The Young Yagers: A Narrative of Hunting Adventures in Southern Africa

by Mayne Reid

Had the rock-rabbits ventured forth again? No. It could not be they; for the eagle was hovering over a different quarter—quite the opposite side of the mountain. If rock-rabbits were in sight, they must be a different party. That was not improbable. There might be others upon the mountain. And yet the eagle would not hover above them in that way. The habit of this species is not to “swoop” from on high, but to watch from a perch upon some neighbouring rock, and dash upon the hyrax, when it comes out to feed or bask—precisely as the boys had seen it do.

So quick is the rock-rabbit in escaping to its retreat, that even an eagle, darting from a high elevation, would fail to clutch it. Had there been rock-rabbits below, they would have perceived the great black bird above, and would have secured themselves at once. It could not be they that were now occupying the attention of the vulture-eagle.

It was not they. Hans, who with his double-barrel had hoped to obtain a shot at the eagle, and had crept ahead of his companions to the other side of the tower-rock, saw that it was not rock-rabbits that had caused the eagle to pause in its flight, but some creatures of a very different character.

About half-way down the slope grew a sandal-wood tree, one of the largest upon the mountain, with a full bushy top. Directly, under this tree was a mass of tabular rock, with a smooth top, quite horizontal, and several yards in length and breadth. Over this, and nearly covering its whole extent, the sandal-wood threw its protecting shadow; so that while the hot sun baked down upon the surrounding slope, the surface of the rock was kept shaded and cool. It was just such a spot as one would have chosen to have rested upon, commanding a far view of plains and picturesque mountains, and sweetly shaded from the burning noonday beams—just such a spot as the contemplative mind would have desired, and in which, freed from care, it could have delivered itself up to pleasant meditations.

One cannot help fancying that many of God’s wild creatures, in selecting their haunts and homes, have an eye to the picturesque. I can tell at a glance the cliff in which an eagle will make its eyrie, the glade that will be haunted by the stag or the fallow-deer, the tree under which he will repose, and oft times it has appeared to me that these favourite haunts are chosen by animals less for the security they afford, than for the picturesque beauty that surrounds them.

One could hardly have fancied that lone wild mountain—that smooth table-rock—that fragrant sandal-wood tree—without some living thing placed there by Nature to enjoy the scene, and give life to the picture—which would otherwise have been incomplete.

It was not incomplete. It was crowned and perfect. The shade of the sandal-wood fell not in vain. Upon the surface of the table-rock was a group of living creatures born to enjoy that wild and lovely scene—created, as it were, to give a finish to the picture.

There were three individuals in this group—three quadrupeds of a kind that had not been seen by the young yägers since the setting out of their expedition. Though these animals wore a similar coat of hair, and were of the same yellowish olive colour, all three were of different sizes. The largest was scarce so tall as a pointer-dog, while the smallest was still less than a tiny young kid. The second was not half-way between the two, but nearly equal in size to the largest. The principal difference between the latter two lay in the fact that the large one had a pair of horns upon its head, which the other wanted. There were no horns neither upon their tiny little companion. For all this difference, the three were evidently of the same genus and species, nay, nearer relations still—of the same family. They were a family of klipspringers.

Hans knew at once it was the klipspringer, (Oreotragus saltatrix), and so did all the others—for this interesting antelope is still found within the settled districts of the Cape Colony—wherever high inaccessible cliffs and rock-covered mountains afford it a secure retreat from dog, hunter, and hyena.

Among the many interesting forms of the antelope tribe, that present themselves in South Africa, the klipspringer is not the least interesting. Though a very small creature, and of no great value to the hunter, it differs so much in its haunts and habits from others of the antelope race, as to make it an object of curiosity, even where it is common and often seen. Unlike the oryx, the gnoo, the hartebeest, the blesbok, the eland, and a host of others, the klipspringer never appears upon the plain. It is purely a mountain-dwelling animal, and the crag and cliff are its favourite haunts. There it is safe from the carnivorous beasts—the lion, the hyena, the wild-hounds, and the jackal—none of which can reach its secure retreat upon the ledges of the beetling precipice. Even the leopard cannot follow it there—notwithstanding his recurved claws that enable him to climb like a cat. On the steep cliffs, and along the dizzy heights, the klipspringer has no equal in South Africa; he can scale them as no other quadruped; he fears no four-footed beast of prey. Three birds alone are his dangerous enemies—and these are the eagle of Verreaux, the Kaffir eagle, and the lammergeyer.