258 NATURE AND SPORT IN SOUTH AFRICA 



an air of ludicrous yet fierce defiance, stamping with 

 their feet, snorting, and otherwise giving vent to 

 their displeasure. 



Pringle, who lived with the early Scotch settlers 

 in the eastern province of the Cape, from 1821 to 

 1825, mentions (as do others also) that this antelope 

 was strangely affected by the sight of scarlet. When 

 approaching these animals the hunters used to hoist 

 a red cloth on a pole. At this the gnu would " caper 

 about, lashing their flanks with their long tails, and 

 tearing up the ground with their hoofs as if violently 

 excited, and ready to rush, down upon us, and then, 

 all at once, when we were about to fire, they would 

 bound away, and again go prancing round us at a 

 safer distance." 



In the old days the young were often taken and 

 soon tamed. They have been known to go to pasture 

 regularly with cows and oxen, without any apparent 

 inclination to seek again their natural freedom. 

 Looking at the somewhat bovine character of the 

 antelope, this is not a little remarkable. But the 

 white-tailed gnu, in common with many other South 

 African antelopes, was at times subject to a ravaging 

 disease known to the Boers as the " brandt sickte " 

 (burning sickness), from the aspect of the hide of the 

 afflicted animals. In some seasons many thousands 

 of wild animals perished of this disease, and as the 

 Boers found that their own herds were occasionally 



