The stolen horses escaped us, having reached the edge of the Zuurburg bush, but the whole of the oxen and sheep were recaptured, and six of the enemy's horses and some arms taken. Our own steeds were so completely done up that many came to a stand-still, compelling their riders to return a great part of the way on foot. Mynheer Rautenbach was very glad to get so much back again; but he deeply grieved over his nephew, the young man who had been wounded by a charge of "loopers," or slugs, which lodged in the shoulder joint. His sufferings were very severe, and our surgeon pronounced his recovery doubtful. We were at this time visited by flights of locusts, more numerous than had been known for years. They came in such myriads as literally to darken the air, passing over for hours together in one continued cloud, stretching as far as the eye could see, and frequently shutting out from view objects at the distance of a few hundred yards. The sound of their flight was like the wind; the plain was completely covered with them for miles; and we moved through them with eyes half closed and heads bent down as they were borne along on the breeze. One while they looked like falling snow, and the ground was whitened over as the sun caught their wings in a particular light; another, they appeared sweeping across the sky like a dark smoke. Everything green disappeared in a few days, the young crops were gone, and the pasturage vanished. But what was not less extraordinary, every living thing in turn fed on them. Not only did the horses and cattle greedily devour the destroyers, and the dogs and poultry run after them with open mouths, doubling and turning and jumping off their feet in absurd attempts to catch them in the air, but the Dutch and Hottentot servants fried them in fat and eat them in quantities; the tribes up the country live on them during the season, and lay by a stock of locust meal[18] for the winter, drying them in the sun and pounding them between stones; but this is less surprising among people who kipper snakes, and store up bags of dried ants for family use. We tried fresh locusts, both cooked and uncooked, but found them, to say the least, very indifferent eating.