264 THE WILDERNESS AND JUNGLE 



cruel irony of fate that one imbued with such 

 respect for these animals should in the end be 

 killed by one ! According to Selous, the Cape 

 buffalo used, in days before they had been 

 much hunted, to be unsuspicious, peaceful 

 animals, and there were untrodden wilds in 

 which, when the white man first shot game in 

 them, he found it difficult to induce the buffalo 

 to move out of his path, just as, not long 

 ago, I heard of a fox in Devonshire which the 

 huntsman had to flick three times with his 

 whip before it would move. All this friendly 

 feeling is gone in the Africa of to-day. War 

 has been declared these many years. On the 

 whole, it goes against the wild creatures, but 

 now and again the persecuted buffalo gets its 

 own back. 



It is not only the great carnivora or heavy 

 wild oxen that are dangerous. Even wounded 

 antelopes must be approached with caution, if 

 only out of regard for the terrible weapons 

 with which they are equipped. A sable ante- 

 lope has been seen to kill a native, transfixing 

 him with one sweeping blow of its curved 

 horns. A waterbuck once killed a Canadian 

 of immense strength. He had wounded the 

 animal and, as it lay still on the ground, he 

 imprudently stooped to lift it from the ground. 

 With one supreme effort, the dying animal 

 jerked back its head and drove one of its horns 



