92 BOERS AS FARMERS. 



feel it to be too limited, and they are gradually spreading 

 to the north. This movement proves prejudicial to the 

 country behind, for labour, which would be directed to the 

 improvement of the colony, is withdrawn and expended in 

 a mode of life little adapted to the exercise of industrial 

 habits. That, however, does not much concern the rest of 

 mankind. Nor does it seem much of an evil for men who 

 cultivate the soil to claim a right to appropriate lands for 

 tillage which other men only hunt over, provided some 

 compensation for the loss of sustenance be awarded. The 

 original idea of a title seems to have been that " sub- 

 duing " or cultivating gave that right. But this rather 

 Chartist principle must be received with limitations ; for 

 its recognition in England would lead to the seizure of all 

 our broad ancestral acres by those who are willing to culti- 

 vate them. And, in the case under consideration, the 

 encroachments lead at once to less land being put under 

 the plough than is subjected to the native hoe, for it is a 

 fact that the Basutos and Zulus, or Cafrres of Natal, 

 cultivate largely, and undersell our farmers wherever they 

 have a fair field and no favour. 



Before we came to the Orange river we saw the last 

 portion of a migration of springbucks {Gazella euchore, or 

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

 when first seen after crossing the colonial boundary, are 

 said often to exceed forty thousand in number. I cannot 

 give an estimate of their numbers, for they appear spread 

 over a vast expanse of country, and make a quivering 

 motion as they feed and move and toss their graceful horns. 

 They feed chiefly on grass ; and as they 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 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 



