88 TALES OF A NOMAD. 



back and flanks, with a white belly and a white face and 

 muzzle, whence he derives his name. Male and female 

 both carry horns. The weight of a good male blessbuck 

 will be perhaps about 200 pounds. 



They run in immense troops, and in many ways 

 behave much as a flock of sheep do. The usual way 

 of hunting them is as follows : You mount your 

 horse, and taking your rifle ride across the veldt 

 until you see a troop scattered about feeding. On 

 perceiving you they will run together into a mass. You 

 approach them from below the wind and take care not 

 to ride straight up to them, but round them, gradually 

 diminishing the distance as you do so. They generally 

 like to run up wind, and as you come round to windward 

 they begin, to fidget. At last the leader of the herd 

 breaks away and canters up wind. He is followed by 

 others until a long column has evolved itself from the 

 mass, but the main body of the mass has not as yet 

 unwound itself into column. You now set your horse 

 going and gallop in at a tangent towards their course. 

 If you approach too close you will break the column, 

 but if you halt and dismount at about 150 or 200 

 yards distance, the remaining blessbuck will continue 

 to follow the leaders, and thus the whole troop will rush 

 past you. You will probably have time to fire several 

 shots if you are quick about it. 



It is pretty work. Crack goes the rifle, the thud of the 

 ball shows that you have hit one, and he goes head over 

 heels like a rabbit. In goes a second cartridge crack 

 again a miss crack again and a crippled blessbuck 

 flounders about in his ineffectual struggles to rise ; and 

 so on until half a dozen of them are lying kicking on 

 the veldt, and the last of the troop are disappearing in a 



