56 FLIGHT OF BLUE CRANES. 
country with rain. Loud peals of thunder followed 
the most vivid flashes of lightning; and hailstones, of 
an unusual size, beat with such violence upon our 
oxen, that it was with great difficulty the driver 
could keep them under control. We were com- 
pelled, therefore, to bivouack on this plain, the rain 
continuing during the night, accompanied with strong 
gales, so as to prevent the possibility of enjoying a 
fire. I never remember having felt the cold so 
severely in this country as on the present occasion. 
The thermometer in the morning was as low as 41°, 
an extraordinary change in the temperature from that — 
under which I had lately so much suffered. 
On approaching Bushman’s Poorte, I observed 
an immense flight of those elegant blue cranes, 4n- 
thropoides virgo: they were feeding on a sloping 
bank, and it was quite amusing to observe their play- 
ful evolutions. Returning to the waggon, I found the 
Hottentot driver had discovered a bottle of spirits 
which had been left there, and that its influence had 
disabled him from driving the oxen through the river ; 
I was, therefore, under the necessity of taking the 
whip into my own hands, which, from its immense 
length, I found no easy matter to manage: I suc- 
ceeded, however, in getting across, and we witspanned 
on the opposite bank. ‘The intoxicated Hottentot 
took up his ‘‘ Aabaas” and departed, evidently much 
incensed at my interference. I was not without 
- apprehension that the conductor, who had also begun 
