90 ADVENTURES IN SOUTH AFRICA. 



The next day, after breakfast, I rode up the wild 

 glen above camp, intending to seek for bastard gems- 

 bok on the other side of the mountains. I had ridden 

 half way up the glen, when lo ! the long-wished for 

 lovely sable antelope stood right in my path ; a prince- 

 ly old buck : he stood about two hundred yards ahead, 

 looking at mo. Having heard that dogs can easily 

 catch this antelope, and having all my dogs at my heels, 

 I sent them ahead, and fired a shot to encourage them ; 

 in half a minute they were at the heels of the pota- 

 quaine, and turned him down hill. He crossed the glen 

 before me, and dashed up a very rough and rocky pass 

 in the rocks to my right, the dogs following, but con- 

 siderably thrown out. I listened to hear a bay, but 

 listened in vain ; to follow on horseback was impossi- 

 ble. I therefore galloped round to an opposite point, 

 and listened with breathless anxiety, standing in my 

 stirrups to catch one sharp note from my trusty dogs. 

 Nor did I wait long : in a distant hollow in the rocks I 

 could faintly hear my dogs at bay. 



My heart beat high ; it must be the sable antelope, 

 and the dogs would never leave him. Already I felt 

 that he was mine, and with a joyous heart I urged 

 Mazeppa over the most fearful masses of adamantine 

 rook, and at last came into the hollow, where my dogs 

 were keeping up a furious bay. Some thick bushes 

 concealed the game from my view ; I peeped over these, 

 and, to my intense disappointment, insteaid of the sable 

 antelope, I beheld an old bull koodoo fighting gallantly 

 for his life. I bowled him over with a shot in the heart, 

 and rode to follow two other sabl? antelopes which I 

 had seen on the face of a rooky Kill while galloping 

 round the rocks to seek for my dogs. I had ridden a 

 few hundred yards, when, high above me on the shonl- 



