44 2 Great and Small Game of Africa 



of a freshly-killed koodoo at Campbellsdorp, and was assured that these 

 antelopes were still not uncommon in the district, amongst the rocky 

 scrub-covered hills which run parallel with the course of the Vaal River. 

 The koodoos inhabiting the countries in the neighbourhood of the Vaal 

 and Orange Rivers formed an isolated community separated from any others 

 of their kind by vast expanses of country, which at the present day are 

 unsuited to their requirements. How they came there is a matter for 

 conjecture. Possibly their ancestors crossed ages ago during the rainy 

 season from the head-waters of the Notwani River to the thorn thickets on 

 the Upper Molopo (where koodoos were still to be found not many years 

 ago), and worked their way all along that stream till they reached the 

 banks of the Orange River. But the waters of the Molopo have long since 

 ceased to reach the Orange River ; and so, as koodoos cannot cross a water- 

 less tract of country, those of the species whose ancestors had crossed the 

 desert along the banks of the former stream, at a time when Western 

 South Africa was better watered than it is at the present day, became 

 isolated from the rest of their kind, and were gradually driven eastwards 

 by the Hottentot tribes living on the banks of the Orange River into the 

 hilly country along the Vaal. 



I have, however, been informed by my friend Mr. Fred Barber that 

 he has met with koodoos in a part of the Southern Kalahari where there 

 was absolutely no water. And he particularly told me that they were here 

 living on the " Chama," or wild melons, and I imagine that these koodoos, 

 having wandered out into the desert during the rainy season, and finding 

 that, as the pools dried up, the melons supplied them with all the water 

 they required, remained in the district. But since all animals, including 

 domestic cattle, lions, leopards, and human beings, can support life on these 

 wild melons, this is a special case, and does not put koodoos on the same 

 plane with true desert animals, like gemsbucks, elands, and giraffes. It is 

 possible that in certain districts of South Africa, koodoos have become to 



