A Breath from the Veldt 139 



In a country like South Africa, where the chief delight of all rifle-shooters — 

 a difficult stalk in the mountains after a wary animal which has been previously 

 spied — is generally out of the question, the klipbuck occasionally offers chances 

 to the hunter, and its chase is one of the most interesting and exciting from 

 the sportsman's point of view. Its extraordinary quick vision and powers of 

 scent, added to its watchful habits, during the day renders it an exceedingly 

 difficult little animal to kill in fair stalk ; but, like all the antelope tribe, it has 

 a habit of standing to gaze frequently at anything that alarms it, and so 

 contributes to its own destruction. The favourite home of the klipbucks, who 

 commonly go in little parties of from three to eight, are these isolated kopjies, 

 dotted, as they are, all over the face of Northern Transvaal and Mashonaland. 

 In such spots, if the hunter be fortunate enough to find them, he is sure to get 

 one or two pretty shots, as they stand on points and pinnacles before finally 

 dashing down the rocks and leaving the hill for good. Though in itself a 

 lovely little creature, its horns are insignificant, being short and straight like 

 those of the steinbuck ; they are, however, set farther apart on the skull and 

 seldom exceed four inches in length. 



Van Staden and I rode past the base of one of these kopjies to the foot of 

 the largest, whose summit was covered with trees, where we left our horses to 

 graze while we proceeded to ascend its slopes. We had not gone twenty yards 

 when, on looking upwards, I saw the heads of two small antelopes appearing 

 over the sky-line above us. I quickly lay down, as I knew they must be 

 klipbucks, and Van Staden did the same, though he had not seen the bucks. 

 One of the two — evidently an old ram, as we could just see the horns — now 

 walked right out on to the point of rock immediately above us, and though the 

 shot was a long one the atmosphere was extremely clear, so I shoved up the 

 200 yards sight and resolved to have a try, lest no better chance should oflfer. 

 As I had a nice comfortable position and was quite steady when the rifle went 

 off^, I knew the bullet could not have gone far wrong, though the buck 

 disappeared from view almost immediately. We now made all possible haste to 

 ascend the face of the hill ; and precious hot work it was, for hill-climbing 

 under an African sun is no joke. We arrived hot and breathless at the summit, 

 nearly treading on the klipbuck, that sprang up in front of us before I could get 

 my rifle off. He had been lying down a few yards from the spot where I had 

 fired at him, and as one of his hind-legs was broken high up, we saw at once 

 that he would not give us much trouble. However, he made a marvellous 

 descent down the face of a deep kloof above which we now found ourselves. 



