The extraordinary form of the Gnu quickly attracted the notice of the early Dutch settlers at the Cape. They called it the “Wilde-Beest” supposing it to be a wild form of the domestic cattle, whilst the native name was stated to be Gnou or Gnu. As early as 1776 a living specimen of the Gnu appears to have reached Amsterdam, and was described by Allamand[8], whose account of it was copied by Buffon in the Supplement to his ‘Histoire Naturelle,’ and by Vosmaer[9]. In 1777 Zimmermann latinized the native name, and used it specifically as gnou. This term was softened by Gmelin into gnu, and thus modified has been generally adopted as the specific name of this Antelope.
The older authors described the Gnu as lively, active, and petulant, trotting, ambling, and galloping with great swiftness; the males bellowing somewhat like a bull, the young ones having a “nasal murmur.” “They are sportive, and when alarmed always commence by playing with each other, striking sideways with their horns; but this lasts only for a moment, and the whole troop soon flies away across the desert with amazing speed.” By the year 1820 the Gnu appears to have been driven far from the neighbourhood of Cape Town, and even at that period not to have been found nearer than the Karroo district.
Sir Andrew Smith, whose expedition into the interior took place in 1834, 1835, and 1836, gives the grassy plains north of the Vaal River as the ordinary habitation of the Gnu at that epoch. After the fall of the summer rains the present species, he tells us, leaving its congener, the Brindled Gnu, behind, passes the Orange River into the Cape Colony. Here it becomes the prey of the hunters of all sorts who at this season turn out every year to track and slaughter the advancing herds.
Cornwallis Harris, who visited the Cape Colony shortly afterwards, tells us nearly the same story. He likewise found the Gnu, to the illustration of which he devotes the first plate of his great artistic work on the ‘Game-Animals of South Africa,’ abundant in the open plains of the Vaal River, and still to be met with even in some parts of the Colony. The hunt of the Wildebeest, Harris tells us, “forms a favourite diversion of the Dutch colonists, and occupies a very large portion of the apparently valueless time of the trek-boors, or nomad farmers, who graze their overgrown flocks and herds on the verdant meadows lying beyond the borders of the sterile colony. The carcase of a full-grown Wildebeest, even when ‘broken,’ forms a fair load for a pack-horse; the flesh, which is very insipid and usually quite destitute of fat, resembling very coarse beef in quality. A joint is therefore never dressed by the good vrow without having first been garnished with huge lumps of sheep’s-tail fat,—a sine quâ non in Dutch cookery,—dexterously thrust with the point of the thumb into perforations carved for their reception. This done, it is placed in the iron oven, with abundance of lard, and literally baked to rags! On account of its leanness, however, it is generally cut into strips, and converted into ‘biltong,’ by being dried in the sun. The silky tail of the Gnoo, which is in great demand for making chowries, forms an article of export; and the hide, when brayed, is employed by the colonists for riems, or thongs, with which to harness oxen in the team, and indeed for every purpose to which hempen rope, twine, and string are usually applied in other countries.”
At the present time, we fear, the White-tailed Gnu affords neither sport nor food to the Boer hunter. Modern authorities assure us that this Antelope, formerly found in such vast numbers on the plains of the interior, now only remains upon one or two farms in the north of the Cape Colony in Victoria West. So late as from 1850 to 1857 it was still fairly abundant between Colesberg and Hanover, but has now perished in this district. Moreover, as this species has never been known to exist beyond the Limpopo, there is not the slightest chance of its being found anywhere further north.
The White-tailed Gnu is an apt subject for domestication. Cornwallis Harris tells us that “when captured young it may easily be reared by hand upon cow’s milk, and may readily be induced to herd with cattle upon the farm, going out to the pasture, and returning with them, and exhibiting little inclination to reclaim its pristine liberty.” It has thus happened that specimens of it have been brought to Europe from an early period. We have already mentioned that one was living at Amsterdam in 1776, and others, no doubt, were introduced subsequently. In the Knowsley Menagerie both the White-tailed and Brindled Gnus found a place, and the young of both the species were figured from life by Waterhouse Hawkins, as we know from the series of magnificent drawings of the animals in the Knowsley Menagerie issued in 1850.
Fig. 15.
Young White-tailed Gnu (five months old).
(Zool. Soc. Gard. 1894.)