268 fcfngs ot tbe iRofc, IRifle, anfc (Bun 



rising when it was clear, and looking about me, I beheld 

 the ground to the northward of my camp, actually 

 covered by a dense living mass of springboks, marching 

 slowly and steadily along and extending from an open- 

 ing in a long range of hills on the west, through which 

 they continued pouring like the flood of some great 

 river, to a ridge about a mile to the north-east, over 

 which they disappeared. The breadth of the ground they 

 covered might have been somewhere about half a mile. 

 I stood upon the fore chest of my waggon for about two 

 hours, lost in wonder at the novel and wonderful scene 

 which was passing before me, and had some difficulty 

 in convincing myself that it was reality which I beheld, 

 and not the wild and exaggerated picture of a hunter's 

 dream. During this time their vast legions continued 

 streaming through the neck in the hills in one unbroken 

 compact phalanx. At length I saddled up, and rode 

 into the midst of them, with my rifle, and after-riders, 

 and fired into the ranks until fourteen had fallen, when 

 I cried ' Enough.' We then retraced our steps to secure 

 the venison which lay strewed along my gory track. 

 Having collected the springboks at different bushes, 

 and concealed them with brushwood, we returned to 

 camp, where I partook of coffee while my men were 

 inspanning. 



A person anxious to kill many springboks might 

 have bagged thirty or forty that morning. I never, in 

 all my subsequent career, fell in with so dense a herd of 

 these antelopes, nor found them allow me to ride so 

 near them. Having inspanned, we proceeded with the 

 waggons to take up the fallen game, which being 



