THE SABLE ANTELOPE I 29 



dimly known and litde explored wilderness, the "far 

 interior." On the Great Karroo the plains were 

 black with wildebeest and dun with quagga; beyond 

 the Vaal they bloomed with painted zebra and 

 violet blesbok, with ruddy hartebeest and purple 

 sassaby. The deserts of Namaqualand supported 

 gallant troops of gemsbok, their three-foot horns 

 glancing in the sunlight like the lances of a regiment 

 of dragoons. Graceful pallah bounded through the 

 mimosa brakes, or stood at gaze with ears erected 

 like the wings of sylvan butterflies. The shy kudu 

 sheltered in the wait-a-bit thickets ; the roan antelope, 

 sturdy and self-reliant, pastured in open day amid 

 the rocky plateaux of the hills. Every saltpan 

 had its wildebeest and springbok, every hillside 

 its duiker and klipspringer. The black rhinoceros 

 browsed on the acacias, harvesting the golden shoots 

 with prehensile lip ; its square-mouthed congener 

 cropped the grass of the savannahs, or wallowed like 

 a huge pig in the muddy "fountains." Swaying 

 troops of elephants climbed the passes of the northern 

 mountains, even to the very skyline, their bulky 

 forms looming black against the blue. Buffaloes 

 wallowed in every marsh, or lay up, drowsy and 

 hideous, in the papyrus brakes ; while Hon and leo- 

 pard, cheetah and wild dog took toll of these mighty 

 legions, preying on the feeble and sickly stragglers 

 that fell to their share. Such then was the great 

 natural game park upon which, in the autumn of 



