136 



A Breath from the Veldt 



hard and the just, especially of the hard. The women have to work like slaves 

 when trekking. They gather wood for the fire, and do everything not 

 absolutely directly connected with agriculture or hunting. Then, the Boer is 

 of all people most vacillating, and a proposition discussed and apparently settled 

 round a camp fire is at once shelved and forgotten when a new one is suggested, 

 however wild and ridiculous. Unless, therefore, you know a Dutchman very 

 well, it is unsafe to place any reliance upon his friendship. 



We Were now within a day of the Limpopo, and some rocky kopjies on 

 our left raised a hope that there might be some klipspringers frequenting their 

 tops. Five years previously Oom Roelef had seen several here, and though 



one of the Dutch hunters said he had visited 

 -'''-'- ^ them in vain on the previous day, we still had 



hopes of finding some, as Dutch information 

 when given to a stranger is generally wrong. 



The klipbuck, or South African chamois, as 

 it is sometimes called, frequents nearly all the 

 rocky hills from Cape Town to the Zambesi, 

 when not persistently shot at and disturbed. It 

 is a particularly smart and spirited little creature, 

 rather smaller than the chamois, and clothed in 

 one of the most lovely coats imaginable, the 

 hair being long, wiry, and porous, and easily 

 broken. It is of much the same texture as 

 the fur of the North American prong-horned 

 antelope, being a wonderful construction of nature to withstand the extremes of 

 ternperature. When the animal is killed in early winter the colour of the hair 

 is particularly beautiful, being black and golden, with little white tips and 

 white under-parts. But the most curious thing about the klipbuck is the shape 

 of its feet and the manner in which it uses them in springing up and down its 

 native rocks ; for it may literally be said to stand on its toes like a ballet dancer. 

 The reader will see from my sketch how the toes are worn square by constant 

 friction on the stones. 



It is a beautiful sight to see these animals ascend an almost perpendicular 

 face of rock with their agile and graceful bounds, their common mode of 

 progression reminding one rather of the cool-headed and calculating progress 

 of the mountain sheep than of the chamois, to which they are generally 

 compared. 



FORE-LEO OF THE KLIPSPRINCER WHEN 

 PLACED ON THE GROUND 



