Page:The Zoologist, 4th series, vol 3 (1899).djvu/243

Rh and did the country a service. Every farmhouse we came to was simply festooned with drying biltong, the ground around being covered with pegged-out skins. Many Bucks were being conveyed by waggon to the railway, and sent to the large centres: Johannesburg, Cape Town, Kimberley, Port Elizabeth, and other towns. On our return journey we passed a waggon laden with two hundred and thirty Bucks going to Kran Kuil Station, and after our arrival at Karree Kloof another passed with eighty more. This was going on over a large extent of country; we but saw the edges of the trek. Venison of the finest quality in the world was plentiful.

In the afternoon we gradually left the noise of the hunters behind, and drove to quieter quarters, until at length our wish to see large numbers of the Bucks was gratified. On driving over a low nek of land a vast, undisturbed, glittering plain lay before us. Our glance at one sweep took in the expanse of brown country, bounded in the distance by low kopjes, bathed in the wonderful glowing tints of the Karoo; and throughout its whole extent the exquisite Antelopes grazed peacefully in the warm afternoon winter sunshine. It was as beautiful as it was wondrous. Undisturbed by the hunters, they were not huddled together in separate lots or running in close array, but were distributed in one unbroken mass over the whole expanse—"not herds," as Gordon Cumming said, "but one unbroken mass of Springbucks"—giving quite a whitish tint to the veld, almost as though there had been a very light fall of snow.

We alighted from the cart, put our rifles aside, and sat down to watch them, and take in a sight we most certainly should never see again. We were three farmers, accustomed to estimate numbers of small stock, and we had an excellent pair of field-glasses. I suggested to my friends that we should endeavour accurately to estimate how many Bucks were before us. With the aid of the field-glasses we deliberately formed a careful estimate, taking them in sections, and checking one another's calculations. We eventually computed the number to be not less than 500,000—half a million Springbucks in sight at one moment. I have no hesitation in saying that that estimate is not excessive. We were thoroughly accustomed to the vast South African veld and the sights it affords, but we sat in silence and feasted our eyes on this wonderful spectacle. Now, to obtain some rough idea of the prodigious number of Bucks in the whole trek, it must be remembered it was computed that they extended twenty-three hours in one direction, and from two to three in the other—that is, the whole trek occupied a space of country 138 by 15 miles! Of course they were not equally dense throughout this area; but when one says they were in millions, it is the literal truth.

Having watched the scene long enough, we started on our homeward journey, leaving the Bucks undisturbed. We slept that night at Schilder