The Cape Hartebeest 153 



of the Mababi River. Eastward, in Matabeleland and Mashunaland, it 

 seems always to have been unknown. Mr. Selous has placed its easterly 

 limit at the Senile River, no great way from Khama's present town of 

 Palachwe. But even at the present time this antelope is to be found not 

 very far west of the Serule. Here and there upon the eastern borders of 

 Namaqualand and Damaraland, towards the Kalahari, and in many parts of 

 that desert this animal is to be met with. In the more western portions of 

 Great Namaqualand it seems to have been shot out by the well-armed 

 Hottentots of that region. North of Lake Ngami, as of the Mababi River, 

 the Cape hartebeest seems to have been always unknown. 



The hartebeest is seldom found in thickly bushed country. It prefers 

 what may be termed typical Bechuanaland country— wide, spreading, grassy 

 plains, alternating with pleasant open forests, where small patches of bush 

 and the forest trees offer shelter from the keen winds and frosts of winter 

 and the unceasing blaze of the summer sun. I have observed that in 

 British Bechuanaland these antelopes seem to prefer the more park-like, 

 semi-afforested country to the open plains, probably for the reason that 

 they now more easily find shelter there from their natural enemy, mankind. 

 In Khama's country, farther north, one saw them more frequently upon 

 open grassy flats ; whence, however, they could at no great distance find 

 harbourage among forest and thin bush. The thickest forest country in 

 which I have found them was in the well-wooded region of the North 

 Kalahari, twenty or thirty miles south of the Botletli River, where large 

 troops of these antelopes occasionally wandered. These giraffe-acacia 

 forests are, however, not to be compared in density with the close wood- 

 lands of Northern Europe. 



The hartebeest may be classed as among those South African beasts of 

 chase which are capable of existing for very long periods of time — weeks, 

 and perhaps even months on end — without drinking. It is quite certain 

 that some of the troops encountered by myself and my hunting companion 



