HORSE-SICKNESS. 59 



as it would do of a troop of fifty horses. This barrier, 

 then, seems to explain the absence of the horse among the 

 Hottentots, though it is not opposed to the southern migra- 

 tion of cattle, sheep, and goats. 



"When the flesh of animals that have died of this disease 

 is eaten, it causes a malignant carbuncle, which, when it 

 appears over any important organ, proves rapidly fatal. 

 It is more especially dangerous over the pit of the stomach. 

 The effects of the poison have been experienced by mis- 

 sionaries who had eaten properly-cooked food, — the flesh 

 of sheep really but not visibly affected by the disease. 

 The virus in the flesh of the animal is destroyed neither by 

 boiling nor roasting. This fact, of which we have, had innu- 

 merable examples, shows the superiority of experiments on 

 a large scale to those of acute and able physiologists and 

 chemists in the laboratory; for a well-known physician of 

 Paris, after careful investigation, considered that tho virus 

 in such cases was completely neutralized by boiling. 



This disease attacks wild animals too. During our re- 

 sidence at Chonuan, great numbers of tolos, or koodoos, 

 were attracted to the gardens of the Bakwains, abandoned 

 at the usual period of harvest because there was no pros- 

 pect of the corn (Solcus sorghum) bearing that year. The 

 koodoo is remarkably fond of the green stalks of this kind 

 of millet. Free feeding produced that state of fatness favor- 

 able for the development of this disease, and no fewer than 

 twenty -five died on the hill opposite our house. Groat 

 numbers of gnus and zebras perished from the same cause; 

 but the mortality produced no sensible diminution in the 

 numbers of the game, any more than the deaths of many 

 of the Bakwains who persisted, in spite of every remon- 

 strance, in eating the dead meat, caused any sensible de- 

 crease in the strength of the tribe. 



Before we came to the Orange River, we saw the last 

 portion of a migration of springbucks, (Gazella euchore, or 

 tsepe.) They came from the great Kalahari Desert, and, 

 when first seen after crossing the colonial boundary, are 



A 



