THE WHITE-TAILED GNU 253 



absence. In all Cape Colony, where, until forty 

 years ago, the white-tailed gnu roamed the veldt in 

 innumerable thousands, one small troop of twenty or 

 thirty, preserved by a farmer in the division of 

 Victoria West, remains to tell of the past. I should 

 say "remained," for, although this troop was still 

 existiag not very long since, I heard a not altogether 

 flourishing account of it, and it may by this time have 

 disappeared. In the Orange Free State the same 

 melancholy tale has to be told. Here and there on 

 protected farms a few white-tailed gnus are still to 

 be found. But they are not plentiful, and can only 

 be preserved with the greatest care and diligence. 

 Sad it is to remember that, less than forty years 

 ago, in the Free State this gnu was to be reckoned 

 by many hundreds of thousands ; the great plains 

 were literally black with them. It may with truth 

 be said that now-a-days this gnu, and the bontebok 

 and blesbok, are far less plentiful in South Africa 

 than diamonds. 



The white-tailed gnu, or, as it is more commonly 

 known in South Africa, the black wildebeest (zwart 

 wildebeest — literally ''black wild-ox" — of the Dutch 

 Boers), the gnu or gnoo of the Cape Hottentots, the 

 Connochcetes gmo of scientists, is one of the most 

 fantastic and interesting forms that nature has to 

 show. To look at the head alone — fierce, wild, heavy 

 and menacing — you might well imagine that a 



