214 THE ZOOLOGIST. 



of Springboks ; as far as the eye could strain the landscape was alive with 

 them, until they softened down into a dim mass of living creatures." It 

 would be vain, he says, to attempt to form any idea of the number of 

 Antelopes he saw on that day, but he has no hesitation in saying that 

 " some hundreds of thousands were within the compass of my (his) vision." 

 A Boer with whom he was shooting acknowledged that " it was a very fair 

 Trek-bokken, but observed that it was not many when compared with what 

 he had seen." " This morning," remarked the Boer, " you beheld only 

 one flat covered with Springboks, 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, and as thick as Sheep in a fold." 



A generation back they trekked in such dense masses that they used 

 sometimes to pass right through the streets of the small up-country towns. 

 I have known old people who walked among them, and actually now and 

 then touched them with their hand. Men have gone in armed only with a 

 heavy stick, and killed as many as they wished. Native herdsmen have 

 been trampled to death by the Bucks, and droves of Afrikander Sheep 

 carried away, never to be recovered, in the surging crowd. So dense is the 

 mass at times, and so overpowering the pressure from the millions behind, 

 that if a sluit (gully) is come to, so wide and deep that the Bucks cannot 

 leap over or go through it, the front ranks are forced in until it is levelled 

 up by their bodies, when the mass marches over and continues its irresistible 

 way. Again, when they come to our large rivers, which run almost dry 

 before the summer storms fall, the thirsty creatures stream over the steep 

 banks into the bed of the river, and drink themselves heavy with water. 

 They crowd into the river-bed quicker than they can get out, and the crush 

 is so great at times as they climb the steep banks that men have gone in 

 on foot unarmed, and secured as many as they wished simply by catching 

 them with the naked hand and breaking their hind legs. There was a 

 certain element of danger in doing this, for, if the Bucks turned, the hunters 

 ran the risk of being trampled to death. The density of such masses may 

 be imagined when one remembers how timid and wary of approach these 

 Antelopes are. 



The Cape Colony has from time to time during recent years been visited 

 by the Trek-bokke, though not in such numbers as the old farmers used to 

 describe, and, I have no doubt, truthfully describe. In 1895, however, the 

 up-country was suffering from a long drought, which was particularly 

 severe in Namaqualand ; and the Trek-bokke began to move well into the 

 Colony. There were rumours of their coming, and then it was said that 

 they were unusually numerous — that it was a " big trek." This soon 

 proved to be the case. It was eventually known that they had not appeared 

 in such numbers for thirty or forty years. They kidded on the Kaaien 



