Antelopes[53]—The Oryx (Oryx beisa)
Native name, Beit
The oryx is a very stoutly-built, bovine antelope, standing as high as a donkey, and inhabits open, stony ground, or barren hills, or open grass plains. It is fairly common and very widely distributed over the Somáli country, and it may be found in all kinds of country except the thick jungle with aloe undergrowth which is so much liked by the lesser koodoo, and the cedar forests on the higher ranges. The best oryx ground is in the Haud and in Ogádén.
The Oryx (Oryx beisa).
Length of horns, 34½ inches.
The oryx feeds chiefly on grass, and is often found very far from water. It has keen sight, and probably protects itself more by this than by its sense of hearing or scent. Oryx are found in herds of from half a dozen to thirty or forty, chiefly composed of cows. The only antelopes which go in very large herds in Northern Somáliland are the hartebeest and Sœmmering’s gazelle. Bull oryx are found wandering singly all over the country, and possibly these make up in number for the preponderance of cows in the herds.
Sometimes two or three cows with growing calves will be found together, making up a small herd of half a dozen. It is nearly impossible to distinguish which are the bulls in a herd, and they are so few in proportion to the cows that it is best, if shooting for sport alone, not to fire at herd animals at all. The bull is slightly thicker in the neck and higher in the withers than the cow; and the horns, though an inch or two shorter in the bull, are more massive, especially about the base, and more symmetrical, whilst the cow’s horns are frequently bent and of unequal length. The oryx is often revengeful when wounded and brought to bay; twice I have seen a wounded one make a determined charge into a mob of Somális armed with spears.
The Midgáns, who are armed with bows and poisoned arrows, hunt the oryx with packs of savage yellow pariah dogs; the thick skin round the withers of a bull is made by them into a white gáshan or fighting shield. The method of hunting, as carried out by the Midgáns in the Bulhár Plain, is as follows: Three or four of them, with about fifteen dogs, go out just before dawn, and walk along silently through the scattered thorn-trees till fresh tracks are found, and these are followed till the game is sighted. By throwing stones, whistling, and other signs which the dogs understand, they are shown the herd, and settle down to their work. The dogs run mute, the men following at a crouching trot, which in a Somáli is untiring; and this lasts until the dogs open in chorus, having brought the game to bay. The oryx make repeated charges at the dogs, which they often wound or kill. If the latter can avoid the sharp horns of the mother, they fasten on to a calf, and sometimes the whole herd will charge to the rescue. The Midgáns run up silently under cover of the bushes and let off a flight of poisoned arrows into the herd, which, seeing the human enemy, takes to flight. Frequently an animal wounded by a poisoned arrow takes a line of its own, and is in due time carefully followed up and found dead, or it may be pulled down in its weak state by the dogs.
It was many years ago, while wandering with my hunter, Ali Hirsi, in the Bulhár Plain, that I first saw the trophies of a bull oryx, and at once resolved that I would hunt nothing else till I had brought down a specimen of this beautiful antelope. As we were walking through a thick part of the bush we suddenly came upon a group of four Midgáns engaged in lighting a fire under a large gudá thorn-tree. Resting against the trunk was the head of a freshly-killed oryx bull, with a grand pair of horns, starting in continuation with the forehead and sweeping back in a slight curve to a length of thirty-four inches. On the branches strips of oryx meat were hanging, and on the ground lay the rest of the carcase and the skin, which a man was cleaning with a knife, where it lay in a pool of frothy blood. Round the tree nine pariah dogs lay about; they were gnawing offal, and got up lazily, as I approached, to show their teeth and growl at me, till kicked into silence by one of the Midgáns. The group was a very striking one, and although I have since, while feeding my followers in the interior, shot large numbers of oryx, none have appeared to me so fine as this first one which I had not the good fortune to shoot. I haggled with the Midgáns for the head and got it for two dollars, and also engaged them with their dogs to come hunting with me on the first day on which I should be able to get away from Bulhár.