122 AFRICAN NATURE NOTES chap. 



to a store near the Blue Jacket gold mine at Tati, 

 in Matabeleland. I was there at the time, and on 

 this occasion the wild dogs were driven off by some 

 Kafir boys, who speared the koodoo inside the 

 shed. 



For some time during the year 1888 my waggon 

 was standing at Leshuma, a water-hole which is 

 situated just ten miles from the junction of the 

 Chobi and Zambesi rivers. One morning I walked 

 down to Kazungula, at the junction of the rivers, 

 and on returning to my waggon the same evening, 

 was surprised to see the meat of a freshly killed 

 koodoo hanging up in my camp, as game of all 

 kinds was very scarce in the district. On asking 

 my old Griqua servant where he had shot the 

 koodoo, he replied, " Master, the good Lord gave 

 it us, for the wild dogs brought it right up to the 

 waggon." On further inquiry, I found that soon 

 after midday a pack of those animals had chased 

 the koodoo to within less than a hundred yards of 

 the waggon, and then run it in a circle completely 

 round it. When my waggon-driver ran out with 

 his rifle, both the wild dogs and the koodoo 

 stopped and looked at him, the latter evidently 

 very much distressed. Jantje at once shot the 

 antelope, and its pursuers then ran off 



It has always struck me as somewhat remarkable 

 that animals so confident in their powers of offence 

 that they will sometimes attack a herd of buffaloes, 

 and that a single one of them will occasionally try 

 conclusions with so fierce and powerful an animal 

 as a sable antelope bull, should never have turned 

 their attention seriously to man as an article of 

 diet ; yet in all my experience I have never heard 

 of wild dogs attacking human beings, nor have I 

 ever heard either Kafirs or Bushmen express any 

 fear of them. This is all the more remarkable 

 because when they are met with they do not show 



