AND SOME ANTELOPES OF ANGOLA. 329 



which in tiieir Avild clisavray appeal stronglj'^ to the imagination. 

 Here Pelion has been piled upon Ossa, there Ossa has heaved up 

 and overthrown Pelion, so fantastically and in such confused 

 masses do the hills range themselves or fall asunder into island 

 groups and solitary kopjes in sandy wastes. 



Some 50 miles inland from the coast and dominating all this 

 region is a vast mountain rising in two great blocks from a sunken 

 plain to a height of 5000 ft. or more. It is ci'owned with tow^er- 

 ing precipices of bare rock fluted with perpendicular fissures, 

 while its flanks and base are covered with a downward-spreading 

 forest of thick bush. 



Owing to the restraint put upon my mobility by a crew of 

 untrustworthy carriers who terminated their contract by running- 

 away, 1 was unable to reach this mountain, which would well 

 have repaid a visit. It probably stood at the inland limit of the 

 desert region. 



There is no surface water, but by digging in some of the 

 damba,s it is possible to find Avater in certain places. Most of it 

 is brackish and unfit to drink, and in the lower reaches of the 

 dambas a brackish water often oozes out of the sand and trickles 

 for a few hundred yards to be again absorbed. Water was, 

 however, available from used water-holes near the two camps 

 I made in this locality, the farthest one being in rock and con- 

 taminated by the Baquando goats and baboons that frequented it. 



This is a hunter's paradise. To climb in the early morning 

 to the topmost pinnacle of some hill selected for a. wide 

 range of view, to sit in the cool S.W. breeze as it sti^eamed 

 inland from the Atlantic and watch the sun rise over a 

 shoulder of the great mountain, was an unforgettable expe- 

 rience. As the clear white light came slanting across the 

 crests of the hills and began to radiate downwards on to the 

 plains, every detail below, becoming illuminated, sprang clearly 

 into view. At this time the game was all on the move, and 

 could be detected with glasses 3 or 4 miles away. Below, in the 

 foreground, delicate clean-cut Springbuck in open herds moved 

 briskly between the bushes from tuft to tuft of grass, throwing 

 long blue shadows across the cold, pale sand. Beyond, a solitary 

 bull Gemsbuck, standing motionless as if carved out of stone, 

 would suddenly spring into life, and with characteristic pendulum- 

 like nodding of the head and smooth, rapid walk, join a herd of 

 his kind already grazing on the edge of a dry water-coui'se. Or 

 the more bulky and indolent forms of a herd of large Mountain 

 Zebra would be grouped in tones of pale gray and pinkish white 

 among the thicker bushes clustered about some stony ravine. 

 The sun, meanwhile soaring perceptibly higher above the crests of 

 the lovely purple mass of the mountain, swept back the shado\\s 

 into the farthest recesses of the landscape, changing the cold 

 blue light of dawn into the sunny brightness of an African 

 morninsf. 



