206 THE WILDERNESS AND JUNGLE 



of Africa's antelopes have already been referred 

 to. Asia has half a dozen of no great size, 

 and the two which occur in America are 

 eccentric rather than attractive ; but Africa 

 has close on a hundred different kinds, ranging 

 in size from the great eland, which may weigh 

 two thousand pounds, down to the tiny blue- 

 buck and dik-dik, which may be weighed in 

 ounces. In the great hunting days of such 

 pioneers as Roualeyn Gordon Gumming and 

 Cornwallis Harris, vast herds of antelopes 

 blackened the veldt, troops of them wheel- 

 ing and galloping over the emerald-green of 

 the plains with an effect that those who know 

 the lifelessness of those scenes nowadays find 

 it hard to believe. They are gone now, and 

 their haunts have passed to the Afrikander. 

 Yet the commoner kinds are still abundant in 

 tracts like the Kalahari, where they can always 

 enjoy comparative immunity from man. The 

 horns of these beautiful animals furnish most 

 of the attractive trophies of shikar, and the 

 corridors and staircases of more than one 

 London club, and notably of one in St. James's 

 Square, absolutely bristle with horns of every 

 type, including the straight, spiral horns of 

 the eland, the sweeping weapons of the beisa 

 and gemsbok, the magnificent curves of the 

 roan and sable, the V-shaped crown of the 

 hartebeest, and many others. There is also 



