The Lant or Bant. 
137 
“ The spotted panther, and the tusked bore, 
The pardale swift, and the tigre cruell, 
The antelope and wolfe, both fiers and fell.” 
(Faerie Queene , i. 6, 26.) 
Topsell (p. 1) accounts for the supposed scarcity of ante¬ 
lopes in his day by the fact that Alexander and his 
soldiers, on their journey towards India, slew 8550. He 
does not inform us who kept the register of this battue. 
He describes the antelope as having the body of a roe, 
with long sharp horns made like a saw, with which it cuts 
asunder the branches of osiers or small trees. 
Several varieties of antelopes are described by the 
early explorers in Africa, but generally under the 
native names. The accounts are not sufficiently full to 
make identification possible. An animal called a lant or 
dant is frequently mentioned, whose hide appears to have 
been valued in commerce. One writer tells us that the 
skin is red, another that it is white; according to one 
traveller it has long goat-like horns, another declares 
that it is entirely without these appendages. John Leo 
pays a visit to Cairo, where he finds— 
“ a beast called lant or dant, in shape resembling an oxe, saving that 
he hath smaller legs, and comlier homes. His haire is white, and his 
hoofs are as blacke as jet, and he is so exceeding swift that no beast 
can overtake him, but onely the Barberie horse. He is easier caught 
in summer then in winter, because that in regard of the extreme 
fretting heat of the sand his hoofs are then strained and set awry, by 
which meanes his swiftnesse is abated, like as the swiftnesse of stagges 
and roe-deere. Of the hide of this beast are made shields and targets 
of great defence, which will not be pierced, but onely with the forcible 
shot of a bullet, but they are sold at an extreme price.” ( Purchas , 
vol. ii. p. 846.) 
Pigafetta, in bis account of Congo and the surrounding 
country, writes:— 
“ There are also to be found in this countrie certaine other foure- 
footed beasts, somewhat lesse then oxen, of colour red, with homes 
