432 
THE WONDERFUL. 
5 Nov. 
as have been given of it, and repeated from one book to another : 
it is an antelope, and that is all. * 
In those parts of the plain where the herbage had been burnt, 
the young grass had attracted a great quantity of game. We passed 
a large herd of spring-bucks quietly feeding at a distance ; and after- 
wards saw a Steinbok (Stonebuck) ; and a few miles further, some 
quakkas, Haakdoorns (Hookthorns), abounded in the rocky 
places, and greatly annoyed us, in compelling our ox-leader to 
make many a circuit, in order to save his ragged kaross from being- 
torn olF his back, f 
When we had travelled nearly four hours, we saw before us 
* From the pen of Mr. Barro'w, a writer on the Cape, and who says he saw and 
actually " hemmed in a troop of about fifty" ! the public has been presented with the fol- 
lowing wonderful account of the Gnu. " Nature, though regular and systematic in all 
" her works, often puzzles and perplexes human systems, of which this animal affords 
" an instance. It partakes of the horse, the ox, the stag, and the antelope; the 
" shoulders, body, thighs, and mane, are equine; the head' completely bovine; the 
tail partly one and partly the other, exactly like that of the quacha ; the legs, from 
" the knee-joints downwards, and the feet, are slender and elegant like those of the 
" stag, and it has the subacular sinus that is common to most, though not all of the an- 
" telope tribe. Yet from this imperfect character, it has been arranged, on the authority 
" of Sparrman, in the Systema 'Natiirce, among the antelopes, to which of the four it 
" has certainly the least affinity." — Travels in Southern Africa, page 260. 
Sparrman, however, was an anatomist and zoologist, and a man of real knowledge, 
and consequently of some modesty. The preceding description is, as the writer very 
sensibly remarks, quite sufficient to " puzzle and perplex" any human system ; although 
I suspect that his Gnoo, which must be a different animal from that which I have seen, 
would be conveniently arranged in the same class with the Sphinx, the Gri^n, the 
Chimera, and the Unicorn, the last so carefully described by the same author, 
f In this day's journey were found — Capparis alhitrunca. B. 
Boerhaavia pentandra. C. G. 1765. Cassia arachoides. B. 
Caules herbacei teretes procumbentes. Celosia odorata. B. 
Folia subcordata. Spicae solitares Mcsserschmidia. 
elongatae axillares. Flores maximi Senecio. 
rosei pentandri, verticillati. Verticilli Campanula. 
sub-sexflori. Cheiranthus. 
Asparagus exuvialis. C. G. 1768. Caules Indigofera. 
aliquando volubiles. Rami ramulique 
inermes, alternatim divaricatissimi, 
tecti epidermide tenui albida, cito 
exuta. Folia setacea. Flores axil- 
lares bini. 
