Wild dogs not very numerous—Hunt in packs—Attack herd of buffaloes—First experience with wild dogs—Impala antelope killed—Koodoo cow driven into shed—Koodoo driven to waggon—Wild dogs not dangerous to human beings—Greatly feared by all antelopes—Wild dog pursuing sable antelope—Great pace displayed—Wild dogs capable of running down every kind of African antelope—General opinion as to the running powers of wild dogs—Curious incidents—Chasing wild dogs with tame ones—One wild dog galloped over and shot—Two others caught and worried by tame dogs—Wild dog shamming dead—Clever escape—Chetahs overtaken on horseback—Three chetahs seen—Two females passed—Male galloped down—A second chetah overtaken—Great speed of trained Indian chetahs—Three chetah cubs found—Brought up by bitch.
I do not think that the Cape hunting dog (Lycaon pictus) was ever very numerous in the interior of South Africa, as at the time when I was elephant-hunting, many years ago, and continually moving about, day after day and year after year, in countries where game was plentiful, I never encountered more than two or three packs of these animals in a year's wanderings, and there were several years—not consecutive—during which I did not meet with any at all. So far as my memory serves me, I think that the wild dogs I came across—with the exception of a single animal which was chasing a sable antelope bull—were in packs of from fifteen to thirty.
At times I have come across these animals lying in the shade of scattered trees, on bare ground, from which all the grass had been burnt off, and they would then trot away, continually stopping and looking back, but making no sound. But I can remember distinctly two occasions on which I suddenly disturbed a pack of wild dogs in longish grass. On both these occasions they were very near to me, but could not very well make me out, owing to the length of the grass. They retreated very slowly, and kept jumping up, looking at me inquisitively, with their large ears cocked forward. At the same time they gave vent to a kind of bark, the sound being repeated twice. This double note might be represented by the syllables "hoo-hoo."
On one of these two occasions which I say I remember so well, I was hunting—in 1873—in the country about half-way between Bulawayo and the Victoria Falls, not very far, I fancy, from the present railway line. After a long march I had reached a swampy valley—then known by the name of Dett—where there was water, and where I intended to camp. Seeing some buffaloes drinking a little way down the valley, and wanting some fresh meat, I at once proceeded to stalk them. The stream at which the buffaloes were drinking ran down the centre of an open valley some 300 yards broad, in which there was no cover, except that afforded by coarse grass, some 2-1/2 feet to 3 feet in length. Being armed with only an old muzzle-loading four-bore gun, I had to get pretty close to anything I wanted to shoot, and I had crawled half-way to the buffaloes when I saw them all suddenly raise their heads and look down the valley. I immediately looked in the same direction, and then heard a heavy trampling noise, which I knew must be caused by a herd of large animals running.
This noise came rapidly nearer, and on raising myself so that I could look over the grass, I saw a herd of perhaps forty or fifty buffaloes coming straight towards me at a lumbering gallop. At the same time I heard a noise which sounded like kak-kak-kak constantly repeated. The buffaloes came straight on towards me, and had I remained quiet would have run right over me, so when they were within twenty yards I jumped up and shouted. The leaders stopped for a moment, and then, swerving slightly, dashed close past me. I fired into one of them, and immediately afterwards saw some wild dogs—a pack of about twenty—jumping up in the long grass to look at me.
They had been hanging on to the rear of the herd of buffaloes, which they had undoubtedly first put to flight, and had they not been disturbed, would, I think, have probably succeeded in pulling down a young animal. Had I not witnessed this incident with my own eyes, I never should have thought it possible that a herd of buffaloes would have allowed themselves to be stampeded by a few wild dogs. These latter gave up the chase as soon as they saw me, and after hoo-hooing a little, trotted off. The barking hoo-hoo and the clacking kak-kak-kak are the only sounds that I have ever heard wild dogs make, but I cannot claim to have had much experience with these animals. Wild dogs sometimes hunt by day, but more usually at night, and in the latter case must be guided entirely by their acute sense of smell. As a rule, they certainly run mute.
On the first occasion on which I ever had anything to do with wild dogs, they ran into and killed an impala antelope quite close to my waggon on a dark night in 1872. We ran up with lights and drove them from the carcase, a good deal of which they had, however, already devoured. About a month later another pack of wild dogs drove a koodoo cow into a shed used as a stable, attached to a store near the Blue Jacket gold mine at Tati, in Matabeleland. I was there at the time, and on this occasion the wild dogs were driven off by some Kafir boys, who speared the koodoo inside the shed.
For some time during the year 1888 my waggon was standing at Leshuma, a water-hole which is situated just ten miles from the junction of the Chobi and Zambesi rivers. One morning I walked down to Kazungula, at the junction of the rivers, and on returning to my waggon the same evening, was surprised to see the meat of a freshly killed koodoo hanging up in my camp, as game of all kinds was very scarce in the district. On asking my old Griqua servant where he had shot the koodoo, he replied, "Master, the good Lord gave it us, for the wild dogs brought it right up to the waggon." On further inquiry, I found that soon after midday a pack of those animals had chased the koodoo to within less than a hundred yards of the waggon, and then run it in a circle completely round it. When my waggon-driver ran out with his rifle, both the wild dogs and the koodoo stopped and looked at him, the latter evidently very much distressed. Jantje at once shot the antelope, and its pursuers then ran off.
It has always struck me as somewhat remarkable that animals so confident in their powers of offence that they will sometimes attack a herd of buffaloes, and that a single one of them will occasionally try conclusions with so fierce and powerful an animal as a sable antelope bull, should never have turned their attention seriously to man as an article of diet; yet in all my experience I have never heard of wild dogs attacking human beings, nor have I ever heard either Kafirs or Bushmen express any fear of them. This is all the more remarkable because when they are met with they do not show any great fear of man, but retreat very leisurely, constantly halting and looking back curiously before finally trotting off.
All African antelopes probably live in deadly fear of wild dogs, for on the occasion when, with two companions, I saw a single wild dog overtake a sable antelope bull, the latter halted and looked round when its pursuer was about fifty yards behind it, and then, instead of showing fight, as I should have expected it to do, threw out its limbs convulsively and ran at its utmost speed; but the wild dog overhauled it with apparent ease, and twice jumped up and snapped at its flank, each time, I think, making good its bite. Now this wild dog must have been running very much faster than any South African hunting horse could do, for although it is easy enough to gallop up to sable and roan antelope cows in August and September, when these animals are heavy with calf, I have never been able to run into a bull of either of these species, though I have often attempted to do so, with very good horses, on the open downs of Mashunaland. Wild dogs, too, can run down koodoo cows and impala antelopes, as well as hartebeests and tsessebes, none of which animals can be overtaken on horseback, and I believe that the general concensus of opinion amongst African hunters would be that no horse could overtake a wild dog.