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.  The earth teems with myriads of young insects; in some parts of the country hundreds of centipedes, myriapedes, and beetles emerge from their hiding-places, somewhat as our snails at home do; and in the evenings the white ants swarm by thousands.  A stream of them is seen to rush out of a hole, and, after flying one or two hundred yards, they descend; and if they light upon a piece of soil proper for the commencement of a new colony, they bend up their tails, unhook their wings, and, leaving them on the surface, quickly begin their mining operations.  If an attempt is made to separate the wings from the body by drawing them away backward, they seem as if hooked into the body, and tear away large portions of the insect; but if turned forward, as the ant itself