138 ADVENTURES IN SOUTH AFRICA. 



that can be imagined. . It consisted of a mass of large, 

 sharp adamantine pieces, of rook ; even the rock-fre- 

 quenting koodoos themselves made bad weather of it. 

 Cobus, on this occasion, rode in a manner which as- 

 tonished me. He was mounted on " The Cow," which 

 V steed, having in its youth led an unrestrained life, as 

 most Cape horses do, in the rugged mountains of the 

 Hantam, bounded along the hill-side in a style worthy 

 of a klipspringer. A flat of considerable extent, cov- 

 ered with tall bushes, intervened between us and a long 

 range of high table Jand to the northward, along the 

 base of which, for an extent of many miles, stretched 

 a dense forest of wait-a-bit thorns and mimosas. TRis 

 forest was the head-quarters of the koodoos, and for it 

 they now held, breaking away across thei above-men- 

 tioned flat. That forest, however, the finest koodoo 

 was destined never to reach. As soon as we got dear 

 of the rooky ground, our horses gained upon them at 

 every stride ; and Cobus, who v^as invariably far be- 

 fore me in every chase, was soon alongside of the finest 

 Here, in the dense bushes, we lost sight of his comrade. 

 Cobus very soon prevailed on the .koodoo to alter his 

 tack, and strike ofi' sA a tangent from his former course, 

 when, by taking a short cut like a greyhound running 

 cunning, I got within range, and with a sii^le ball I 

 rolled him over in the dust. I felt more pleasure in 

 obtaining this fine specimen of a buck koodoo than any 

 thing I had yet shot in Africa. He was a first-rate 

 old buck, and carried a pair of ponderous, long, wide- 

 set spiral horns. 



Owing to the nature of the ground which they fre- 

 quent, it is a very difficult matter to ride them down, 

 and they are more usually obtained by stalking or 

 stealing stealthily upon them. When, however, the 



