THE GUN AT HOME AND ABROAD 
they cannot be run down on horseback. No doubt, before the advent of 
Europeans in South Africa, bonteboks once congregated in large droves, 
but to-day they can only be seen in small herds of from half-a-dozen to 
twenty or thirty individuals. They are not very wild, and will allow a cart 
and horses to be driven within a couple of hundred yards of them before 
taking alarm; but they will not allow a man on foot to approach within 
three hundred yards of them on open ground. They gallop at great speed, 
lying flat to the ground with head and neck outstretched, and are possessed 
of great endurance. In these qualities they exactly resemble their near 
relation, the blesbok. This latter animal, once undoubtedly the most 
numerous of all African antelopes, has been long exterminated over the 
greater portion of its original range, and some twenty years ago had come 
very near to complete extinction. At that time, the only blesboks in 
existence were a few herds preserved by Dutch farmers in the Orange Free 
State and the Transvaal, and of these a large proportion were destroyed 
during the continuance of the Boer War. Since that time, however, the 
surviving blesboks have been carefully preserved and have multiplied 
exceedingly, and as they have lately been introduced into many enclosed 
areas in the Orange Free State and Transvaal they are likely to increase 
in numbers rather than to decrease, and, at any rate, the survival of the 
species seems assured. But how different is the status of this fine antelope 
in South Africa to-day — the carefully -protected existence of a few herds 
on enclosed land — to what it once was, let the following extract from the 
diary of the great hunter and traveller, Gordon -Cumming, bear witness: 
“ When we came to the Vet River, I beheld with astonishment and delight 
decidedly one of the most wonderful displays which I had witnessed during 
my varied sporting career in Southern Africa. On my right and left the 
plain exhibited one purple mass of graceful blesboks which extended 
without a break as far as my eyes could strain: the depth of their vast 
legions covered a breadth of about six hundred yards.” Elsewhere this 
observant naturalist-hunter, in referring to blesboks, observes: “Through- 
out the greater portion of the year they are very wary and difficult of 
approach, but more especially when the does have young ones; at that 
season, when a herd is disturbed, and takes away up the wind, every 
other herd in view follows it, and, the alarm extending for miles and miles 
down the wind to endless herds beyond the vision of the hunter, a con- 
tinuous stream of blesboks may often be seen scouring up -wind for 
upwards of an hour and covering the landscape as far as the eye can see.” 
86 
