HEAD OF THE HARTEBEEST (Antilope Caama).
In places where trees are not too numerous, it is generally hunted on horseback. When pursued, its motion is very awkward, probably on account of the unusual height of the shoulders. Although this species of hartebeest (Antilope Caama) is the commonest of the three kinds I have mentioned, I am under the impression that it is a rarity in European menageries; indeed, I am not aware that the transZambesi kind has ever been represented there at all. In the country of the central Bechuanas, and in the forests, they are approached under cover of the foliage, and are usually found on the borders of glades, and anywhere where there is a tolerably open range for their view. By white hunters they are often chased promiscuously with elephants, ostriches, and other wild game.
So obscured were all the waggon-tracks by the ashes left by the fire, that it was a matter of no little difficulty for our guide to distinguish the proper way towards the native settlements. The trials of the day seemed never coming to an end. Our thirst became more and more painful, our throats being parched, and our tongues cleaving to our mouths. Our sufferings enforced a melancholy silence. Any hope we had entertained that the heat would moderate as daylight waned, proved quite fallacious, as the evening was exceptionally hot, and the breeze that had been blowing was completely lulled. At last, however, the distant baying of some dogs caught our ear, and never was any sound more welcome; and when, soon afterwards, the monotonous chant of the native girls, accompanying themselves on their wooden castanets, could be distinguished, it was as music unsurpassed in sweetness. Here at length was the promise of relief from our tortures.
WOODS AT THE FOOT OF THE MALAU HEIGHTS.
Page 231.
Lights from the hut-fires were soon visible. Leaving the waggon standing unguarded where it was, every one of us, guide included, rushed impatiently to the huts. A lot of yelping curs ran out to meet us; the singing of the women ceased, and one solitary man advanced in our direction, evidently astonished that a waggon should be passing at such an hour. Seizing him by the arm, I shouted in his ear, “Meci, meci;” startled by my vehemence he uttered a loud cry, probably of alarm, for our black guide burst into a fit of laughter. However, I had made him understand me, and he went into his hut, whence he soon returned, bringing a huge horn full of stinking stuff, which he declared was his entire supply of water, and for which he demanded half-a-crown. Neither in quality nor in quantity did this suffice us, and after some further parleying, we made him comprehend what we wanted, when he and two of his wives brought us out some bowls of milk, which we speedily emptied. After our thirst was thus quenched we began very shortly to have a sense of hunger, and lost no time in kindling a good fire and getting a leg of mutton, which we watched while it was roasting. We sat and talked over the steppe-burning, and our happy deliverance from our alarming predicament. To the south we could still see the glow in the sky, which made it certain that the fire was not yet subdued in that quarter.
These fires occasionally arise from accidents, and from carelessness, but in districts where there are few shrubs and trees to be injured, the farmers in dry winters not unfrequently purposely set fire to the steppes, with the object, they say, of promoting the growth of the grass. It is known, too, that ostrich-hunters were formerly in the habit of causing these conflagrations so as to get a crop of tender-sprouting grass, which is always attractive to the birds, who delight in the young herbage. Fires of this kind are likewise to be seen from time to time amongst the low scap- (sheep-) bushes, rarely exceeding eighteen inches high, on the plains both in the Colony and the Free State, and on dark nights the glowing streaks that mark the heavens are thus accounted for.
We had hardly travelled half an hour next morning before we discovered that the waggon-tracks that we had been following had brought us into the same road that we had used on our previous journey from Gassibone to the Vaal. Our good-natured guide here took leave of us, and we descended one of the passes leading to Gassibone’s kraal. The defile was wide, but became much narrower at the farther end; the sides, although they were covered with luxuriant vegetation, yet permitted the terrace-like stratification of the hills to be distinctly traced. The flat parts were overgrown with wild mimosas, and had an aspect not unlike the cherry-gardens planted on our own hillsides in Europe.