ch. xii] HARTEBEESTS, REEDBUCKS 327 
after their discoverer, Governor Jackson, are totally 
different from the hartebeests of the Athi and the Sotik 
countries, and are larger and finer in every way. One 
bull I shot weighed, in pieces, four hundred and seventy 
pounds. No allowance was made for the spilt blood, 
and, inasmuch as he had been hal-lalled, I think his live 
weight would have been nearly four hundred and ninety 
pounds. He was a big, full-grown bull, but not of 
extraordinary size. Later I killed much bigger ones— 
unusually fine specimens, which must have weighed 
well over five hundred pounds. The horns, which are 
sometimes two feet long, are set on great bony pedicels, 
so that the face seems long and homely even for a 
hartebeest. The first two or three of these hartebeests 
which 1 killed were shot at long range, for, like all 
game, they are sometimes exceedingly wary; but we 
soon found that normally they were as tame as they 
were plentiful. We frequently saw them close by the 
herds of the Boer settlers. They were the common 
game of the plains. At times, of course, they were 
difficult to approach ; but again and again, usually 
when we were riding, we came upon, not only in¬ 
dividuals, but herds down wind and in plain view, 
which permitted us to approach to within a hundred 
yards before they definitely took flight. Their motions 
look ungainly until they get into their full-speed stride. 
They utter no sound save the usual hartebeest sneeze. 
There were bohor reedbuck also—pretty creatures, 
about the size of a whitetail deer, which lay close in 
the reed beds, or in hollows among the tall grass, and 
usually offered rather difficult running shots or very 
long standing shots. Still prettier were the little oribi. 
These are grass antelopes, frequenting much the same 
places as the duiker and steinbuck, and not much 
