HOT WIND IN THE DESERT. Ill 



times of an Englishman being slain by the Bechnanas. 

 We afterwards heard that there had been some fighting 

 between these Barolongs and the Boers, and that there 

 had been capturing of cattle on both sides. If this was 

 true, I can only say that it was the first time that I ever 

 heard of cattle being taken by Bechuanas. This was a 

 CafTre war in stage the second ; the third stage in the 

 development is when both sides are equally well armed 

 and afraid of each other ; the fourth, when the English 

 take up a quarrel not their own, and the Boers slip out of 

 the fray. 



Two other English gentlemen crossed and recrossed 

 the Desert about the same time, and nearly in the same 

 direction. On returning, one of them, Captain Shelley, 

 while riding forward on horseback, lost himself, and was 

 obliged to find his way alone to Kuruman, some hundreds 

 of miles distant. Reaching that station shirtless, and 

 as brown as a Griqua, he was taken for one by Mrs. Moffat, 

 and was received by her with a salutation in Dutch, 

 that being the language spoken by this people. His 

 sufferings must have been far more severe than any we 

 endured. The result of the exertions of both Shelley and 

 Macabe 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 from 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 in 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 shrink 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 



