64 SPRING-BUCKS OF THE TREK. 



I had that morning witnessed, it was infinitely surpassed by 

 what I beheld on the march for on our clearing the low 

 range of hills through which the springboks had been pouring, 

 I beheld the boundless plains, and even the hill sides, which 

 stretched away on every side of me, thickly covered with 

 one vast herd of springboks ; as far as the eye could strain, 

 the landscape was alive with them, until they softened down 

 into a dim red mass of living creatures. " * 



There were, he considers, some hundreds of thousands 

 within view, yet on reaching an encampment of Boers, 

 and talking to them about it, they said it was as 

 nothing compared with what they had frequently seen. 

 There is no reason to suppose that they stated what 

 they believed was untrue. 



"You this morning," said an old Boer, "beheld only one 

 flat covered with springboks, but I give you my word, 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." f 



Mr. Gordon Gumming is one of those whom stay- 

 at-home theorists have ridiculed as a " master of the 

 long bow," denouncing his book as filled with the 

 most monstrous exaggerations. Personally we feel 

 convinced that his accounts may safely be received as 

 substantially correct. All subsequent information about 

 the South African game merely goes to corroborate 

 what Mr. Gordon Gumming has said. We are there- 

 fore glad to be able to quote the opinion of a master 

 in the sportman's art, who seems to have been entirely 

 of the same opinion: 



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

 Africa (1843 1848), by Roualeyn Gordon Gumming of Altyre, 1850, 

 Vol. i., p. 123. 



t Ibid., Vol. i., p. 124. 



