THE GUN AT HOME AND ABROAD 
an antheap, to hit a wildebeest at 400 yards. When chased on horseback, 
blue wildebeests string out in a long line, usually being led by a cow. If 
pressed they can run at surprising speed, and they are also remarkably 
enduring. With their big heavy heads, and great humpy shoulders, a herd 
of blue wildebeests running through grass, three or four feet in length, 
remind one irresistibly of the pictures one remembers to have seen of 
herds of shaggy bisons galloping over the prairies of North America. 
Blue wildebeests are always liable to be savage when wounded, and 
should not, therefore, be incautiously approached. I once saw one jump 
up and charge a native from a distance of quite twenty yards. Its strength, 
however, was only just sufficient to carry it up to him, for, after striking 
at him several times with its horns and hitting him some heavy blows 
on his outstretched arms, it sank to the ground again, and was soon 
dispatched. On another occasion, on the Pungwe River in 1892, a wounded 
blue wildebeest bull charged a friend of mine, and, in spite of the Martini 
bullet it received as it came on, struck his rifle out of his hands and dashed 
him to the ground. It was then, however, too weak to follow up the attack, 
and did not further molest him; but, after standing close to where he lay 
for some time, fell down and died. 
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