AFRICAN SMALL GAME. 609 
But the only South African animal which at all approxi- 
mates in its habits the prodigious migratory movements of 
our bison, is a beautiful antelope of the smaller species, 
alled by the Dutch Boers the Springbok. Cumming thus 
describes his first sight of the migrations of the springbok— 
A person. anxious to kill many springboks might have 
bagged thirty or forty that morning. I never, in all my 
subsequent career, fell in with so dense a herd of antelopes, 
nor found them allow me to ride so near them. Having 
inspanned, we proceeded with the wagons to take up the 
fallen game. Vast and surprising as was the herd of spring- 
boks which I had that morning witnessed, it was infinitely 
supassed by what I beheld on the march from my vley to 
old Sweir’s camp; for, on our clearing the low range of hills 
through which the springboks had been pouring, I beheld 
the boundless plains, and even the hill sides which stretched 
away on every side of me, thickly covered, not with “ herds,” 
but with “one vast herd” of springboks; far as the eye could 
strain the landscape was alive with them, until they softened 
down into a red mass of living creatures. 
To endeavor to form any idea of the amount of antelopes 
which I that day beheld, were vain; but I have, nevertheless, 
no hesitation in stating that some hundreds of thousands of 
springboks were that morning within the compass of my 
vision, Old Sweirs acknowledged that it was a very fair 
“trek-bokken,” but observed that it was not many when 
compared with what he had seen. “You, this morning,” 
he remarked, “behold only one flat covered with spring- 
boks, but I give you my word that I have ridden a long 
day’s journey over a succession of flats covered with them, as 
far as I could see, as thick as sheep standing in a fold.” 
My limits press upon me so, that, with regret, I take 
leave of the antelopes, the most brilliant and interesting of 
the groups of African game, with a parting glimpse of the 
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