African Nature Notes and Reminiscences

by Frederick Courteney Selous

The strangest part of this experience is that I never saw or heard anything more of this lion or lioness. With a dozen of the finest trackers in the world to help me, nothing could be done on the hard limestone ground, which in one direction extended for miles; nor, though I remained in the same camp for a week, did the baffled beast ever make any further attempt to interfere with my cattle. Possibly the stallion, after shaking his assailant off, had given him or her a kick. The Bushmen told me that this was the first lion that had visited the neighbourhood of their camp for years, though a lion and lioness had together killed a cow giraffe near another permanent water, some thirty miles to the west, about a month before. No doubt the brute that had attacked my stallion—probably an old and half-famished lioness—had come a long way on the spoor of my cattle.

I secured my most beautiful gemsbuck head in April 1888, in the desert country between the lower course of the Nata river and the northern extremity of the great Makari-kari Salt-pan.

On the previous day I had come across a solitary bull in an open rolling sandy plain, destitute of any kind of vegetation but coarse tussocky grass. Owing to the very open nature of the ground in which I found him, this gemsbuck spied me from afar and went off with a very long start. I was, however, very well mounted, and after a long and exciting chase, at length got within shot of and killed him. Whilst racing along in full pursuit of this bull, I had seen in the distance quite a large herd of gemsbucks, and as I knew that there must be some fine heads among them, I had half a mind to take up their tracks later in the day, but gave up the idea, as I only had a sufficient number of Bushmen with me to carry the meat of the animal already shot.

On arriving at my waggon, I found a party of Matabele Kafirs there who had come to the Makari-kari to collect rock salt, which they find there deposited in layers a couple of inches in thickness. This rock salt is reddish brown in colour, and very impure, containing apparently a great deal of lime. Although most of these Matabele carried guns, they told me they had scarcely seen a head of game since leaving home, and having shot nothing, had consequently had nothing to eat, after they had exhausted the small stock of grain with which they had started on their journey, but berries and tortoises, eked out with whatever they had been able to steal from the Bushmen. They certainly looked half starved, and on my presenting them with a hind-leg of the gemsbuck I had just shot, they very speedily devoured it, and then begged me to try and shoot them something on the following day, that they might lay in a stock of meat for their journey back to Matabeleland.

I promised to do my best for them, and at daylight the next morning, accompanied by a dozen Matabele and several Bushmen, rode out in search of the herd of gemsbucks I had seen the previous day whilst chasing the bull. We took up their yesterday's tracks, and after following them for several hours, found that they had joined company with a herd of Burchell's zebras, with which animals they were still feeding when we at last overtook them. There were about fifteen gemsbucks (the largest number of these animals I have ever seen together) and as many zebras. The country where we found them being perfectly open, they, of course, saw us when we were still a long way off, and at once went off, with a long start, the gemsbucks leading and the zebras running close behind them.

The horse I was riding—the same with which I had chased the gemsbuck bull on the previous day—was one of the finest shooting horses I ever owned, and though no longer young, was both fast and possessed of great staying power. He was, too, a wonderfully sure-footed animal, and just now in splendid hard condition. Had the zebras been alone, they would have gone off at a leisurely pace, but being led by the gemsbucks, they kept close on their heels. These latter animals, according to my experience, when disturbed never run off in a leisurely way, nor even, if not pressed, do they keep stopping and looking back at their pursuer like almost all other antelopes, but go off at once at such a tearing pace, that although it is not the utmost speed they are capable of when hard pressed, is yet sufficiently fast to make it impossible to get near them at all without hard galloping. Owing to the long start they had got, I daresay I had galloped two, perhaps three, miles before my horse had carried me close up behind the zebras. These latter, running well together some fifty yards behind the gemsbucks, raised a tremendous dust, and, as in the former instance I have described, effectually hid the long-horned antelopes from my view. In fact, it was quite impossible to shoot a gemsbuck without passing the zebras. This I set myself to do, and before long I was galloping alongside of the hindmost animals, keeping above the wind so as to escape the dust they raised as much as possible.

In another few moments I think I should have fairly galloped past all the zebras, but they did not wait for me to do so, for suddenly the whole troop of them swerved off down wind and left me alone with the gemsbucks. These latter were all cows, and most of them carried good heads, but the horns of one seemed specially long and thin, and these I determined to secure. For some time, however, she kept well in front, and I could not get a chance of a shot at her, as she was always covered by one or other of her companions. When I passed the zebras, the gemsbucks were, I believe, going at their utmost speed, and I had kept them at it for another half-mile or so, when suddenly one of them swerved out from the rest, and facing round, came to a halt. I passed within ten yards of her, and she stood looking at me as I passed, and as she remained in the same place for some time, I think I may fairly say that she was ridden to a standstill. She appeared to be a fine full-grown cow, and was probably in calf; but as it would have been at least six months before she would have dropped her calf, this could hardly have affected her running powers. This is the second gemsbuck I have overtaken on horseback, the first having been a bull (with only one horn) which I fairly rode to a standstill in 1879.

At last I got a good chance at the long-horned cow as she swerved off to one side in the van of the herd, and my bullet, hitting her at the back of the ribs, and ranging forwards to the neighbourhood of the heart, brought her to the ground dead before she had run another hundred yards. She was indeed a beautiful animal, and her horns the handsomest, though by no means the longest, that I have ever seen. They were most perfectly symmetrical, and measured 43 inches in length; but being very thin and absolutely straight—gemsbuck horns usually have a slight turn backwards—looked longer than they actually were.

In 1879 I shot another gemsbuck cow near the Botletlie river with horns of exactly the same length; but these latter, being much thicker and having a strong bend backwards, do not look their full length. I think that I am correct in saying that gemsbuck horns measuring over 42 inches in length are quite exceptional. At any rate, I only remember to have seen three pairs exceeding 43 inches. The one measuring 44-1/2 inches was shot by a Boer on the Botletlie river, and I purchased it from him for our Natural History Museum, where it now is; whilst I have seen another pair slightly longer which was shot in the Kalahari many years ago by the late Mr. W. Cotton Oswell. But the longest pair I have ever seen I found in the possession of a trader at Barclay West in December 1880. He told me that he had got them from a native hunter at Moroquain in the Southern Kalahari, and gave them to me, and I gave them to the late Mr. J. S. Jameson. I believe that this is the longest pair of gemsbuck horns known, their length being recorded in Mr. Rowland Ward's last book of horn measurements as 47-1/2 inches. Besides these heads I have mentioned, a few more pairs are known in various collections which measure between 44 and 46 inches, but these are a few exceptionally long pairs that have been picked out in the course of many years from amongst the large number of gemsbuck horns which are annually shot by natives in different parts of the vast Kalahari desert, and brought either to Kimberley or to Cape Town viâ Walfisch Bay; and these few exceptions to the general rule only serve to show how very rarely gemsbuck horns attain to a length of 44 inches and upwards. The horns of the bulls sometimes attain a length of 42 inches, but are, as a rule, several inches shorter and a good deal stouter than those of the cows.