ii8 A Breath from the Veldt 



may offer ; and much more frequently than is commonly supposed their tactics 

 are successful, for both birds and animals that are frequently persecuted habitu- 

 ally fight shy of spots where natural cover is unattainable. Now it generally 

 happens that after the object of danger has passed both birds and animals 

 quickly get over their sense of fear and raise themselves from the ground to 

 their ordinary attitudes, even though the enemy may have only just sailed past. 

 I have myself seen blue hares, in Scotland, rise and bolt along a hill-side over 

 which a golden eagle had just passed, and on another occasion a covey of 

 ptarmigan fly up and break away close behind an eagle who had failed to 

 notice them. As if aware of this propensity the bateleur, who is a splendid 

 hand at turning quickly, hovers around watching for his prey to betray itself, 

 when he instantly makes his pounce. 



2\th May. — Made big treks last night and this morning, and reached Brack 

 River at twelve to-day. Birds are now really numerous — pileated francolins 

 and brown red-necked francolins — whilst the number of yellow-throated sand 

 grouse that come to drink here is extraordinary. I killed five brace in a very 

 short time, but did not like to use any more of my cartridges on such small 

 fowl. During the day Oom Roelef and I took our rifles and cut across country 

 to this outspan, in the hope of finding koodoo, whose spoor is now frequent. 

 Hert found a troop at the end of the Zoutpansberg foot-hills ; but his horse, 

 a young and only half-broken animal, became excited when he got off to shoot, 

 and he lost his chance. The bush being very thick, there is but a poor chance 

 of riding into these animals here. There are two lions knocking about, and 

 have been well known for the past five years ; no one seems able to kill them, 

 and they subsist mostly on the deserted lung-sick oxen of passing waggoners, 

 and what they can levy from the native goat kraals. To-day we distinctly saw 

 the spoor of one of these beasts ; though not too fresh, there was no doubt 

 about it. It is something to see the spoor of a wild lion for the first time, for 

 it lets you know you are fairly on the way to the happy hunting-grounds, and 

 that is indeed a long and weary journey nowadays. 



There is also a giraffe known to frequent this bush, and as he drinks 

 regularly at the " Blauw Ghat," a pool some fourteen miles north of this, it is 

 marvellous to think how he can have escaped destruction at the hands of passing 

 trekkers. Naughty, sarcastic Englishmen on the road say that it is this one 

 poor relic of a vanished race which caused the Volksraad to pass a law for- 

 bidding the slaughter of these animals in the Transvaal. 



The character of the country alters gradually as the traveller proceeds 



