fRouale^n <Beor0e <Borfcon Gumming 267 



challenged any four Dutchmen to shoot, and how the 

 latter were "jolly well licked." Still less did the Scottish 

 hunter think of the personal attractions of the Boer 

 women. " Their beauty," he says, " like that of Skye 

 terriers, I fear in many cases consists in their ugliness. 

 They, however, sadly lack the dtgagt appearance of the 

 Skye terrier, as their general air and gait mi^ht be more 

 aptly likened to a yard of pump water." But some 

 of the wives and daughters of the Boers he found 

 " rather nice people," and they were always kind and 

 civil, even when their surly, drunken men-folk were 

 insolent and inhospitable. 



When at last he got into the game-country his 

 astonishment was greater even than his delight. " The 

 whole country, as far as my eye could reach, was white 

 with springboks, with here and there a herd of black 

 gnoos or wildebeeste prancing and capering." But the 

 most remarkable sight which Gordon Gumming wit- 

 nessed, a sight the like to which no European sportsman 

 is ever likely to witness again, was that which he thus 

 graphically describes : 



" On the 28th I had the satisfaction of beholding, for 

 the first time, what I had often heard the Boers allude 

 to vis., a ' trek-bokken, 1 or grand migration of spring- 

 boks. This was, I think the most extraordinary and 

 striking scene, as connected with beasts of the chase, 

 that I have ever beheld. For about two hours before 

 the day dawned, I had been lying awake in my waggon, 

 listening to the grunting of the bucks within two 

 hundred yards of me, imagining that some large herd 

 of springbok was feeding beside my camp ; but on my 



