e and parchment hide, the latter hanging in
flaps around her perspiring and scantily-attired person. A creature of
the hideosity of one of Bunyan's fiends--a frightful grin, horn-like
ears, and a woolly skull--waddling on the abnormal hip-development of
the native Bushman or Koranna. A nice sort of being to bring in one's
dinner, not of itself over-inviting! But one gets used to queer things
on the High Veldt, and this hideous and repulsive object is only a
harmless Koranna woman, and according to her lights a good old soul
enough; and she officiates as cook and general factotum to this rough
and ready household of one.

The swarming flies buzz around. The windows are black with them; the
table is black with them; the air is thick with them. In they sail
through open windows and open doors, fresh from the foetid stew-pans of
the kitchen; fresh from the acrid, pungent dust of the goat kraals;
fresh from the latest garbage, which they have been sharing with carrion
birds, in the veldt. They light on the diner's head, crawl about his
face, crowd over plates and dishes and tablecloth--mix themselves up
with the food, drown themselves in the drink. Everywhere flies.

The South African house-fly is identical with the British, but he is a
far greater pest. He is more aggressive, and he brings to bear upon his
victims the solid weight of numbers. Go where you will, you cannot
shake him off. If you fit up a waggon, and dive into the far interior,
there also will the common fly be with you--and with you in swarms.

Renshaw Fanning looks disgustedly at his uninviting meal, and plays with
it rather than eats. Then he pushes back his chair. He has no
appetite.

Again he seeks the open air. A restless mood is upon him, and broiling,
stifling as the heat is outside, he cannot remain in the house.
Suddenly a winged object appears fluttering in the sunlight. A quick
exclamation escapes him, as he shades his eyes to watch it.

"Ha, of course! The last straw! Locusts. Here they come, by Jove!
thicker and thicker to put the finishing touch on what the drought has
begun. By this time to-morrow there won't be a blade of grass left on
the place, nor a hoof either."

He stands watching the flying insects. Barely five minutes after the
discovery of the first one, the air is thick with them. They seem to
spring out of nowhere. Thicker and thicker they come, their gauzy wings
fluttering in the sunlight, blundering into