HABITS OF ANTEXOPES. 239 



graceful forms and motions of beautiful pokus,* leches, 

 and other antelopes, often till my men, wondering what 

 was the matter, came up to see, and frightened them 

 away. If we had been starving, I could have slaughtered 

 them with as little hesitation as I should cut off a patient's 

 leg ; but I felt a doubt, and the antelopes got the benefit 

 of it. Have they a guardian spirit over them ? I have 

 repeatedly observed, when I approached a herd lying 

 beyond an anthill with a tree on it, and viewed them with 

 the greatest caution, they very soon showed symptoms of 

 uneasiness. They did not snuff danger in the wind, for I 

 was to leeward of them, but the almost invariable appre- 

 hension of danger which arose, while unconscious of the 

 direction in which it lay, made me wonder whether each 

 had what the ancient physicians thought we all possessed, 

 an archon, or presiding spirit. 



If we could ascertain the most fatal spot in an animal, 

 we could despatch it with the least possible amount of 

 suffering ; but as that is probably the part to which the 

 greatest amount of nervous influence is directed at the 

 moment of receiving the shot, if we cannot be sure of the 

 heart or brain, we are never certain of speedy death. 

 Antelopes, formed for a partially amphibious existence, 

 and other ariimals of that class, are much more tenacious 

 of life than those which are purely terrestrial. Most 

 antelopes, when in distress or pursued, make for the 

 water. If hunted, they always do. A leche shot right 

 through the body, and no limb-bone broken, is almost 

 sure to get away, while a zebra, with a wound of no greater 

 severity, will probably drop down dead. I have seen a 

 rhinoceros, while standing apparently chewing the cud, 

 drop down dead from a shot in the stomach, while others 

 shot through one lung and the stomach go off as if little 

 hurt. But if one should crawl up silently to within 

 twenty yards of either the white or black rhinoceros, 

 throwing up a pinch of dust every now and then, to find 

 out that the anxiety to keep the body concealed by the 

 bushes, has not led him to the windward side, then sit 

 down, rest the elbows on the knees, and aim, slanting a 

 little upwards, at a dark spot behind the shoulders ; it falls 

 stone dead. 



* I propose to name this new species Antilope Vardonii, after the 

 African traveller, Major Vardon. 



