46 Animal Life in South Africa. 



Again, peripneumonia, known as "lung sickness" when it 

 attacks the oxen, and "horse sickness " when it affects the 

 horse, which is in fact the rinderpest of which we have of late 

 had so much bitter experience, and which is equally fatal to 

 domestic cattle and to the bovine antelopes and quaggas, appears 

 unaccountably to be restricted to certain localities. In some 

 parts of the Cape Colony there are veiy limited tracts of mode- 

 rate elevation which appear to procure for horses while kept 

 there a perfect immunity from the attacks of the disease from 

 which they have acquired from the Dutch the name "Paarden 

 bergen," or horse hills.* They appear to possess no peculiarities 

 of soil, vegetation, elevation, or climate to distinguish them 

 from other spots around, and the cause of the immunity they 

 enjoy remains as obscure as when it was noticed by the Dutch 

 traveller Sparmann a century ago.f 



A remarkable instance of the influence of the animal on the 

 vegetable world, occurs in the migrations of game which 

 annually takes place, from the desert towards the Cape Colony 

 and Natal. In some cases these may be due to the state of 

 the herbage, which varies considerably at different elevations, 

 but in the more marked cases as the migrations of the 

 spring bok (Antilope euchore) this is not the case. These 

 animals leave the desert at the time the grass is test, and 

 track down towards the colon}?-. The difficulty of estimating 

 the numbers of a herd of animals in movement is always 

 great; indeed, during the frontier struggles with the Kaffirs, 

 it was always remarked that the number of cattle driven 

 off or recovered, was in every case overrated by the most 

 experienced stock keepers, even where no object was to 

 be gained by misrepresentation. With these antelopes the 

 difficulty is greatly increased by a certain quivering motion of 

 their horns which they maintain, and also by the gleams of 

 white from the beautiful fan like manes which extend along 

 their backs, and which they invariably erect when moving ; 

 considering, however, the great numbers afterwards found in 

 the colony when the main body has divided, it appears pro- 

 bable that the estimate which places the numbers at between 



* There are certain localities in India which appear to be similarly endued in 

 respect to cholera. These have long been known to the natives who suppose 

 them to be under the protection of a "swamy," or deity. The credit of first 

 having called attention to these spots, we believe belongs to Colonel Haley, 

 H.M. 108th Kegiment, who has recently referred to them in the United Service 

 Magazine. 



t This disease, which is endemic in a part of the Trans-Vaal territory, becomes 

 annually epidemic throughout a considerable part of the Cape Colony and Natal. 

 Horses which have once passed through the disease are tenr.ed "salted," and are 

 supposed to be safe from future attacks, a security which in the case of oxen is 

 sought to be attained by inoculation with a portion of the diseased lung of a 

 dead ox inserted in the fleshy part of the tail, near the root. 



