338 



A Breath from the Veldt 



may be followed and kept at a certain distance pretty nearly all day long — but 

 then they are also such excellent judges of distance that, however you 

 manoeuvre, you can seldom get nearer than 500 yards, and even then they have 

 a most provoking habit of moving off again just as you are about to press the 

 trigger. The more they are harassed the poorer, as a rule, become one's 

 chances ; and though the hunter, bent on matching the speed of his horse 

 against that of the game, may occasionally succeed in obtaining a fairly close 

 running shot, he will soon find himself outmatched, for even the calves at a 

 few days old can run with incredible swiftness. Their call, which may be 

 described as a loud, bellowing snort with a curiously metallic ring in it, is 

 unlike the cry of any other animal, being a sort of mixture between the alarm 

 snort of most of the larger antelopes and the whistling bellow of the Burmese 

 gayal. Both cows and bulls give vent to it, though the latter far the most 

 frequently. In so doing the animal raises its head slightly, and then opening 

 its mouth with a sudden jerk, out comes all it has to say. I have spent weeks 

 in our Zoological Gardens sketching and watching the specimens there, but 

 have never heard them make any other sound ; though African natives say they 

 have another mode of expressing themselves — a long-drawn cry like the 

 Hottentot word " gnoo," from which the animal is said to derive its name. 

 The rutting season takes place in March, and the young are born about June. 



Black wildebeests will sometimes travel immense distances in a single night 

 for the purpose of feeding on a bit of Veldt, where the young grass is better 

 than that near their own lying ground. During my stay rain fell over part 

 of the country some twenty miles from the farm and beyond the lands of 

 Piet Terblans ; and away went the game to feed there. Every evening about 

 sunset I used to see two or three strings of them cantering slowly away to the 

 north ; and one morning, as we drove back to Kronstad, we passed through this 

 tract of country, obtaining as the cart went along a grand view of all the game 

 there was in the place, as they galloped homewards with the first rays of the 

 morning sun playing on them. They knew quite well that they were on land 

 where danger was to be apprehended, and were making off home as fast as their 

 legs could carry them. The various paces of the white-tailed gnu are each and 

 all graceful, free, and unlike the somewhat cramped and stiff action of their 

 congeners. In most of their movements there is generally a free bending of all 

 the limbs, except when trotting very fast, when (considering the size of the 

 animal) the stride is immense, and the pace equal to that of most antelopes 

 when galloping. At this pace the knee-joints are hardly bent at all, and the 



