174 ^ Breath from the Veldt 



running down the animal, is advisable only when the country is open, your 

 horse is fresh, and the head of the coveted buck good enough to risk a bad fall, 

 laceration by thorns, and the chance of losing yourself in the veldt. According 

 to my humble experience I should say the roan antelope can be fairly run to a 

 standstill in four miles, an old koodoo bull in two, and a waterbuck in three — 

 I mean by a man on an ordinary mount not specially gifted with speed and 

 endurance — while it would require something quite out of the ordinary in the 

 way of horseflesh to run down a sable bull in fair chase. The latter, like the 

 wildebeests, is not only by far the most tenacious of life of all the antelopes, 

 but has such splendid bottom that I should think it is seldom run down by the 

 hunter. 



Now it often happens that, owing to the denseness of the thorns, even the 

 best hunter can only follow his game in the forest for a very short distance. 

 In such cases it is better to retrace your steps to the spot where your shot has 

 been taken, and examine the ground carefully where the animal has been 

 standing, and the line of his ultimate retreat. And here comes in the noble art 

 of spooring, a science in which the hunter can never hope to obtain any degree 

 of excellence under three or four years. The amateur sportsman will therefore 

 do well to leave that to his white or black companion, whose practical 

 knowledge of the work should be made sure of before you engage him, since 

 that is the principal part he has to play. Fenimore Cooper, in his blood- 

 curdling tales of Indian life in days gone by, would lead us to believe that " the 

 noble red man " could follow the trail of a wounded beast as no white man could 

 ever hope to do ; but from what I heard and saw in the Rockies, I should say 

 this is only one of the many pretty fictions with which novelists are wont to 

 adorn these evil-smelling and treacherous people. To-day the white and half- 

 breed hunters certainly equal and in many cases surpass the Redskins in the 

 knowledge of woodcraft, though the white man cannot, I think, ever equal on 

 his own ground the eyesight and powers of observation of the black. Possibly, 

 in these points, the very best white hunter might fall little short of a native 

 accustomed to hunting ; but for veldt knowledge, seeing the game, creeping 

 up to it for his shot, and spooring after it is wounded, the native as a born 

 child of the wilderness must ever be superior. As an instance of this, take 

 what was told me by an Englishman and a Dutchman with whom I trekked 

 down country, and who lived at N'gogo in Natal. Some years ago they had 

 stood one winter in the thick bush country to the north of Zululand by St. 

 Lucia Bay. One day a Zulu came to them and said that if they would give 



