144 
THE NEW AFRICA 
man even at the first shot, and I have known men to hit almost 
without fail such small game as springbok up to three hundred 
yards at the first attempt. The clear atmosphere and the short 
grass on the high veldt of course are most favourable to this class 
of shooting, for the buck has his whole body clearly exposed to 
the sight under these conditions. 
There are facts related of the more famous shots amongst the 
Boers, men accustomed to this kind of shooting from early 
youth, that will find substantiation in the perforated heads of 
the poor soldiers led up to the attack during the Boer War at 
‘Laing’s Nek’ in broad daylight against this class of marksmen, 
who no sooner saw the soldiers coming up the rise than they shot 
them with bullets fired at over two hundred and fifty yards 
range, a fact reflecting everlasting discredit on him who ordered 
the attack, after previous experiences of a similar nature. 
When entering the bush, veldt, or ‘ low country,’ as it is 
called, the hunter from the high flats is for the moment non¬ 
plussed by the altered conditions. He mostly overjudges the 
distance, misguided by a more humid atmosphere and the un¬ 
accustomed objects, such as bushes or trees, intervening between 
himself and the mark he shoots at, and is also puzzled by 
the class of game under his gun, which from its size often 
appears comparatively nearer than the usual smaller class of 
game he is accustomed to on the flats. A koodoo at three 
hundred yards naturally appears much larger than a springbok 
at that distance. Therefore it is not unusual to find that the 
change has for a time made a bad shot out of a good one. 
This deception does not last long, however, and the man from 
the high flats soon accommodates himself to the new sphere and 
then displays the superiority of his training as a shottist over 
that of one who has graduated solely by killing game in the 
bush veldt. 
The man from the high veldt will soon kill game at ranges 
that his unsophisticated companion considers only fit for 
stalking. The Boers, well aware of these differences, during the 
late war put forward the men most accustomed to the dis- 
