1 88 A Breath from the Veldt 



thorn bush and hope to " Goodness gracious " you won't notice him ; but the 

 roan will say " Good-morning " as soon as he sees you. 



Roans seem to keep in much smaller parties than the sables, about a dozen 

 cows being the limit, whilst the old males live much to themselves, and are 

 more difficult to find than they are to bag. When running the roans adopt 

 single file, and each follows closely the steps and movements of the old cow 

 who generally leads. They have a very fair power of endurance, but I think 

 that any decent horse, if properly handled, would run them to a standstill. All 

 hunters, however, are agreed that one should be careful in such experiments, 

 for this antelope is doubtless the most dangerous of all the tribe, there being 

 plenty of authenticated instances of the animals turning and charging furiously 

 when pressed too hard. Mr. Banks, shortly after I met him in Mashonaland, 

 was charged by an old bull he had wounded and followed up too closely in 

 some thick bush. He saw the antelope enter a patch of wait-a-bit before him, 

 and followed as quickly as possible, expecting to see his victim going slowly 

 away before him. Instead of that, however, before he quite knew where he 

 was, the roan turned and charged straight at the hunter, who slipped oif over 

 the flank of his steed just as the infuriated beast stuck his horns into the horse's 

 neck. Mr. Banks managed to regain his feet and to shoot the roan in the 

 head before he could strike him ; and then found his horse was so injured that 

 he was obliged to shoot him also. 



It will be seen, therefore, that none of these larger African antelope, except 

 perhaps the good-natured and inoffensive koodoo,^ are to be trifled with, and 

 least of all the roan. Nearly every hunter of wide experience who has seen 

 much of these animals says the same thing — that he is decidedly dangerous to 

 approach, whether wounded or not — and has some tale to tell about his pluck. 

 The Dutchmen, who are generally pretty much at sea as to the names of the 

 wild game, have never quite made up their minds what to call this animal. 

 They consider that he has absolutely no claims to legitimacy on any score, and 

 half the members of that nation whom you meet will christen it either " bastard 

 eland" or "bastard gemsbok," both of which are equally ridiculous and 

 inappropriate. Though the animal, when viewed critically, is on the whole 

 imposing and even beautiful, when seen running it looks decidedly clumsy, and 

 wanting in both proportion and elegance ; yet the head, when well set up and 

 viewed among other specimens of African fauna, has a striking and pleasing 



1 Captain Swayne, in his admirable work on Somaliland, gives an instance of a koodoo bull charging a 

 native who had attempted to stop his exit from a gully. 



