118 MIGEATION OF SPRINGBUCKS. 



north about the time -when the grass most abounds, it can not be 

 want of food that prompts the movement. Nor is it want of 

 water, for this antelope is one of the most abstemious in that re- 

 spect. Their nature prompts them to seek as their favorite haunts 

 level plains with short grass, where they may be able to watch the 

 approach of an enemy. The Bakalahari take advantage of this 

 feeling, and burn off large patches of grass, not only to attract the 

 game by the new crop when it comes up, but also to form bare 

 spots for the springbuck to range over. 



It is not the springbuck alone that manifests this feeling. 

 When oxen are taken into a country of high grass, they are much 

 more ready to be startled ; their sense of danger is increased by 

 the increased power of concealment afforded to an enemy by such 

 cover, and they will often start off in terror at the ill-defined out- 

 lines of each other. The springbuck, possessing this feeling in 

 an intense degree, and being eminently gregarious, becomes un- 

 easy as the grass of the Kalahari becomes tall. The vegetation 

 being more sparse in the more arid south, naturally induces the 

 different herds to turn in that direction. As they advance and 

 increase in numbers, the pasturage becomes more scarce; it is 

 still more so the further they go, until they are at last obliged, in 

 order to obtain the means of subsistence, to cross the Orange River, 

 and become the pest of the sheep-farmer in a country which con- 

 tains scarcely any of their favorite grassy food. If they light on 

 a field of wheat in their way, an army of locusts could not make 

 a cleaner sweep of the whole than they will do. It is question- 

 able whether they ever return, as they have never been seen as a 

 returning body. Many perish from want of food, the country to 

 which they have migrated being unable to support them ; the rest 

 become scattered over the colony; and in such a wide country 

 there is no lack of room for all. It is probable that, notwithstand- 

 ing the continued destruction by fire-arms, they will continue long 

 to hold their place. 



On crossing the Orange River we come into independent terri- 

 tory inhabited by Griquas and Bechuanas. By Griquas is meant 

 any mixed race sprung from natives and Europeans. Those 

 in question were of Dutch extraction, through association with 

 Hottentot and Bushwomen. Half-castes of the first generation 

 consider themselves superior to those of the second, and all possess 



