HABITS OF SPRINGBUCKS. 93 



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 this 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 subsis- 

 tence, 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 ques- 

 tionable 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 destruc- 

 tion by firearms, they will continue long to hold their place. 

 On crossing the Orange river we come into independent 

 territory 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 in some 

 degree the characteristics of both parents. They were 

 governed for many years by an elected chief named Water- 

 boer ; who. by treaty, received a small sum per annum 

 from the Colonial Government for the support of schools 

 in his country, and proved a most efficient guard of our 

 north-west boundary. Cattle-stealing was totally unknown 

 during the whole period of this able chief's reign ; and he 

 actually drove back, single-handed, a formidable force of 

 marauding Mantatees that threatened to invade the 

 colony.* But for that brave Christian man, Waterboer, 

 there is every human probability that the north-west would 

 have given the colonists as much trouble as the eastern 



* For an account of this see Moffat's " Scenes and Labours in 

 South Africa." 



