CHAP. vii. HUNTING WITH DOGS. 339 



bay in a quarter of a mile. He got hold of one that 

 ventured too near and simply tore it to pieces with his 

 great claws, upon which the others formed a circle 

 through which he could not break, but they would not go 

 within his reach after the previous example. I was the 

 first to reach the scene of action, and running in hurled a 

 spear at him ; it missed its mark, but stuck quivering in 

 the tree against which he was, and he instantly drew it 

 out and shied it back at me, though it came crossways, 

 and not point first as a spear ought to. In hurriedly 

 trying to throw a second time I slipped and fell ; but 

 my aim was more true, and it struck him under the fore- 

 arm, and as the natives declared I could not see the 

 brute snatched the weapon from its body and would have 

 stabbed me, had not three or four spears been simultane- 

 ously thrown by the Kaffirs, one of which entering above 

 the eye penetrated to the brain, and killed him on the 

 spot. He turned out to be a regular old patriarch, with 

 only one solitary tooth in its head, and quite grey with 

 age, a great big ugly brute, with a most disagreeable 

 resemblance to human beings. 



I have never had an opportunity of really coursing 

 the larger species of antelopes, though, from being on most 

 occasions accompanied by dogs, I have several times seen 

 them run into. My experience is that very few of them, 

 if any, could escape from a well-bred greyhound, as far as 

 mere speed is. concerned, but that, from their size and 

 strength, it would generally be impossible for it to bring 

 them to bay. 



The blue gnu (Catoblepas taurina), which I had pre- 

 viously always held in contempt as utterly harmless, once 



