Page:The Zoologist, 4th series, vol 3 (1899).djvu/242

216 fact, at Karree Kloof, which the Bucks had not actually encroached upon, a Kudu and three Haartebeeste had been found in the camps, the Kudu (a bull) having broken off a horn in jumping over the wire fence.

Taking an early breakfast next morning, we inspanned, and, after several hours' drive, passing a pair of wild Ostriches with chicks on the way, saw the first of the Bucks, some ten or fifteen thousand, in several lots. One lot began to run, to cross the road in front of us. Whipping the horses up until we were close enough, we alighted with our rifles, and as the Bucks came bounding past shot several, and then, cutting off the hind legs of such as were fat at the small of the back, we slung them on the axle of the cart and drove on. After proceeding for a couple of hours, and shooting another Buck or two from the road, we outspanned at a farm called Weel Pan, and had an early lunch. The "pan" was dry and the house forsaken, except for a Hottentot servant. The farm was 12,000 morgen (about 25,000 acres) in extent, but had been so eaten off and tramped out by the Bucks that the owner had had to remove all his stock. This was the case with many farms in the path of the Bucks; the veld had been destroyed, cultivated lands eaten bare, and camp fences broken down by the resistless mass of Antelopes. Mr. Wright mentioned that he had 40,000 morgen of land on the Kaaien Bult, which the Bucks had so destroyed that he was removing all his stock from it. Before I left Karree Kloof, on my way home, the cattle from the Kaaien Bult arrived there, having been driven twenty-six hours (156 miles) to be pastured where the devastating Bucks had not been.

After lunch we changed our direction, and drove on, hoping to see a denser part of the trek, shooting an occasional Buck from the road. The Dutch farmers were out by the hundred; all day shots could be heard, and occasionally a horseman could be seen scurrying along the road to head a lot of Bucks, and we witnessed an exciting chase after a wounded ram, which, when the horseman dismounted, charged him—a very rare thing for a Springbuck to do. The whole veld was damaged; it was hardly possible to put one's foot down in that vast extent of country without treading on spoor of the Springbuck; and the Karoo bushes were torn and broken by their sharp feet. We passed several "outspans" where the hunters had encamped for days, with their waggons, and carts and horses—deserted camps which were marked by ash-heaps and charred bones, and the straw of bundles of forage; while offal and heads and the lower portions of the legs of the Bucks lay about to such an extent as to be quite disagreeable. We constantly saw dead Bucks, and there were especially large numbers of kids which had perished from starvation, their mothers having been shot. The Dutch farmers made on an average about 2s. 6d. per Buck—6d. for the skin, 2s. for the biltong. They enjoyed the sport, made a few sovereigns,