DESICCATIOy OF SOUTH A5BICA. 105 



their impassable torrents, in whicli the hippopotami played, while the 

 lowing herds n-alked to their necks in grass, filling their mahikas 

 (mflk sacks) with milk, making every heart to sing for joy." And he 

 mentions that, " Independent of this fact being handed down by their 

 forefethers, they had before their eyes the fragments of more fruitfiil 

 years in the immense number of stumps and roots of enormous 

 trunks of acada giraffes, where now scarcely one is to be seen raising 

 its stately head above the shrubs ; while the sloping sides of hilla 

 and the ancient beds of rivers, plainly evinced that they were 

 denuded of the herbage which once clothed their surface. Indeed, 

 the whole country north of the Orange Eiver lying east of the 

 Kalagari desert, presented to the eye of a European something like 

 an old n^lected garden or field." Dr Mo&t found no difficully in 

 accounting for this. " The Bechuanas, especially the Batlapis, and 

 the neighbouring tribes," says he, " are a nation of levellers ; not 

 reducing Tiills to comparative plains, for the sake of building their 

 towns, but cutting down every species of timber, without r^aid to 

 scenery or economy. Houses are chiefly composed of small timber, 

 and their fences of branches and shrubs. Thus, when they fix on a 

 site for a town, their first consideration is to be as near a thicket as 

 possible. The whole is presently levelled, leaving only a few trees, 

 one in each great man's fold, to afibrd shelter firom the heat, and 

 under which the men work and recline. 



" The ground to be occupied for cultivation is the next object of 

 attention. The large trees being too hard, for their iron axes, they 

 bum them down by keeping up a fire at the root. These supply 

 them with branches for fences, while the sparrows, so destructive to 

 their grain, are thus deprived of an asylum. These fences, as well 

 as those in towns, require constant repairs, and, indeed, the former 

 must be renewed every year ; and by this means the country for 

 many miles around becomes entirely cleared of timber ; while in the 

 most sequestered spots, where they have their outposts, the same 

 work of destruction goes on. Thus, of whole forests, where the 

 girafio and elephant were wont to seek their daily food, nothing 

 remains. 



" When the natives remove from that district, which may be after 

 only a few years, the minor species of the acacia soon grows, but the 

 acacia airaffce requires an age to become a tree, and many ages must 

 pass before they attain the dimensions of their predecessors. In the 

 couree of my journeys I have met with trunks of enormous size, 

 which, if the time were calculated necessary for their growth, as well 



