62 MR. GORDON CUMMING'S EXPERIENCES. 



Retiring from the Cape Mounted Rifles, he took his 

 departure for the wilderness from Grahamstown (Cape 

 Colony) Oct. 23rd, 1843. There he subsequently spent 5 

 years, wandering in his waggon through the far interior 

 of South Africa, until, his health having been shaken by 

 overwork and exposure, he finally returned to Europe 

 in May 1849. He first entered the great game 

 country a few days' march to the north of the present 

 town of Cradock, where he encountered vast herds of 

 migratory springbuck (Gazella Euchore) whose move- 

 ments and appearance we shall leave him to describe 

 in his own words: 



" Upon our crossing a ridge I beheld the country as far 

 as my eye could reach, actually white with springbucks, with 

 here and there a herd of black gnoos or wildebeests pranc- 

 ing and capering in every direction, and lashing their white 

 tails as they started off in long files at our approach. * I 

 felt at last I had reached the borders of those glorious 

 hunting grounds, the accounts of which had been my chief 

 inducement to visit this remote and desolate corner of the 

 earth." f 



Mr. R. Gordon Gumming (further describing 

 Migrations of Springbucks): 



"The accumulated masses of living creatures which the 

 springbucks exhibit, on the greater migrations, is utterly 

 astounding, and any traveller witnessing it, as I have, and 

 giving a true description of what he has seen, can hardly 

 expect to be believed, so marvellous is the scene. They have 

 been well and truly compared to swarms of locusts, and like 

 them they consume vast districts in a few hours. The course 



* Five Years of a Hunter's Life in the Far Interior of South 

 Africa (1843 1848), by Roualeyn Gordon Gumming, publ. 1850, 

 Vol. i., p. 62. 

 f Ibid., Vol. i., p. 63. 



