330 LARGE GAME. chap. vii. 



got accustomed to the gun he showed no anxiety to get 

 away, as he used to before, unless the game was very 

 near, and no persuasion would induce him to follow any 

 antelope that I had fired at and missed for more than two 

 or three hundred yards ; while on the other hand he 

 would follow any that were wounded, however shghtly, 

 until he killed them. 



In the interior there is only one species of small 

 antelope, if we except the sprmgbuck and blesbuck 

 found on the great treeless plains to the north, that does 

 not occur in the colonies — the roibok, or impalla. It is 

 about the size of a small reed-buck doe, though more 

 slenderly made, and the districts uiliabited by it are 

 most fatal to dogs. I shall aftei^wards have occasion to 

 m.ention a scratch pack that I got up for the piu-pose of 

 hunting pig, and on one occasion I had great sport with 

 it and a herd of these impalla, which singly or in the 

 open could easily distance any dog I possessed. The 

 whole pack were following at my heels, and I was on a 

 small promontory, bounded on three sides by the per- 

 pendicular bank of the liver, when a herd of impalla 

 numbering upwards of a hundred, starting from where 

 they had been feeding beyond, attempted to rush past, 

 and on two or three succeeding, the main body, always 

 ready to follow where one has ah-eady gone, came on 

 running in single file. In an instant the dogs were 

 amongst them ; and as, when taken by surprise and miich 

 pressed, they, in common with most antelopes, entirely 

 lose their presence of mind and run in any direction, five 

 were at once caught, three jumping over the bank into 

 the river, and two bemg stabbed by the two boys who 



