We Have Now Entered Again
The Country Of The Game, But They Are So Exceedingly Shy
That We Have Not Yet Seen A Single Animal.
The arrangement into many villages
pleases the Africans vastly, for every one who has a few huts under him
feels himself in some measure to be a chief.
The country at this time
is covered with yellowish grass quite dry. Some of the bushes and trees
are green; others are shedding their leaves, the young buds
pushing off the old foliage. Trees, which in the south stand bare
during the winter months, have here but a short period of leaflessness.
Occasionally, however, a cold north wind comes up even as far as Cabango,
and spreads a wintry aspect on all the exposed vegetation.
The tender shoots of the evergreen trees on the south side
become as if scorched; the leaves of manioc, pumpkins, and other tender plants
are killed; while the same kinds, in spots sheltered by forests,
continue green through the whole year. All the interior of South Africa
has a distinct winter of cold, varying in intensity with the latitudes.
In the central parts of the Cape Colony the cold in the winter
is often severe, and the ground is covered with snow. At Kuruman
snow seldom falls, but the frost is keen. There is frost
even as far as the Chobe, and a partial winter in the Barotse valley,
but beyond the Orange River we never have cold and damp combined.
Indeed, a shower of rain seldom or never falls during winter, and hence
the healthiness of the Bechuana climate. From the Barotse valley northward
it is questionable if it ever freezes; but, during the prevalence
of the south wind, the thermometer sinks as low as 42 Deg.,
and conveys the impression of bitter cold.
Nothing can exceed the beauty of the change from the wintry appearance
to that of spring at Kolobeng. Previous to the commencement of the rains,
an easterly wind blows strongly by day, but dies away at night.
The clouds collect in increasing masses, and relieve in some measure
the bright glare of the southern sun. The wind dries up every thing,
and when at its greatest strength is hot, and raises clouds of dust.
The general temperature during the day rises above 96 Deg.:
then showers begin to fall; and if the ground is but once well soaked
with a good day's rain, the change produced is marvelous.
In a day or two a tinge of green is apparent all over the landscape,
and in five or six days the fresh leaves sprouting forth,
and the young grass shooting up, give an appearance of spring
which it requires weeks of a colder climate to produce. The birds,
which in the hot, dry, windy season had been silent, now burst forth
into merry twittering songs, and are busy building their nests. Some of them,
indeed, hatch several times a year. The lowering of the temperature,
by rains or other causes, has much the same effect as the increasing mildness
of our own spring.
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