44 />'/<; C.AME SHOOTINC, 



herds of six and eight, and when in need of a large supply of 

 meat for a tribe, have shot six within a quarter of a mile, with 

 single balls. They had a curious habit which helped the sports- 

 man, and has no doubt led to their too rapid extinction. If 

 you found four or five together, and wounded one mortally, he 

 would run off with the others until he fell, and then the survi- 

 vors would make a circular procession round him until the 

 gun was again fired, and another wounded. Off they would 

 go again, halting and repeating the performance when the 

 second fell, and so on to the end. The female was an affec- 

 tionate mother, never deserting her calf, but making it trot 

 before her, until she was mortally wounded, when she seemed 

 to lose her head and shot on in advance, and we then always 

 knew she would not go fifty yards further. Though they 

 were a very meditative inoffensive lot, there was a point at 

 which they drew the line. I once saw Vardon pull a mahoho's 

 tail ; this, however, was taking too great a liberty, and if I had 

 not been near he might have suffered, but, as the heavy brute 

 swung round to give chase, a ball at very close quarters stopped 

 him. We have often been obliged to drive them from the 

 bush before camping for the night. They apparently mistook 

 the waggons for some huge new beasts, and were very trouble- 

 some ; but this hallucination was not confined to the mahoho. 

 A borili in a great passion away to the east of the Limpopo, 

 charged Livingstone's waggon, smashing his iron baking-pot. 

 The borili is fidgety, apparently always in bad health, and con- 

 stantly on the look out for a tree to scratch his mangy hide 

 against. He has, too, an evil habit of hunting you like a 

 bloodhound. He is the smallest of the three, with a short, 

 snubby head, and a well-defined prehensile lip. 



The keitloa, or more equal horned variety, is a mixture in 

 form and temper between the mahoho and the borili ; much 

 larger than the latter, with differently shaped body, head, and 

 horns, and less development of lip. The mahoho and quebaaba 

 live on grass, the end of the latter's horn from its downward 

 curve being abraded by contact with the ground as he feeds. 



