A Breath from the Veldt 299 



rode one Rousso, a half-bred Dutchman, and an Englishman named Mitchell, 

 whose face I seemed to recognise. He seemed to know me too, and after some 

 talk we discovered that three years previously we had been soldiering together 

 in Dublin. So small is this big world we live in ! He was bound for the 

 mouth of the Bubye, where his hunter said there was no fly but lots of 

 hippopotami, both of which statements were untrue. As Mr. Mitchell with 

 his beautiful oxen had already come down the Nuanetsi through a certain belt 

 of fly, it seemed pretty rough on him, but how he fared afterwards I never 

 heard. 



We then left for a spot we had named Tigrefontein, Oom Roelef and 

 myself going far up the river on the chance of finding fresh buffalo spoor, the 

 only thing we should have allowed to detain us. About an hour after starting 

 we came on a splendid waterbuck, and I at once gave chase, but just as I was 

 about to jump off and take a shot at him he dived into a deep sluit and seemed 

 to disappear by magic, for I never saw him again. Hardly had I left the spot 

 and turned my horse when I met a big herd of pallah filing past ; but as 

 usually happens in herds of twenty to thirty of these antelopes, there was only 

 one good ram, and he so persistently remained under cover of two or three 

 ewes that, though the buck were far from wild, I could not get a shot at him. 

 And now having rejoined my companion, we cut right across country to some 

 low-wooded hills, at the base of which we had previously seen much fresh 

 sign of a troop of Lichtenstein's hartebeest ; in fact I had noticed in the 

 distance an animal moving through the trees, which, from his light and 

 shining appearance and subsequent spoor, I had little doubt was of this species. 

 A good deal of game seemed to have moved into the sweet young grass since 

 the big fires had died away. There was plenty of fresh sign of Burchell's 

 zebra, koodoo, roan antelope, and Lichtenstein's hartebeest, and a little of eland, 

 sassaby, and sable antelope ; but, much to our disappointment, the afternoon 

 was wearing on without any game in view till, when riding some 200 yards to 

 the left of my friend, I saw, cantering along close to me, a troop of seven large 

 antelopes. Though dark in the skin, the light shining on them made me 

 think they were Lichtenstein's hartebeest, but the moment they stopped and 

 the shape of their horns became plainly visible, I saw they were sassaby. One 

 of them stood still for a moment, but I muffed the shot, as well as a more 

 difficult running one, and Oom, who fired just as the animals were moving, 

 said that his bullet struck. We now mounted our horses and followed them 

 for about three miles ; but the farther we rode and the more tired our horses 



