°2J5 
esteemed the swiftest species of the deer, and the course generally 
begins at the distance of seventy or eighty yards, yet the game is 
usually caught, or else makes his escape, within the space of three' 
or four hundred yards; the cheeta seldom running a greater dis- 
tance, and in that I have measured repeated strokes of seven paces. 
On coming up with the game, especially if a doe or a fawn, which 
have less strength than the buck, and no horns, it is difficult to 
describe the celerity with which it overthrows its prey. But the 
attack of an old buck is a more arduous task; his great strength 
sometimes enables him to make a hard struggle, though seldom 
with success; for, although I have known a buck to get loose two or 
three times, yet I never saw one escape after having been fairly seized. 
“ The cheeta, on overtaking the deer, by a most powerful and 
dexterous use of its paw, overthrows it, and in the same instant 
seizes it by the throat; when, if it is young, or a doe, as already 
observed, it does not quit its hold until he finds the respiration 
ceased: but if it is a buck, whose neck is very thick and powerful, 
he is obliged to be more cautious, and to avoid in the struggle not 
only a blow from the horns, which from the mere convulsive mo- 
tion of terror and agony, might be very dangerous; but from the 
hoofs, whose sharpness renders them equally so: the artful care 
with which he avoids these weapons is well and truly described in 
the drawing: the deer thus seized by the throat, loses all capacity 
of struggling, and in the interim the cheeta-keeper comes up, and 
instantly cuts the throat of the antelope; as it is an abomination 
among the Mahomedans, as with the Jews, to eat an animal killed in 
any way but with the knife. The cheeta finding the animal dead, 
would commence the work of laceration, which he generally be- 
