Chap. VI. HOT WIND— ELECTRICITY. 123 



Dutch, that being the language spoken by tins people. His 

 sufferings must have been far more severe than any we endured. 

 The result of the exertions of both Shelley and Maeabe is to 

 prove that the general view of the Desert always given by the 

 natives has been substantially correct. 



Occasionally, during the very dry seasons which succeed our 

 winter and precede our rains, a hot wind blows over the Desert 

 from north to south. It feels somewhat as if it came front an oven, 

 and seldom blows longer at a time than three days. It resembles 

 in its effects the harmattan of the north of Africa, and at the 

 time the missionaries first settled hi the country, thirty-five years 

 ago, it came loaded with fine reddish-coloured sand. Though no 

 longer accompanied by sand, it is so devoid of moisture as to 

 cause the wood of the best seasoned English boxes and furniture 

 to sin-ink so that every wooden article not made in the country 

 is warped. The verls of ramrods made in England are loosened, 

 and on returning to Europe fasten again. This wind is in such 

 an electric state that a bunch of ostrich-feathers held a few 

 seconds against it becomes as strongly charged as if attached to 

 a powerful electrical machine, and clasps the advancing hand 

 with a sharp crackling sound. 



"When this hot wind is blowing, and even at other times, the 

 peculiarly strong electrical state of the atmosphere causes the 

 movement of a native in his kaross to produce therein a stream 

 of small sparks. The first time I noticed this appearance was 

 while a chief was travelling with me in my waggon. Seeing part 

 of the fur of his mantle, which was exposed to slight friction by 

 the movement of the waggon, assume quite a luminous appear- 

 ance, I rubbed it smartly with the hand, and found it readily 

 gave out bright sparks, accompanied with disthict cracks. " Don't 

 you see this ? " said I. " The white men did not show us this," 

 he replied ; we had it long before white men came into the 

 country, we and our forefathers of old." Uiifortunately I never 

 inquired the name winch they gave to this appearance, but I 

 have no doubt there is one for it in the language. Otto von 

 Guerrike is said, by Baron Humboldt, to have been the first that 

 ever observed this effect in Europe, but the phenomenon had been 

 familiar to the Bechuanas for ages. Nothing came of that how- 

 ever, for they viewed the sight as if with the eyes of an ox. The 



