On The 7th March, The Travellers Resumed Their Journey Into The Interior, And Retracing Their Steps To Tshow, Reached At Noon The Next Day, The Town Of Algi, Which Was Just Rising From Its Ruins After The Fellata, Inroad Of The Preceding Year.

All the intermediate villages had shared the same fate.

Algi, according to the information received, no longer belonged to Youriba, but to the sultan of Kiama. It comprised three small villages, and before it was burnt down had been of considerable size. These marauders have a singular mode of setting fire to walled towns, by fastening combustibles to the tails of pigeons, which, on being loosed, fly to the tops of the thatched houses, while the assailants keep up a sharp fire of arrows, to prevent the inhabitants from extinguishing the flames.

On the 11th, the travellers once more crossed the Moussa, which formerly divided the kingdoms of Youriba and Borgoo. It was now dry in a great many places, with a very rocky bed; when full, it is about thirty yards in breadth, and flows with a very strong current. On the other side, the road to Kiama lay through a flat country, thickly wooded with fine trees, and inhabited by large antelopes. These creatures are the most lively, graceful, and beautifully proportioned of the brute creation. Wherever known, they have attracted the attention and admiration of mankind from the earliest ages, and the beauty of their dark and lustrous eyes affords a frequent theme to the poetical imaginings of the eastern poets. The antelopes seen by Lander are by the Dutch called springbok, and inhabit the great plains of central Africa, and assemble in vast flocks during their migratory movements. These migrations, which are said to take place in their most numerous form only at the intervals of several years, appear to come from the north-east, and in masses of many thousands, devouring, like locusts, every green herb. The lion has been seen to migrate, and walk in the midst of the compressed phalanx, with only as much space between him and his victims as the fears of those immediately round could procure by pressing outwards. The foremost of these vast columns are fat, and the rear exceedingly lean, while the direction continues one way; but with the change of the monsoon, when they return towards the north, the rear become the leaders, fattening in their turn, and leaving the others to starve, and to be devoured by the numerous rapacious animals, who follow their march. At all times, when impelled by fear, either of the hunter or beasts of prey darting amongst the flocks, but principally when the herds are assembled in countless multitudes, so that an alarm cannot spread rapidly and open the means of flight, they are pressed against each other, and their anxiety to escape compels them to bound up in the air, showing at the same time the white spot on the croup, dilated by the effort, and closing again in their descent, and producing that beautiful effect from which they have obtained the name of the springer or springbok.

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