1812. 
THE FROGS' CONCERT. 
509 
England, the umbi^ella is seldom, or never, used for the purpose 
which its name implies ; but now I restored to this article its 
original functions ; and from the essential service it rendered in this 
capacity, I learnt to value it as an important part of an African 
traveller's equipment. 
All herbage was at this time parched up, and no verdure of any 
kind was to be seen. Many of the inhabitants of the village had 
removed, with all their cattle, to the Gariep, where some scanty 
pasture might still be picked up along its banks. 
Every pool and pond was completely dried up ; even the frogs 
had disappeared and crept into holes in the ground, there to lie, in 
silence and sleep, till the rains again called them forth. No sooner 
does the delightful element moisten the earth, and replenish the 
hollows, than every pool becomes a concert-room, in which frogs of 
all sizes, old and young, seem contending with each other for a 
musical prize. Some in deep tones perform their croaking bass, 
while the young ones, or some of a different species, lead in higher 
notes of a whistling kind. Tenors and trebles, counter-tenors, 
sopranos, and altos, may be distinguished in this singular orchestra ; 
while, at intervals, some ancient toad, as double-bass, joins in with 
a hollow croak, the lowest in the vocal scale. The noise thus pro- 
duced, particularly in the evenings, is truly astonishing, and nearly 
stunning : but, to a traveller, the most surprising circumstance 
attending these musicians, is their sudden appearance after the rains, 
where, from the excessive aridity of the country, he could, but a few 
days before, have hardly supposed that such animals had ever existed. 
I3th. As the season for the Paarde-ziekte, or horse-diste?nper, 
was expected to begin, generally, about the beginning of February, 
a party of people set out this day for the Colony, taking with them 
a great number of horses, with which they were to remain till the 
first of May, at a farm in the Roggeveld, belonging to a boor named 
Franz Maritz. Many of these people had, this year, sent no more 
than half their horses into the colony : the other half, in order to be 
nearer at hand in case of hostilities with any of the neighbouring 
tribes, were sent off, at the same time, for the Langberg, under the 
