The Antelopes of Kast Africa 



disposed to make a rush at me. In a moment I was hurled 

 several ieet into the air. It was only by a miracle that 

 I escaped very serious injury, if not death. It took three 

 or four active men, armed like myself, with whips, to 

 drive the beasts off. In a week, however, the bull began 

 to show its contempt for even the heaviest whips, and 

 at last it had to be enclosed with its companion in a 

 smaller piece of ground, fenced in with strong stakes. Its 

 temper gradually got worse there, and at last it became 

 astonishingly wild. The bull in the Zoological Gardens 

 behaved in a very similar way. A short time afterwards 

 all three animals died of tuberculosis. Hitherto no 

 other white-bearded gnus have, I think, been brought to 

 Europe, but it is to be hoped that this will be achieved 

 later. 



Gnus are fonder than any other antelope of the open 

 velt, upon which they are usually to be found. Before 

 us there spreads, in the burning sunlight, the vast extent 

 of the bright-hued, reddish, glimmering laterite soil ; and 

 hundreds of animals, thronging together, enliven its arid 

 stretches with colours that vary in the varying lights. 

 When the oft-seen mirage rises from the plain in 

 the midday glow giving the illusion of bluish water- 

 surfaces the gnus and zebras look as if they were moving 

 about in water. About midday isolated groups of gnus 

 take their siesta under the scattered, meagre thorn-bushes 

 of Salvadora persica and other trees ; but during the 

 rest of the day the herds are to be seen dispersed over 

 the plain. 



It is very evident that here, as everywhere, life in the 



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