xvi WOUNDED ANTELOPE ESCAPES 287 



dragged the dead animal away immediately after I 

 had left it. An examimation of the ground, however, 

 soon showed that no lion had been there, but that 

 the tsessebe, which I could have sworn was at the 

 point of death, had got up and walked off. Well, 

 I thought it couldn't have gone many yards, so we 

 at once set about following it. 



We followed it till dusk, but never set eyes on 

 it again. At first we found blood here and there 

 on the tracks, but after a time this ceased altogether. 

 Then the spoor got mixed up with the tracks of other 

 tsessebe antelopes, and then it got dark ; so we 

 returned to camp, and only cut up one animal after 

 all. I went after the resurrected one the next 

 morning with the Bushmen, but not knowing exactly 

 which spoor to follow, we never got it. I have no 

 theory to account for the escape of this animal. All 

 I know is that the incident happened exactly as I 

 have described it. 



Nearly four years after the date of the incident 

 which I have just related, in March 1888, I was 

 travelling from Secheli's station towards Khama's 

 old town of Bamangwato. Leaving my waggon 

 in the shade of a cluster of tall, feathery foliaged 

 mimosa trees which grew beside a pretty minia- 

 ture lake of fresh, sweet rain-water, I rode out late 

 one afternoon to look for game, and heading to- 

 wards a long low line of ridges which ran parallel 

 with the waggon road a few miles to the east of 

 Selinya vley, rode slowly across an undulating ex- 

 panse of country, everywhere studded, but nowhere 

 thickly covered with thorn bushes of various kinds, 

 sometimes growing singly, at others in clusters. 

 The soil was soft and sanely, and irregularly covered 

 with tufts of thick, tussocky grass ; very heavy 

 ground to gallop over. 



I had ridden less than a couple of miles when I 

 suddenly espied a single gemsbuck feeding amongst 



