294 ANECDOTES OF ANIMALS. 



halt and face their enemy. If they come to a place 

 over which men or lions have walked, they jump across 

 it. They can only be compared to locusts, for they eat 

 up every green thing, and always return to their haunts 

 by a different road to that which they had previously 

 passed. Their herds consist of tens of thousands, and 

 where they have stayed for some time, thousands of 

 skulls strew the plain.' In another part of his book 

 the same author tells us that the ground was literally 

 covered with them, forming a dense living mass, march- 

 ing slowly, and pouring like a great river for hours ; 

 hundreds of thousands scarcely tell their number. ' I 

 give you my word,' said a boer, ' that I have ridden a 

 long day's journey over a succession of flats covered 

 with them as far as I could see, as thick as sheep 

 standing in a fold.' 



Among the antelopes of the same part of the world 

 is the Oryx or Gemsbok, a very beautiful animal, 

 which has been supposed to give rise to the unicorn 

 of the sacred writings, 'for its long straight horns 

 always so exactly cover one another when viewing them 

 from a distance, that they look like one. They have an 

 erect main, a long tail, and are like a horse, with the 

 head and hoof of an antelope. The bearing is most 

 noble; they are the size of an ass; have black bands 

 about the head, looking like a stall collar. They live in 

 almost barren regions, never want water, are very swift, 

 and only to be caught by riding down.' 



The fierce Gnoo, Gnu, or Blue Wilde Beest of the 

 colonists to the Cape of Good Hope, are not as 

 numerous as the springboks, and are easily distin- 

 guished by their large curving horns and the downward 

 carriage of their head, for they can never look up. 



