THE TRUE UNICORN. 387 



peremptorily bounded by a river, or a belt of sand 

 or jungle. The gemsbok, never profusely scattered, 

 is now only to be found in the Kalahari desert — its 

 chief stronghold — upon the fringes of Great Nama- 

 qualand and Damaraland, in Bechuanaland, where 

 it only occurs on the Kalahari border, except to the 

 northward, where it is occasionally found in the 

 interior, and, very sparsely, in the north-west of 

 Cape Colony. In the more jungly countries of the 

 Eastern province of the Cape, of Kaffraria and 

 South-Eastern Africa, and the Zambesi regions, 

 although vast plains here and there occur, it is 

 utterly unknown. Almost independent of water, it 

 loves the parched and arid regions of South-Western 

 Africa alone, and the dryer and more desolate the 

 terrain the better does this antelope appear to 

 appreciate it. The oryx and the springbok, indeed, 

 seem created by nature to adorn and beautify these 

 wastes. The gemsbok, from the rare singularity of 

 its beauty, its consciously majestic carriage, and the 

 difficulties of procuring it, may fairly be classed 

 among the five noblest antelopes of the world. In 

 that wondrous galaxy of South African antelopes, 

 numbering more than twenty-five species in all, it 

 rightly stands upon the same proud vantage 

 ground as the rare sable antelope, the mighty 

 eland, the stately koodoo, and the now extremely 

 scarce roan antelope — the last-named extinct within 

 the Cape Colony nearly these hundred years. 



The name gemsbok is a good example of the 

 extraordinary infelicity of the early Cape Dutch in 

 naming their beasts of the chase. These old-world 

 Batavians appear to have had about as much 

 knowledge of natural history as of the electric 



