56 
AFRICAN GAME TRAILS 
by hiding until the last moment; but they were small, and 
when they did go they rushed half hidden through the grass 
and in and out among the bushes at such a speed, and with 
such jumps and twists and turns, that I found it well-nigh 
impossible to hit them with the rifle. The few I got were 
generally shot when they happened to stand still. 
On the steep, rocky, bush-clad hills there were little 
klipspringers and the mountain reedbuck or Chanler’s reed- 
buck, a very pretty little creature. Usually we found the 
reedbuck does and their fawns in small parties, and the 
bucks by themselves; but we saw too few to enable us to 
tell whether this represented their normal habits. They 
fed on the grass, the hill plants, and the tips of certain of 
the shrubs, and were true mountaineers in their love of the 
rocks and rough ground, to which they fled in frantic haste 
when alarmed. They were shy and elusive little things, 
but not wary in the sense that some of the larger antelopes 
are wary. I shot two does with three bullets, all of which 
hit. Then I tried hard for a buck; at last, late one evening, 
I got up to one feeding on a steep hillside, and actually 
took ten shots to kill him, hitting him no less than seven 
times. 
Occasionally we drove a ravine or a range of hills by 
means of beaters. On such occasions all kinds of things 
were put up. Most of the beaters, especially if they were 
wild savages impressed for the purpose from some neigh¬ 
boring tribe, carried throwing-sticks, with which they were 
very expert; as indeed were some of the colonials, like the 
Hills. Hares, looking and behaving much like small jack- 
rabbits, were plentiful both on the plains and in the ra¬ 
vines, and dozens of these were knocked over; while on 
