e hard, too, with our poor cattle, I am thinking, for these hungry
creatures will make sad havoc in the camp if they pitch on it, and the
surrounding country too."

Still, I urged that by pushing on we might fall in with a herd of deer,
one or more of which would pay us for our long ride, and supply our
larder with the much-needed flesh. We rode forward, hoping yet to fall
in with some game. Still we were as unsuccessful as at first. We had
gone some distance, when we came upon masses of creatures of a reddish
colour with dark markings. In some places they covered the ground in
layers two or three inches thick. Mr Fraser told me they were the
larvae of the locusts, which the Dutch people at the Cape call
_voet-gangers_--literally, foot-goers. Some were seen hopping among the
grass, devouring it with extraordinary rapidity.

"What do you think, Mr Crawford, of the fruit on those bushes?" said
Donald to me, pointing to some shrubs, from which hung what I took to be
clusters of magnificent fruit.

Hiding forward, I plucked some. My astonishment was great to find that
they were merely the larva; of the locusts hanging to the boughs. So
thickly did they cover the branches, that they literally bowed them down
to the ground. He told me that these creatures are especially dreaded
by the colonists, as it is impossible to stop their progress, and they
eat up every green thing in their way. They cross rivers or pools; for
though the leaders are drowned, the others pass over the bridge thus
formed by their bodies. Even fires, which are sometimes lighted in the
hope of stopping their progress, are put out by the countless masses
which crawl over them.

It was dark before we reached the camp. We rode together, keeping a
sharp look-out, in case we might have been followed by any prowling
inhabitant of the wilds. As we drew near the camp, a bright blaze
appeared from one side to the other, and I could not help being alarmed
at the thought that the waggon and tents, surrounded by dry grass, might
have caught fire. Mr Fraser, however, quickly calmed my fears.

"Our people, I suspect, are having a feast," he observed. "It is an ill
wind that blows no one good; and if the locusts have eaten up the
cattle's fodder, our people are engaged in eating up the locusts."

On entering the camp, we found all the blacks busily employed round the
large fires which they had lighted. They were scraping together vast
quantities of l