Chap. V. MIGRATION OF SPRINGBUCKS. 71 



ness favourable for the development of the disease. No fewer 

 han twenty-five died on the hill opposite our house. Great 

 numbers of gnus and zebras perished from the same cause, but 

 the mortality produced no sensible diminution in the quantity 

 of the game. 



When the flesh of animals that have died of peripneumonia 

 is eaten, it causes a malignant carbuncle ; and when this 

 appears over any important organ, it proves rapidly fatal. It 

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

 effects of the poison have been experienced by missionaries 

 who had partaken of food not visibly affected by the disease. 

 Many of the Bakwains who persisted in devouring the flesh 

 of animals which had perished from the distemper died in 

 consequence. The virus is destroyed neither by boiling nor 

 roasting. This fact, of which we have had innumerable ex- 

 amples, shows the superiority of experiments on a large scale 

 to those of physiologists in the laboratory, for a well-known 

 physician of Paris, after careful investigation, considered that 

 the virus was completely neutralized by boiling. 



Before we reached the Orange river we saw the last por- 

 tion of a migration of springbucks (Gazella euchore, or tsepe). 

 They come from the great Kalahari Desert, and, when first 

 they cross the colonial boundary, are said to exceed forty 

 thousand in number. I cannot venture on an estimate, for 

 they spread over a vast expanse of country, and make a 

 quivering motion as they graze, and toss their graceful horns. 

 They live chiefly on grass ; and as they come from the north 

 about the time when 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. 

 The cause of the migration would seem to be their preference for 

 places where they can watch the approach of a foe. When oxen 

 are taken into a country of high grass, their sense of danger is 

 increased by the power of concealment which the cover affords, 

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

 lines of each other. The springbuck possesses this feeling 

 in an intense degree, and, being eminently gregarious, gets 

 uneasy as the grass of the Kalahari grows tall. The vegeta- 

 tion being scantier in the more arid south, the herds turn in 

 that direction. As they advance and increase in numbers, 



