610 WILD SCENES AND WILD HUNTERS. 



magnificent riches of the great valley of the Limpopo, in 

 strange, grotesque and lovely forms. 



Here may be seen the graceful pallah, shy and capricious, 

 with knotted and excentrically inflected horns of extraordi- 

 nary proportions; the rare and majestic water-buck, which 

 is never found at a distance from rivers, in which he delights 

 to plunge ; the sluggish roan antelope of the elevated downs 

 and ridges, charging viciously, when unable to continue its 

 flight, with its heavy build and size equaling that of a large 

 horse. Here too, is found the majestic koo-doo, with its 

 brilliant colors of lively French gray, approaching to blue ; 

 with transverse white bands over the back and loins ; 



The grotesque and awkward gnoo wheels and prances in 

 every direction, his shaggy and bearded head arched between 

 slender and muscular legs ; his long, white tail streaming to 

 the wind ; his wild, sinister eyes flashing fire, and his frequent 

 snort, like the roar of a lion. The sassayby, with his crescent 

 horns, drooping hind quarters and brilliant colors, purple 

 and violet, and the hartebeest of bright orange, and legs 

 excentrically marked ; the splendid oryx, with its sweeping 

 tail, reversed mane, shaggy breast and straight, slender 

 horns ; the beautiful zebra, with the more faintly banded 

 quagga, and the riet-buck of the sedge-grown rivulets; the 

 prodigious eland, fat always like a prize ox, and nearly as 

 large ; and most glorious of all, the swift and rare sable 

 antelope, with its scimetar-shaped horns and snowy breast, 

 flying along the mountain ridges. 



These are but a few of the twenty different varieties of the 

 antelope, in which this veritable Paradise of the Ferae Naturae 

 abounds, and most of those here enumerated are frequently 

 in view in one landscape, which will yet be diversified by the 

 presence of the larger beasts we have spoken of before. 

 Verily is the life of the Hunter-Naturalist filled with " Wild 

 Scenes !" 



