Page:Seven Years in South Africa v1.djvu/107

 Involuntarily the memories of former Christmas Eves rose up within my mind, and I could not help comparing the past with the present, contrasting the festivities of the cheerful room, well warmed to defy the wintry rigour, with the tropical glow of an African sun, where not a single external circumstance recalled an association with the season.

Our way led at first across a plain covered with dwarf bushes, few of them exceeding eighteen inches high. Here and there, in depressions of the soil, were patches of soft green turf, long grass only growing upon higher and more rocky places.

All over the wide flats were innumerable swarms of insects, of which several species of locusts especially attracted our notice. Some of these were very beautiful in colour, and were armed with a kind of projecting shield. Varying from two to three inches in length, their cylindrical bodies were either of light or dark green, the wing-sheaths being bordered with red. In quite a sluggish condition thousands of them had settled on the milk-bushes (Euphorbiaceæ), and the least touch made them fall to the ground, apparently lifeless. On my journey from Port Elizabeth I had wondered how it was that the locusts, subject to the attacks of almost countless enemies of the feathered tribe, from the eagle to the wild duck, should venture so constantly to settle in the most exposed parts of the bushes; and I now solved the mystery by discovering through my sense of smell that they eject a most offensive fluid, the disgusting odour of which we had the