HUNTING THE GNOO. 195 



THE HARTEBEEST. 



and taking with him a supply of articles of trade an I a train 

 of Hottentots, Bushmen, and Dutchmen, he set off into the 

 interior on a trading and hunting expedition. This was repeated 

 five times in five successive years, and the result was his obtain- 

 ing about thirty tons of trophies of the chase, which he carried to 

 London, where he exhibited them as proofs of the truth of his 

 story. 



We shall copy freely from his book. The reader will observe 

 that he uses certain peculiar terms, such as trek, to travel with 

 wagons ; inspan, to yoke the oxen and attach them to the wagons ; 

 outspan, to unyoke and loose the oxen ; spoor, the track of a wild 

 animal ; &c. 



The following is his account of hunting the Gnoo and the 

 Hartebeest, and of the peculiar habits of the African Wild Dogs. 



On the morning of the 12th I rode northeast with attendants, 

 and after proceeding several miles through an open country we 

 entered a beautiful forest of cameeldorn trees, and rode along 

 beneath a range of steep rocky hills. The country gave me th 

 idea of extreme antiquity, where the hand of man had wrought 

 no change since the Creation. In a finely wooded broad valley 

 or opening among the hills, we fell in with a magnificent herd of 

 about sixty blue wildebeests. As they cantered across the grassy 

 award tossing their fierce-looking, ponderous he^ds, their shaggy 



