VAAL RHEBOK SHOOTING. 135 



here. This dead antelope has a certain charm in my 

 eyes. It is the representative of the matchless fauna 

 that imparted life to these solitudes long ages before 

 Van Riebeek and his sturdy Dutchmen set foot in 

 Table Bay ; long even before the little Bushmen 

 hunters possessed the land, or the Hottentots the 

 Khooi-Khooin (men of men), as they proudly call 

 themselves held sway, or the Kaffirs, pushing their 

 way southward and westward through the dark 

 continent, at length appeared upon the scene. 



My musings were soon over ; we shortly resumed 

 our march, and tramped on for another hour without 

 seeing further traces of game, except a brace of 

 klipspringers, far out of range, and some francolins, 

 which we decided to leave in peace. At length, 

 after laboriously ascending and descending alternate 

 mountains and kloofs, whose crumbling and jagged 

 sides began to make us weary, we suddenly came 

 upon a small troop of four rhebok, which had either 

 got our wind shortly before, or had heard our 

 approach through a kind of nek or dip in the hills ; 

 they were slowly cantering off below, and directly 

 in front of us, their long ears and somewhat stilty 

 legs making them look larger than they really were. 

 The distance was considerable about 400 yards 

 but Igneese and I both let fly at the retreating herd. 

 As I expected, I made a clean miss, but the Kaffir 

 was more fortunate, and wounded a bok on the left 

 hand. It was a difficult shot, and down a steep 

 mountain-side. Reloading as we ran, we followed the 

 now flying antelopes as hard as we could tear ; but, 

 clearing the rough ground as they did, apparently with 

 the ease and smoothness of a racehorse at exercise, 

 we stood no sort of chance with our fleet quarry, 



