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CHAPTER ILI. 
THE SPRINGBOK, 
My home is ’mid the mountain rock, 
‘The desert my domain + 
The countless Springboks form my flock, 
Spread o’er the boundless plain, 
Song of the wild Bushman. 
AmonesT the many striking novelties which present themselves to the eye of the traveller in Southern Africa, there are perhaps 
few objects more conspicuons or more beautifil than the dancing herds of graceful Springboks which speckle the broad plains of the 
interior, as well a5 some of the more remote districts of the Cape Colony. It not unfrequently happens indeed, that the wide stretching 
landseape literally offers no other object to rivet the attention—countless myriads of these interesting ornaments of the desert, which 
ure apparently identical with the Tzebi of the Hebrews, being scattered like flocks of sheep over the plains and valleys ;—abounding, at 
times, to such an incredible extent, that the whole face of the country, far as the eye can sweep, is absolutely white with their congre- 
gated multitudes. 
Matchless i the symmetry of its form, the Springbok is measurelessly the most elegant and remarkable species of the compre- 
hensive group to which it pertains. The dazzling contrast betwixt the lively cinnamon of its back, and the snowy whiteness of the 
lower parts, is agreeably heightened by the intensely rich chesnut bands which traverse the flanks—its dark beaming eye, with its 
innocent and lamb-like expression of face, and the showy folds of gossamer on the haunches—displayed or concealed at the animal's 
yolition—combining to render it one of the most beautiful objects in the animal creation. As the traveller advances over the trackless 
expanze, liundreds of this delicately formed antelope bound away on either side of his path with meteor-like and sportive velocity, winging 
their bird-like flight by a quick succession of those singularly elastic leaps, which have given rise to its colonia! appellation, and which 
enable it to surpass as well in swiftness as in grace, almost every other mammiferous quadruped. 
But although frequently found herding by itself, the Springbok is more usually detected in the society of Gnoos, Quaggas, 
Ostriches, or Bleshoks. Fleet as the wind, and thoroughly conscious of its own speed, it mingles with their motley herds, sauntering 
about with an easy eareless gait, occasionally with outstretched neck approaching some coquettish doe, and spreading its own glittering 
white folds so as to effect a sudden and complete metamorphosis of exterior from fawn color to white. Wariest of the wary, however, 
the Springboks are ever the first to take the alarm, and to lead the retreating column. Pricking their taper ears, and elevating their 
graceful little heads upon the first appearance of any strange object, a dozen or more trot nimbly off to a distanee, and having gazed 
impatiently for an instant to satisfy themselves of the actual presence of an enemy,—putting their white noses to the ground, they begin 
in colonial phraseology to prouken, or make “a brave show.” Unfurling the snowy folds ou their haunches so as to display around the 
eleyated seut, a broad white gossamer disk, shaped like the spread tail of a peacock, away they all go with a succession of strange per- 
pendicular bounds, rising with curved loins high into the air, as if they had been struek with battledores,—rebounding to the height of 
ten or twelve feet with the elasticity of corks thrown against a hard floor; vaulting over each other's backs with depressed heads and 
stiffened limbs, as if engaged in a game at leap frog; and after appearing for a second as if suspended in the air,—clearing at a single 
spring from ten to fifteen feet of ground without the smallest perceptible exertion—down come all four feet together with a single 
thump, and nimbly spurning the earth beneath, away they soar again, as if about to take Hight,—invariably clearing a road or beaten 
track by a stil] higher leap than all—as if their natural disposition to reza 
upon which he had trodden, 
rd man as an enemy induced them to mistrust even the ground 
The trek bokken—as the Colonists are wont to term the immense migratory swarms of these beautiful antelopes, which to the des- 
truction of every green herb, occasionally inundate the abodes of civilization—not only form one of the most remarkable features in the 
Zoology of Southern Africa, but may also be reckoned amongst the most extraordinary examples of the fecundity of animal life. To 
form any estimate of their numbers on such oecasions would be perfectly impossible—the havoc committed in their onward progress 
falling nothing short of the ravages of a wasting swarm of locusts. Pouring down, like the devastating curse of Egypt, from their native 
plains in the interior whence they have been driven, after protracted drought, by the failure of the stagnant pools on which they haye 
relied, whole legions of Springboks, abandoning the parched soil, throng with one accord to deluge 
and lay waste the cultivated regions 
around the Cape; and so effectually does the van of the 
vast column destroy every vestige of verdure, that the rear is often reduced to 
The Lion has then been seen stalking in the middle of the compressed phalanx, 
length from his powerless victims ; 
positive starvation, removed little more than a paw’s 
while flocks of sheep have not unfrequently been swept away by the living torrent, and no more seen, 
Ere the morning's dawn, cultivated fields, which the evening before 
appeared proud of their promising verdure, despite of every pre- 
caution that can be 
taken, are reaped level with the ground ; and the grazier, despoiled of his lands, 
is driven to seek pasture for his 
flocks elsewhere, until the bountiful thunder-clouds 
re-alimating nature, restore vegetation to the burnt up country. Then these unwel- 
come visitors, whose ranks, during their short but destructive sojourn, haye been thinned both by man and beast, retire instinetively to 
their secluded abodes, to renew their depredations when necessity shall ag 
ain compel them. 
