104 MIGRATION OF SPRINGBUCKS. Chap. V. 



come from the north about the time when the grass most abounds, 

 it cannot 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 respect. Their nature prompts them to seek as their 

 favourite haunts level plains with short grass, where they may- 

 be able to watch the approach of an enemy. The Bakalahari 

 take advantage of tins 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 in- 

 creased 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 outlines of each other. The springbuck, possessing 

 tins feeling in an intense degree, and being eminently gregarious, 

 becomes uneasy 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 contains scarcely any of their favourite 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 questionable 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, 

 notwithstanding the continual destruction by firearms, they will 

 continue long to hold their place. 



On crossing the Orange river we come into independent ter- 

 ritory 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 genera- 

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





