468 AFRICAN GAME ANIMALS 



plains— both those that were bare of everything except grass, 

 and those that were covered with a thin growth of scrub 

 and dotted with clumps of thorn-trees. We have seen it in 

 the edges of forest. Its ordinary gaits are a walk and a 

 slashing trot. If not pressed hard this trot does not tire 

 the animal, and it will go for many miles. When closely 

 pressed or much alarmed it breaks into a gallop. A heavy 

 old bull cannot keep up this gallop for a mile without ex- 

 haustion; but the cows, the lighter bulls, and the young 

 animals run hard, although not as fast as the smaller an- 

 telopes. Of all African game eland are the easiest to ride 

 down on horseback. We have rounded up a herd quite 

 as easily as we could round up old-style Texan cattle. 



It has one characteristic seemingly inconsistent with its 

 great size and lack of speed, and that is its extraordinary power 

 of leaping. When startled, and beginning a run, the huge 

 cows, and even the bulls, bound like gazelles, leaping clear 

 over one another's backs. It is extraordinary to see such 

 bulky, heavy-bodied creatures spring with such goat-like 

 agility. It would seem that the mechanical reasons which 

 make the trot their natural gait, and make their gallop 

 slower and more tiring than the gallop of the oryx or harte- 

 beest, would also limit their jumping powers; but such is 

 not the case. They are heavier-bodied than the moose or 

 wapiti, with huge necks and barrels, and pendent dewlaps 

 and wrinkled neck skin; yet, for a few seconds after starting, 

 they make high jumps of a type which wapiti rarely, and 

 moose never, attempt. The wapiti, however, although their 

 normal gait is also the trot, and although heavy wapiti bulls 

 are speedily exhausted by a hard gallop, at least sometimes 

 run faster than running blacktail deer — we have seen this 



