104 
MIGEATION OF SPKINOBUCKS. 
Chap. Y. 
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 tliis 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 spriugbuck to range over. 
It is not the springbuck alone that manifests this feehng. 
When oxen are taken into a country of high grass, they are 
much more ready to be startled; their sense of danger is in¬ 
creased by the increased power of concealment afforded to an 
enemy by such cover, and they will often start off in terror at the 
ill-defined outhnes of each other. The springbuck, possessing 
tins 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 stfil more so the further they go, until they are at 
last obhged, in order to obtain the means of subsistence, 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 questionable 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 aU. It is probable that, 
notwithstanding the continual destruction by firearms, they will 
continue long to hold their place. 
On crossing the Orange river we come into independent ter¬ 
ritory inhabited by Oriquas 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 genera¬ 
tion consider themselves superior to those of the second, and all 
