THE TIANYANE ANTELOPE. 1 95 



minence about the seventh cervical vertebra, or withers ; 

 the instinct of the young enables it to understand that it 

 is now required to kneel down, and to remain quite still 

 till it hears the bleating of its dam. If you see an other* 

 wise gregarious she-antelope separated from the herd, and 

 going alone anywhere, you may-be sure she has laid her 

 little one to sleep in some cozy spot. The colour of the 

 hair in the young is better adapted for assimilating it with 

 the ground than that of the older animals, which do not 

 need to be screened from the observation of birds of prey. 

 I observed the Arabs at Aden, when making their camels 

 kneel down, press the thumb on the withers in exactly the 

 same way the antelopes do with their young ; probably 

 they have been led to the custom by seeing this plan 

 adopted by the gazelle of the Desert. 



Great numbers of buffaloes, zebras, tsessebes, tahaetsi, and 

 eland, or pohu, grazed undisturbed on these plains, so that 

 very little exertion was required to secure a fair supply of 

 meat for the party during the necessary delay. Hunting 

 on foot, as all those who have engaged in it in this country 

 will at once admit, is very hard work indeed. The heat of 

 the sun by day is so great, even in winter, as it now was, 

 that, had there been any one on whom I could have 

 thrown the task, he would have been most welcome to all 

 the sport the toil is supposed to impart. But the Makololo 

 shot so badly that, in order to save my powder, I was 

 obliged to go myself. 



We shot a beautiful cow-eland, standing in the shade 

 of a fine tree. It was evident that she had lately had 

 her calf killed by a lion, for there were five long deep 

 scratches on both sides of her hind-quarters, as if she had 

 run to the rescue of her calf, and the lion, leaving it, had 

 attacked herself, but was unable to pull her down. When 

 lying on the ground, the milk flowing from the large 

 udder showed that she must have been seeking the shade, 

 from the distress its non-removal in the natural manner 

 caused. She was a beautiful creature, and Lebedle, a 

 Makololo gentleman who accompanied me, speaking in 

 reference to its size and beauty, said, " Jesus ought to 

 have given us these instead of cattle." It was a new 

 undescribed variety of this splendid antelope. It was 

 marked with narrow white bands across the body, exactly 

 like those of the koodoo, and had a black patch of more 

 than a hand-breadth on the outer side of the fore arm. 



