A JOURNEY UNDER DIFFICULTIES. 
.■579 
dangerous and infectious disease to which the gnu is very liable, 
and which would render it a very undesirable member of the cattle- 
yard. 
The animal is frequently infected with one of the QEstridse, or 
Bot-flies, and suffers from them to such an extent that it ejects 
them from its nose whenever it snorts, an act which it is very fond 
of performing. Ordinary cattle have no love for the gnu, and on 
one occasion, when a young gnu of only four months old was placed 
in the j^ard, the cattle surrounded it and nearly killed it with their 
horns and hoofs. 
The color of the ordinary gnu is brownish-black, sometimes 
with a blue-gray wash. The mane is black, with the exception of 
the lower part, which is often grayish-white, as is the lower part 
of the tail. 
KEEPS WITHIN A CERTAIN BOUNDARY. 
The nose is covered with a tuft of reversed hair, and there is 
a mane upon the chest. The brindled gnu may be distinguished 
from the common gnu, or kokoon, by its convex and smooth face, 
the hair lying towards the nose, instead of being reversed. There 
is no mane upon the chest, and the brown hide is varied and striped 
with gray. It is higher at the withers than the kokoon, and its 
action is rather clumsy. It is very local in its distribution, being- 
found northwards of the Black River, and never being known to 
cross that simple boundary. It lives in large herds, and when 
observed, the whole herd forms in single file, and so flies from the 
object of its terror. 
One of these animals, called in the interior the blue wildebeest, 
was captured by Gumming in a very curious manner. The animal 
had contrived to hitch one of his forelegs over his horns, and being 
thus incapacitated from running, was easily intercepted and killed. 
It had probably got into this unpleasant position while fighting. 
The gnu is about three feet nine inches high at the shoulders, and 
measures about six feet six inches from the nose to the root of 
the tail. 
Sometimes the pursuit of these strange animals leads to ludic- 
