2i8 TRAVELS IN 
tribe. Its habit, its gait, its size, and general appearance, 
are those of the ox. Tiie Gnoo when wounded becomes furious 
and turns upon his pursuer ; and he is said to be so impatient 
of pain and danger, that, in order to put a speedy end to 
them, he will frequently fly to a pit of water and drown him- 
self. The Eland is altogether as mild and patient. On ac- 
count of the ease with which this animal is taken, the utility 
of its flesh as food, and of its skin for harness and traces,^ few 
of them now remain within the limits of the colony ; and in a 
few years the Eland will, in all probability, be a rare beast 
in the southern angle of Africa. The rude farmers who, like 
children, grasp only at the gratification of the moment, without 
any regard to futurity, are taking the best means in the world 
to hasten their extirpation. The bull, being much larger, 
fatter, and having a tougher hide, than the female, is always 
selected from the herd and hunted down by dogs, or killed 
with the musket; the consequence of which is, that numbers 
of herds are occasionally met Avith consisting only of females. 
They are subject also to a cutaneous disease that makes great 
havoc among the bovine tribe. It is called by the farmers 
the brandt sicJdS, or burning disease. It generally makes its 
appearance among the cattle towards the end of the rainy sea- 
son. The hair first begins to fall off; the skin is covered with 
scurf and scabs ; the joints become stiff, and the animal lan- 
guishes, consumes, and dies. All the antelopes are more or 
less subject to this disorder, but chiefly so the Gnoo, the 
Hartebeest, and the Eland, these approaching nearest to the 
nature of the ox. Many of the plains were strewed with the 
skeletons of these and other animals that had fallen by the dis- 
ease. The Eland of the Cape is the Oreas of the Systema Na- 
