CHAP. VIII. ANECDOTES OF ANTELOPES. 365 



and cracked with the great heat. The thunder was 

 crashing continuously, and with such violence that I 

 staggered under each successive peal, while the lightning 

 either blinded me as it struck within a few yards, or 

 shimmered in broad dazzling sheets of light through the 

 watery air, and one loud, continued roar went up from 

 earth and sky, mingling with the distant rumble of the 

 thunder as it died away. While this was going on, I 

 walked, hardly knowing where I was going, right into a 

 herd of gnu. I did not see them until I was almost 

 among them ; but even had my gun not been hopelessly 

 soaked, the fearful storm made self-preservation and not 

 destruction one's chief thought. They were standing 

 huddled in a mass, their heads together, and their sterns 

 outwards, and they positively only just moved out of my 

 way, much the same as a herd of cattle might have done. 

 I have already spoken of the wonderful tenacity of life 

 displayed by these antelopes, and I think that the most 

 extraordinary case in illustration of it that I ever wit- 

 nessed came under my notice in 1869. While out hunt- 

 ing I saw a gnu running some two hundred yards off, 

 seemingly edging my way, and as it came nearer I could 

 not but observe its pecuhar action. It was inclining over 

 at such an angle that it seemed as if it must momentarily 

 lose its balance, and was running, so to speak, on one side 

 of its body only. It did not seem able to guide itself, 

 and kept coming nearer, until, at about fifty yards distance, 

 I shot it in the shoulder, when, after spinning forward a 

 few yards — I know of no other word that would describe 

 its mode of progression — it fell. On going up to it I found- 

 a bullet-mark in its chest, and that the other shoulder 



