An oryx fawn, until it has reached the age of from three to four months, is a most extraordinary object. Its neck, chest and flanks are covered with long hair, vivid red in hue. It has a shaggy red mane and a big, black, muzzle; its ears are of enormous size. The first time I saw these creatures I almost mistook them for lions. Three of them stood up suddenly at a distance of about sixty yards and gazed at me. My horse was terrified to such an extent that he became unmanageable. It was only with difficulty that Andries was able to persuade me as to the true nature of the animals.
The male and female oryx are identical in the matter of marking and are of approximately the same height, but the male is the heavier in build. The horns of the female are longer and straighter than those of the male, but are not so thick.
Occasionally, in the cool season of the year, one used dogs in hunting the oryx. But unless a dog had been specially trained to the business, it was speedily killed. Under ordinary circumstances a dog most effectively attacks an animal behind or on the flank, but the oryx, without breaking his stride, can give a lightning-quick sweep with his formidable horns and impale anything within four feet of his heels or on either side. The dog that knows its business runs in front of the oryx, for the latter cannot depress his head sufficiently forward to make the horns effective against anything before it which is low on the ground. A trained dog can thus easily bring an oryx to bay, and hold him engaged until the hunter comes to close quarters.
Here may be noted a contrast between the habits of the larger desert antelopes and of those antelopes which live in the forest. In the desert it is the males which head the flight, leaving the females and the weaklings to fend for themselves. But in the forest the male covers the retreat of his family and is always the last to flee. There is probably some connexion between the foregoing rule and the circumstance that the female of the antelope of the desert,—the oryx, the hartebeest and the blesbuck—is horned more or less as the male is, whereas the females of the forest dwellers,—the bushbuck, the koodoo and the impala—are hornless.
The horses had been watered, fed and picketed; we had eaten our supper and finished our pipes. I took my kaross and wandered away for a few hundred yards so as to be alone and undisturbed by snoring men or snorting horses. The only possible cause of anxiety was in respect of snakes. We killed a large yellow cobra just at dusk. The spoor of the cobra,—the hooded yellow death,—could be seen among the tussocks in every direction. The previous year one of my men had had a horse killed by a snake close to where the wagon then stood; the skeleton of the animal was still in evidence.
In the vicinity of the Brabies vley the sand was rather firmer than in most other parts of the desert; consequently cities of the desert mice abounded. Where mice were plentiful, so were snakes; they seemed to live together underground on the best of terms. In summer it was only at night that the snakes emerged and wandered abroad. However, cobras or no cobras, I intended to camp by myself.
And then—once more the unutterable peace, the sumptuous palace of the night,—the purple curtains of infinity excluding all that made for discord,—the music of the whispering tongues that filled the void. How the limitless, made manifest in the throbbing universe of stars, responds to the infinite which the most insignificant human soul contains. These are the transcendent wonders which the mighty Kant bracketed together.
An utterance of Shakespeare—embodying one of those cosmic imaginings only he or Goethe could have expressed, came to my mind—“the prophetic soul of the wide world dreaming on things to come.” If there be a spirit proper to our globe—a thinking and informing spirit—surely the desert should be its habitation. If such ever dwelt where men congregate, it does so no longer, for men have no longer leisure to think; they spend their strength in continuous futile labour, the fruits of which are ashes and dust. Leisure, opportunity to collate experience and appraise its results,—surely that is necessary to balanced thought,—towards being able to see things in their true proportions. But so-called progress has killed leisure.
Where, to-day, is the voice of Truth to be heard? Not in the frantic and contradictory shoutings of the forum or the market place, nor in the groans of those doomed to unrequited and unleisured toil,—but I think that an attentive ear may sometimes hear her voice whispering in the wilderness. And this I know: that when a spent and wounded soul steals out and sinks humbly at the feet of Solitude, some kind and bountiful hand holds out to it the cup of Peace,—and often the pearl of Wisdom is dissolved in that cup for the spirit’s refreshment.