26 THE PLEISTOCENE AGE ch. i] 



the ground began to rise here and there into low hills, 

 or kopjes, with rock-strewn tops. It should have been 

 the rainy season, the season of " the big rains "; but the 

 rains were late, as the parched desolation of the land- 

 scape bore witness ; nevertheless, there were two or 

 three showers that afternoon. We soon began to see 

 game, but the flatness of the country and the absence of 

 all cover made stalking a matter of difficulty ; the only 

 bushes were a few sparsely-scattered mimosas, stunted 

 things, two or three feet high, scantily leaved, but 

 abounding in bulbous swellings on the twigs, and in 

 long, sharp spikes of thorns. There were herds of harte- 

 beest and wildebeest, and smaller parties of beautiful 

 gazelles. The last were of two kinds, named severally, 

 after their discoverers, the explorers Grant and Thomson ; 

 many of the creatures of this region commemorate the 

 men — Schilling, Jackson, Neumann, Kirke, Chanler, 

 Abbot — who first saw and hunted them and brought 

 them to the notice of the scientific world. The 

 Thomson's gazelles, or tommies, as they are always 

 locally called, are pretty, alert little things, half the size 

 of our prongbuck ; their big brothers, the Grant's, are 

 among the most beautiful of all antelopes, being rather 

 larger than a whitetail deer, with singularly graceful 

 carriage, while the old bucks carry long lyre-shaped 

 horns. 



Distances are deceptive on the bare plains under the 

 African sunlight. I saw a fine Grant, and stalked him 

 in a rain squall, but the bullets from the little Springfield 

 fell short as he raced away to safety ; I had under- 

 estimated the range. Then I shot, for the table, a good 

 buck of the smaller gazelle, at tM^o hundred and twenty- 

 five yards ; the bullet went a little high, breaking his 

 back above the shoulders. 



