubt very much if I could 
_ convey any notion at the present time of what it was some 
_ fifty years ago, for all the glamour of the wildness and abundant 
_ life has long passed away. 
a On these plains the springbucks were met with in vast 
herds ; for an hour’s march with the waggons—say two and a 
_ quarter miles—I once saw them to the left of the track, along 
_ a slightly rising ground, thicker than I ever saw sheep. I sup- 
_ pose they must have been ¢rek dokken ; that is, a collection of 
_ the herds over an extended area on the move for pasturage. 
The Hottentot waggon-drivers shot many of them, frequently 
_ killing two at a time, they were so closely packed. They were 
_ to be counted only by tens of thousands. Formerly, they used 
_ oftento invade the northern outlying farms of the Boers, and 
destroy their crops ; and though shot in waggon-loads, they 
would still hang about as long as there was a green blade of 
anything. They were nearly as bad as the locusts, a flight of 
which we saw, by the way, a few days after leaving Kuruman, 
near the ‘Chooi,’ or large natural salt-pan. We were at break- 
_ fast, when far down on the south-east horizon I noticed a 
_ Wreath as of dark smoke rising rapidly, broadening as it ad- 
vanced. In a very short time it enveloped us in the form 
_ Of a locust storm ; the whole earth and air were full of them ; 
tens of myriads settled, and myriads of myriads rode on 
_ clanking in mimicry of armed cavalry, and crackling like 
a flame devouring the stubble. Look which way you would— 
nothing but locusts; they did not hide the sun, but they 
so obscured his rays that you could look straight at him. 
