Southern Africa possesses the swiftest, the largest, the heaviest, the fiercest, the mightiest, and the tallest beasts in the world. The lofty mountain, the reed-clad dell, the thorny bush, the open plain, the river bank, and the very water itself, are filled with their proper inhabitants, simply on account of the variety of soil, which always produces a corresponding variety of inhabitants. The different kinds of herbage attract and sustain the animals that are suited to them; and were they to be extinct, the animals must follow in their wake. The larger carnivora are in their turn attracted by the herbivorous inhabitants of the country, and thus it happens that even a very slight modification in the vegetation has altered the whole character of a district. Mr. Moffatt has mentioned a curious instance of this fact. He and his companions were in great jeopardy on account of a disappointed “rain-maker.” The country had originally been even remarkable for the quantity of rain which fell in it, and for its consequent fertility. The old men said that their forefathers had told them “of the floods of ancient times, the incessant showers which clothed the very rocks with verdure, and the giant trees and forests which once studded the brows of the Hamhana hills and neighboring plains. They boasted of the Kuruman and other rivers, with their impassable torrents, in which the hippopotami played, while the lowing herds walked up to their necks in grass, filling their _makukas_ (milk-sacks) with milk, making every heart to sing for joy.” That such tales were true was proved by the numerous stumps of huge acacia-trees, that showed where the forest had stood, and by the dry and parched ravines, which had evidently been the beds of rivers, and clothed with vegetation. For the drought the missionaries were held responsible, according to the invariable custom of the rain-makers, who are only too glad to find something on which to shift the blame when no rain follows their incantations. It was in vain that Mr. Moffatt reminded them that the drought had been known long before a white man set his foot on the soil. A savage African is, as a general rule, impervious to dates, not even having the least idea of his own age, so this argument failed utterly.