THE BONTEBOK AND BLESBOK 
These most interesting descriptions of wild life in South Africa were 
written in 1848, and from all I have heard, despite the great numbers of 
blesboks which were annually killed, but little diminution was apparent 
in their legions until after 1865. Subsequently to that date, however, the 
value of their skins for export to England, coupled with the fact that the 
Boer colonists were by that time very generally armed with long-range 
breech -loading rifles, brought about the extermination of the blesboks 
throughout the greater part of their range in a surprisingly short space 
of time. When I first visited South Africa in 1871 , vast numbers of blesboks 
certainly still existed on both sides of the Vaal River, but some fifteen 
years later practically none were left anywhere, except on a few farms 
in the Orange Free State and the Southern Transvaal, where they were 
accorded a measure of protection. Whilst travelling from Potchefstroom 
in the Transvaal to Kronstad in the Orange Free State early in 1875, 1 met 
with very large numbers of blesboks. No doubt the herds I saw were 
small compared with those which have been described by Gordon - 
Cumming and other pioneer hunters and travellers in South Africa, yet 
there must often have been a thousand — possibly several thousands — of 
them in sight at one time. 
Two years later, in the neighbourhood of the Hartz River, in the South- 
Western Transvaal, I for the last time saw blesboks collected together in 
large numbers. They were then, however, being shot down for the sake 
of their skins with pitiless persistence, and by 1885 but few were left 
anywhere but on a few farms where they were protected. The furthest 
point north where I ever met with blesboks was in the province of Marico, 
in the north-west of the Transvaal, on the plains to the south of the Dwars- 
berg. Like all their congeners of the great family of the bubaline antelopes, 
blesboks are very keen-sighted and wary, and, therefore, difficult to ap- 
proach on the open ground they frequent, whilst if pursued on horseback, 
their speed and endurance will be found to be very great. 
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