Murraysburg meander
Sir John Fraser, son of the Reverend Colin Fraser, paster of Beaufort West in the centre of the Karoo, left a notable description of the year of the great drought of 1849.
'One day,' he wrote, 'a traveling smous (peddler) came to Beaufort West and brought the tidings that thousands of trekbokken (migrating antelope) were coming from the north, devouring everything before them. About a week after the smouse had left Beaufort West, we were awakened one morning by a sound as of a strong wind before a thunderstorm, followed by the trampling of thousands of all kinds of game - wildebeest, blesbok, springboks, kwaggas, elands, antelopes of all kinds - which filled the streets and gardens and, as far as one could see, covered the whole country, grazing off everything eatable before them, drinking up the waters in the furrows, fountains and dams wherever they could get at them, and as the creatures were all in a more or lmpoverished condition, the people killed them in numbers in their gardens. It took about three days before the whole of the trekbokken had passed, and it left our country as if a fire had raged over it. It was indeed a wonderful sight.