The evening before arriving at Upington van Reenen had a nasty experience. We had outspanned at a spot only a few hours from Upington, and had made a large fire in order to roast a porcupine van Reenen had shot earlier in the day. It was nearly nightfall, and the sky was dark and lowering, whilst distant thunder could be heard northward. As we sat by the camp fire, a sudden gust of wind scattered the embers in all directions, and this was but the prelude to a furious gale that came tearing along at whirlwind speed, bearing with it not only embers, but hats, kettles, big flaming branches from the fire, and almost blinding us with a thick cloud of dust. The morsels of porcupine went flying into the cinders, and thence all over the veldt, as the wind whisked the heart of the fire away; through the blast of sand and small stones came a few drops of rain, and a vivid flash of lightning, with a simultaneous peal of heavy thunder right over us, showed that we were in for one of the sudden storms peculiar to the place and season. In a few minutes it was pitch dark, and we were scuttling all over the place, in a vain endeavour to retrieve all sorts of belongings that the wind had snatched away even from the shelter of the waggon. In a quarter of an hour the worst was over, though still the wind howled across the shelterless veldt, and we began to collect the scattered firebrands, and built another fire. Van Reenen, determined to sup off porcupine, crouched down by the embers, and began cooking fresh slivers of the rank-smelling meat, when suddenly the driver yelled to _pas op_ (look out), for the scorpions were “trekking.” Rain, or a heavy dust-storm, will always bring out these little pests in swarms from the holes and crevices in which they hide, and I knew that in such cases they simply ran “amok,” travelling with tail erect, looking for trouble, and lashing out at anything living that came in their way. But I was hardly prepared for what followed the driver’s warning, for within a minute or two the veldt was literally alive with the venomous little pests, numbers of them walking straight into the fire, where they squirmed and sizzled horribly. Van Reenen, intent on his cooking, only swore a little as he brushed one or two aside, and took them far too lightly, for suddenly a big black specimen ran along his bare arm, and stung him on the big vein on his wrist, causing him to drop the second lot of porcupine steak, and let off a yell that scared the whole camp.