African Nature Notes and Reminiscences

CHAPTER XI

"Ungainly" is an epithet which has often been applied to the giraffe; but "stately," I think, would be a far more truly descriptive word, and there is certainly no animal in Africa which adds so much to the interest of the parched and waterless wastes in which it is usually found as this tallest of mammals. The sight of a herd of giraffes walking leisurely across an open piece of ground, or feeding through a park-like country of scattered trees and bush, is one which, once seen, must ever linger in the memory; for there is a something about the appearance of some few of the largest mammals still extant upon the earth which stirs the imagination as the sight of smaller but more beautiful animals can never do. When watching a moose bull standing knee-deep on the edge of some swampy lake, amidst the silence and the gloom of sub-Arctic pine forests, I always seem to be carried back to some far distant period of the world's history; and I remember that when hunting with Bushmen amidst the dull monotony of the sun-scorched, silent wastes of Western South Africa, the sight of giraffes always stirred the same thought. My rude companions were palæolithic men, and we were hunting strange beasts in the hot dry atmosphere of a long past geological era.

Giraffes are often spoken of as a scarce and fast vanishing species, but this I cannot believe to be really the case. There are vast areas of country, extending right across the whole width of the broadest part of Africa from Senegambia to Somaliland, and from thence southwards to the northern border of British Central Africa, throughout the whole of which one or other of the different races into which giraffes have lately been divided is to be found, often in great abundance. Throughout the greater part of this immense range, these magnificent, strangely beautiful creatures will, in my opinion, continue to live and thrive for centuries yet to come; for the giraffe is, as a rule, an inhabitant only of countries which, owing to the extreme scarcity of water, can never be settled up by Europeans, nor support anything but a sparse and scattered population of native herdsmen. Here they will never be hunted to any great extent by Europeans on horseback, nor shot down in large numbers for the sake of their hides, whilst their keenness of sight and great range of vision will protect them very effectually from all danger of extermination at the hands of native hunters as long as these latter are only armed with primitive weapons.

Even in the countries to the south and west of the Zambesi river, though there the range of the giraffe has been sadly curtailed since the time when the emigrant Boers first crossed the Orange river in 1836, these animals are far from being a vanished species, or one which is on the verge of extermination. True, there are now no giraffes left in large areas of country where thirty years ago they were plentiful, but these animals are still to be found in Western Matabeleland, throughout the greater part of Khama's country, as well as in the Northern Kalahari, and thence northwards to far within the boundaries of the Portuguese province of Angola. The whole of this vast extent of country is, like so much of Northern Africa to the south of the Sahara and Abyssinia, a semidesert, impossible of settlement by Europeans; for although it is covered for the most part with trees of various kinds, or thorn scrub varying in height from two or three to twelve or fifteen feet, the soil is almost everywhere deep soft sand, and for several months in the year there is little or no surface water, except in the large rivers, which are few in number and far apart. Throughout the greater part of these arid, sun-scorched wastes, giraffes are, I think, likely to hold their own for a long time to come, if only some check can be put upon the operations of the native mounted hunters, belonging to the Bakwena, Bamangwato, and Batauwana tribes, who are now practically their only enemies.

For the extermination of the giraffe in the Transvaal, Bechwanaland, and the country immediately to the north of the Limpopo, Europeans are entirely responsible. The Boers killed most of them, of course, because up to 1890 Boer hunters were always in the proportion of at least ten to one to white hunters of any other nationality. But, man for man, English hunters were quite as destructive as Boers. The fact is, the pioneers of all the white races of North-Western Europe in new countries are tarred with the same brush, as far as the extermination of wild animals is concerned. In North America the western frontiers-men, who were largely of British descent, exterminated in a few short years the countless herds of bison; in South Africa the Boers have exterminated or brought to the verge of extinction many species of animals which but a few decades ago were spread over the face of the land in seemingly inexhaustible numbers; and to-day the inhabitants of Newfoundland are hard at work destroying as fast as they can the great herds of seals which annually assemble in the early spring to bring forth their young on the ice floes off the coast of Labrador.

When human greed of gain is added to the old love of hunting, and both are unrestrained by legislation, the speedy extermination of any beast or bird which has any market value must necessarily follow. The errors of the past can never be retrieved, but it is to be hoped that now that every part of the world has been taken under the protection of some civilised state, no species of animal or bird which still survives in any considerable numbers will be allowed to become extinct. The white man, whether Boer or Britain, is now effectually restrained from taking any further part in lessening the numbers of the giraffes in the countries to the west of Southern Rhodesia and to the north of the Limpopo, which are under British protection, and if only the native Bechwana hunters from Molipololi, Palapye, and Denukana—who are well-mounted and armed with breech-loading rifles—were forbidden by their chiefs to kill more than a certain fixed number of giraffes annually, and severely punished for exceeding the limit allowed, I see no reason why these most interesting animals should not survive for all time, throughout all those great areas of South-Western Africa where, owing to the scarcity of water, no human beings other than a few scattered families of wandering Bushmen can ever make their home.

The belief is very general, both amongst white and native hunters in South Africa, that giraffes are capable of going for months at a time without drinking, and the fact that they are to be found during the driest season of the year in the most arid districts, far away from any place where surface water exists, lends colour to this belief. But yet it seems to me impossible that an animal of the size of the giraffe, which during the dry season is exposed day after day to a sun-heat of 165° (Fahrenheit), and which browses on leaves and twigs which at that time of year contain but little moisture, can really live for long periods without drinking. When hunting with Bushmen in the country to the south of the Mababi river, which towards the end of the dry season is quite waterless, my savage companions would often halt suddenly on perceiving a certain thin, grass-like leaf protruding from the ground, and squatting down, commence digging vigorously with their spears in the soft sandy soil. They would presently unearth great white tubers—often as big as a man's head—white in colour and looking something like very large turnips. These tubers contained as much water as a juicy orange, and were, as the Bushmen said, "metsi hela" (that is, "nothing but water"). They told me, and I think with truth, that they were able to live and hunt in the country where these tubers grew without requiring water to drink. They also informed me that elands, gemsbucks, and other antelopes which live in the desert were in the habit of pawing away the sand from and then eating these tubers, which rendered them independent of actual drinking water. There are probably other water-conserving tubers, known to animals which live in the waterless parts of Western South Africa; and at certain times of year a kind of small water-melon grows in the Kalahari in great profusion, which, as long as it lasts, renders all wild animals entirely independent of drinking water. Oxen and horses soon get accustomed to these wild melons and thrive on them, and human beings can make tea or coffee from their juice.

Now, the occurrence of wild melons and tubers which contain a great deal of water, probably explains the otherwise unaccountable fact that large antelopes and other animals are able to exist in the most arid portions of South-West Africa at a time of year when there is absolutely no surface water; but in the country to the south of the Mababi the Bushmen stated emphatically that giraffes never dug up the water-containing tubers of which I have spoken. My own belief is that, although they must be able to go without water for a much longer time than most animals, they must nevertheless drink periodically throughout the year. It is possible that in the recesses of the Kalahari the giraffes may obtain the fluid they require from the wild water-melons like other animals, or in periods of prolonged drought they may migrate to the neighbourhood of the Botletlie and other rivers. To the east and north of the Botletlie, a glance at a good map will show that giraffes could never be more than fifty or sixty miles from permanent water. When I was hunting elephants on the Chobi river, in the 'seventies of last century, elephants were in the habit of drinking early one night in that river, and then travelling straight away into the waterless country to the west, and I am sure they got their next drink, either twenty-four or possibly forty-eight hours later, in the overflow of the Okavango, known by the natives living on the Mababi as the Machabi. These elephants, which had become excessively wary, through much hunting, I believe never quenched their thirst twice running in the same river; and as giraffes would not require to drink nearly as frequently as elephants, they would be able to range over far more extensive areas of country than those animals, drinking at intervals at points far distant one from another, and between which there was absolutely no surface water. I cannot help thinking that the idea that giraffes can go for months together without drinking, in countries where there is but a small percentage of fluid in the food they eat, and in which the heat and dryness of the atmosphere are so intense that one's nails become as brittle as glass and the hairs of one's beard are constantly splitting, must be a mistaken one. It is, however, only right to say that many very experienced African hunters hold the view that giraffes are quite independent of water, and that they can and do exist for months at a time without drinking.

Giraffes certainly show no aversion to water, as I have frequently seen them drinking, and watched them as they gradually straddled their forelegs wide apart, by a series of little jerks, until they at length got their mouths down to the surface of the pool.

Many herbivorous animals are, as a rule, very silent, but all antelopes are capable of making, and do occasionally make, certain vocal sounds. But the giraffe appears to be absolutely voiceless. At any rate, I have never heard one make any kind of noise, and that was the experience of my friend the late Mr. A. H. Neumann; whilst Mr. H. A. Bryden, as well as other men who have hunted these animals, have put the same fact on record.

Although giraffes often feed through dense thickets of wait-a-bit thorns on their way from one part of a country to another, they are more partial, I think, to open park-like surroundings than to thick forest. In portions of Khama's country—both near Lopepe and Metsi-butluku—I have upon more than one occasion seen giraffes and springbucks at the same time. In such districts, before the days of the modern long-range, small-bore rifles, it was very difficult to get within shot of the former animals on foot, as, owing to the great height of their heads above the ground and their quickness of sight, they were always able to see anything approaching them, when still a long way off. Giraffes are also very keen-scented, as any one will agree who has often followed on their spoor with Bushmen trackers. Pointing to the ground, on which they have read as in a book that just here the giraffes have commenced to run, these quick-sighted savages will suddenly dash off along the spoor with right arms extended, crying, "Sabili; ootlili pevu"[16] ("They've run away; they've got our wind"). Running on the tracks of the disturbed animals at a pace which it requires a sharp canter to keep up with, it is seldom that these wiry sons of the desert will not bring the mounted hunter in sight of the giant quarry. "Tutla, tutla ki-o" ("The giraffes; there are the giraffes"), they cry, pointing eagerly forwards with glistening eyes. And then it is for the white man to do his part and secure a plentiful supply of meat for his savage friends.

The chase of the giraffe on horseback lacks, of course, the fierce joy and the soul-stirring excitement which accompanied elephant- and lion-hunting, with the rude muzzle-loading guns used by professional African hunters some forty years ago; for the giraffe is a most harmless and inoffensive animal, in no way dangerous to human life. The same thing may, however, be said of the fox and the wild red deer of Exmoor, the pursuit of which animals, it is generally conceded, affords some of the most exhilarating sport procurable in this country.

Personally, in the old days when giraffes were very plentiful, and when, with the thoughtless optimism of youth, one failed to realise that they would ever become scarce, and when, moreover, a large supply of meat was constantly required to feed one's native followers, I always looked upon a good, reckless, breakneck gallop after a herd of giraffes as a most exhilarating experience. The giant quadrupeds looked so splendid as they dashed along at tremendous speed, with their long black tails screwed up over their backs. Nothing checked their pace, as they tore their way through dense thorn jungles, or crashed through the branches of forest trees, ever and anon dipping their lofty heads with the most unerring judgment so as just to pass beneath some horizontal limb, which almost seemed to graze their shoulders. One took lots of chances in giraffe-hunting, and got many a heavy fall when galloping ventre à terre across open ground full of ant-bear holes, or deep sun-cracks hidden from view by thick tussocky grass, and when one saw the branches of two neighbouring wait-a-bit thorn bushes, each covered with hundreds of little hard black hooks, suddenly close together with a swish behind the disappearing stern of a giraffe, it needed considerable resolution to follow in its wake.

I have often had the greater part of my shirt—for I never wore a coat—torn off and my bare arms very severely scratched whilst chasing giraffes through thick wait-a-bit thorn scrub. I have had some heavy falls too, and once knocked one of my front teeth clean out of the socket, through galloping into an ant-eater's hole and falling on my heavy ten-bore rifle. On another occasion my horse rolled over on me, and cracked the tibia of my right leg, so that some of the serum ran out and formed a lump on the bone. However, I never hurt myself seriously, and the risk of such little misadventures when galloping after giraffes through thick forests and over ground where the holes were hidden by long grass always added zest to the pursuit of these animals.

The pace of the giraffe, when pressed, is very great, and in my own experience, which has been considerable, I have found that it is only an exceptionally fast South African shooting horse which can actually gallop past an unwounded giraffe in open ground. The young Boer hunters used always to think a lot of a horse which was fast enough to enable them to "brant," i.e. "burn," a giraffe. This meant firing into one of these animals when galloping level with it and at a distance of only a few paces. Such a practice is, however, not to be recommended, as it takes too much out of a horse, upon which one has to depend to keep one's camp in meat throughout a long hunting season, and the easiest way of killing giraffes is not to press them too hard, but to jump off behind them whenever a suitable opportunity occurs and aim for the root of the tail. A bullet so placed, even from one of the old low velocity rifles of forty years ago, would penetrate to the heart and lungs, and soon prove fatal.

A wounded giraffe will usually, if not invariably, run against the wind, and if one's waggon or camp is anywhere in the direction for which it is heading, it is possible, by galloping alongside and shouting, to alter its course to a certain extent, and so drive the unsuspecting animal close up to the place where it can be most conveniently killed and cut up. I have driven many giraffes quite close up to my waggons before killing them; but I have also found that if a wounded giraffe takes a course exactly opposite to that in which you want it to go, no power on earth will make it turn right round and run in the other direction. In the nature of things one cannot have an adventure with a giraffe, but I have had two somewhat curious experiences with these animals.

During 1876, when my friend George Dorehill and I were hunting in Western Matabeleland, some Bushmen one day came to our camp and asked us to shoot them a giraffe for the sake of the meat; so, on the following morning, we went out with them, and before long crossing the fresh tracks of a big old bull, followed them, and presently came up with the animal itself. After a short gallop, I wounded it, and it then very soon came to a halt and stood quite still. Wishing to drive it to our camp, I rode slowly towards it, waving my hat and shouting, but it never moved. I was sitting on my horse quite close to where the giant beast stood towering above me, when I heard the crack of my friend's rifle close behind me. At the same instant, the whole seventeen feet of giraffe lurched over and came tumbling towards me, perfectly rigid and without a bend in legs or neck. I don't think I had hold of my horse's reins when my friend fired and shot the giraffe through the head from behind, and the sudden fall of the huge beast was so unexpected that my horse never moved till the great head crashed to the ground close to its forefeet. I am sure that I am not exaggerating when I say that the short thick horns of this dead giraffe only missed my horse's neck by less than six inches. Had the giraffe only been a little taller, or had my horse and I been a little nearer to it, there would have been more than one dead animal on the ground soon after my friend's very accurate shot.

On another occasion, during the same year, Dorehill wounded a giraffe—a good-sized but not full-grown bull—which, after running a little distance, stopped and then knelt down, in the position of an ox or a camel at rest, and never moved when we rode up and dismounted close to it. "I'll bet you, you won't get on to its back," said my friend. We were both of us very young men then, which perhaps does not excuse the thoughtless cruelty of the act; but in answer to my friend's challenge I at once vaulted on to the giraffe's back, and sat astride it just behind the withers. Immediately I touched it the startled animal struggled to its feet and started off at a gallop. Clasping it round the neck, I had no difficulty in retaining my seat, and my remembrance is that the motion of my tall steed was easy. I was not carried very far, however, and there were fortunately no trees, but only a low growth of scrubby bush for a good distance in front of us. After carrying me at a swinging canter for a short distance, the giraffe once more knelt gently down, and I hastily dismounted. This giraffe was not mortally wounded, but a bullet had injured its hip or pelvis, though, as far as I can remember, no bone was actually broken.

The body of an old bull giraffe gives out an excessively strong, pungent odour, which can be smelt by a human being at a considerable distance. These old bulls, which are always so dark in colour that they look almost black, used to be called by the old Boer hunters "stink bulls." The meat of such animals was never eaten by white hunters, but every scrap of it was either consumed when fresh, or dried for future consumption, by one's Kafir or Bushman followers. The tongue of an old bull giraffe, which is the only part of such an animal that I have ever eaten, I have, however, always found to be excellent.

During the rainy season, when giraffes are able to obtain without much exertion a plentiful supply of sweet and nourishing food, the full-grown cows get into very good condition, and are sometimes so fat in the early part of the dry season—May and June—that they probably never get into bad order for the remainder of the year. I have shot giraffe cows whose sides when the hide was peeled off them were covered with a thick layer of white fat, from half an inch to over two inches in thickness from shoulder to rump. There is no finer meat to be got in the whole world than that of a fat giraffe cow, and the soft white fat when rendered out is equal to the best lard. The tongue and marrow-bones are also great delicacies, and the hide is valuable for waggon whips, sjamboks, and the soles of boots. No wonder the South African frontiers-men, whether Boers or Britons, were always keen giraffe hunters.

It has often been stated that giraffe bulls in South Africa grow to a height of 19 feet, whilst the cows attain to a stature of from 16 to 17 feet. I unfortunately only measured the standing height of two bull giraffes; both of which, however, were old animals, and seemed to me to be fine specimens of their kind. One of these, the head of which I still have in my collection, measured, when his legs and neck had been pulled out into as straight a line as possible, just 17 feet, the measurement having been taken between two stakes, the one driven into the ground at the base of the forefoot, the other at the top of the short horns. This giraffe was undoubtedly a very large animal, and I remember very well Mr. Rowland Ward remarking on the size of its skull, compared to one which had lately been brought from Somaliland by the late Mr. F. L. James, as they both lay side by side in Piccadilly. The other giraffe I measured—also a big bull, or, at any rate, an old one—could only have stood 16 feet 6 inches in height, in a straight line from the heel of the forefoot to the top of the horns. The original old South African bull giraffe, too, which once used to stand in the Mammalian Gallery of the Natural History Museum at South Kensington, and which always appeared to me to be a magnificent specimen in point of size, only measured as set up 17 feet 5 inches from the ground to the top of the horns. I took this measurement myself with the aid of a ladder. I know that in the Tring Museum the Hon. Walter Rothschild has a specimen of a giraffe from Southern Angola, which measures 18 feet 4 inches as it stands. But I am not convinced that the animal actually stood that height when alive. In modern taxidermy a framework model of an animal is first built, and the skin then stretched over it. The man who shot and preserved the skin of the giraffe now in the Tring Museum said that it stood 18 feet 4 inches, and it has been set up to that height; but if the measurement was taken carelessly, or over the curves of the animal's body, there would be no difficulty in stretching the skin so as to obtain the height required. My esteemed friend the late Mr. A. H. Neumann, than whom there never lived a better authority upon African game, when speaking of the northern giraffe in The Great and Small Game of Africa, says: "It may possibly be somewhat smaller (than the southern species), for the height of the full-grown males I have shot averaged about 16 feet, that of the cows 14 feet." And he further says: "And though I have not found these dimensions exceeded respectively in any of the southern specimens of either sex I have myself killed anywhere, I have read in the accounts of other hunters of considerably taller animals being obtained in parts of South Africa."

Personally, grounding my belief on the size of the magnificent old bull giraffe which once stood in the Mammalian Gallery of the Natural History Museum at South Kensington, and the measurement I myself took, immediately it was dead, of a very fine old bull which I shot in Western Matabeleland in 1880, I should say that the average height, at any rate of giraffe bulls in South Africa, cannot be more than 17 feet, and that of the cows about 2 feet less. I have never measured a cow giraffe, but in a herd of these animals an old black bull always towers above the tallest cows. Exceptional specimens in both sexes may, of course, grow much taller than the average height of the species.

Giraffes are, I think, less troubled by lions or other carnivorous animals than any other African mammal, with the exception of the elephant, rhinoceros, and hippopotamus. That giraffes are occasionally killed by lions is, of course, a well-known fact, but my own experience leads me to believe that such cases are quite exceptional. There are two reasons, I think, for this, the first being that giraffes spend most of their time in very dry, semidesert countries, far away from water, into which lions do not often penetrate; and the second, that, owing to their great size and strength and the thickness of their hides, giraffes cannot be easy animals for even lions to pull down, and, as a matter of fact, I think they are seldom molested in parts of the country where game of other kinds, such as zebras, buffaloes, or large antelopes, are plentiful.

An instance of a young giraffe being attacked by two leopards once came within my own experience. I was riding with some Bushmen—more than thirty years ago now—near the course of the Upper Tati river in Western Matabeleland, when a single giraffe cow ran out into the open from a cluster of mimosa trees through which we were passing. Immediately I saw the giraffe, I put spurs to my horse and galloped after it, but had only just reached the edge of the mimosa grove when my horse put his foot in a hole, and not only fell, but rolled over on me, breaking the thin thong attached to my belt from a ring on the bridle. I was not hurt, but I was unable to extricate myself and regain my feet as quickly as my horse, and he, not being a very well-trained animal, trotted away in the direction taken by the giraffe before I could get hold of the bridle. I now for the first time saw a very young giraffe calf, which I do not think could have been more than a day or two old, running between my horse and its mother, but much nearer to the former than the latter. I suppose this little calf, being so very young, had been purposely left by its mother lying hidden amongst the bushes to await her return, but that we had frightened it and caused it to jump up and run off. As we watched it we saw it run close up to my horse, and as long as it was in view it appeared to be running close behind it.

I now told two of my Bushmen to run after my horse, and try and get in front of it and then catch it and bring it back to me. This they succeeded in doing before very long, as, after having trotted away for a mile or so, my recreant steed had commenced to feed. When we met, the Bushmen told me that the giraffe cow had come round and taken off the calf before they came up with my horse.

Since this giraffe calf was evidently very young and weak, I thought it would be an easy matter to catch it alive, so I told my Bushmen to take up its spoor at once. We had been following the tracks of both the cow and the calf for perhaps a mile, when I saw the head and neck of the latter rising out of some tussocky grass in an opening in the forest. Galloping up to it, I found that the poor little creature's hind-legs were stretched out straight behind it, as if its back were broken. It was also bleeding from a few scratches. My Bushmen were now examining the ground round the injured calf; and I heard one of them say, "Ingwi, ingwi mabele" ("Leopards, two leopards"). They soon explained to me exactly what had happened. As the giraffe calf was following its mother, two leopards had attacked it. They must, however, have been driven from their prey very quickly, as I could only find a few claw-marks upon the body of the calf. Its mother had evidently struck at the leopards with her forefeet, as we found several freshly-made marks where her sharp hoofs had struck the hard ground. Unfortunately, one of these terrific blows, very probably the first aimed at the leopard which had attacked the calf, had struck the little creature on the loins and broken its back, or at any rate paralysed its hind-quarters. I searched all round for the leopards, but could not find them, and was obliged to kill the calf, for it could only have died a lingering death if I had not done so, or been torn to pieces sooner or later by leopards or hyænas.

I don't think giraffes ever give birth to more than one calf at a time. The calves are born, in South-Western Africa, towards the end of the dry season or early in the rainy season, that is, during the months of September, October, November, or December.

CHAPTER XII

Inyala horns are often met with in collections, but such trophies, it will be found, have almost invariably been obtained from the natives, few living Englishmen having actually shot this very local and retiring animal; whilst, as far as I am aware, but two of these have, since Angas's first description, given us any information concerning its haunts and habits.

That tough old sportsman the late Mr. William Charles Baldwin met with the inyala on his first visit to Amatongaland in 1854. He writes:

Hearing from the Kaffirs that there were inyalas in the bush, I sallied out, but without success, until nearly sunset, when, as I was returning home, the Amatongas showed me two inyalas feeding, the first I had ever seen. I succeeded in bagging the stag, a most beautiful dark silver-grey buck, with long mane and very long hair like a goat. He is of the bushbuck species, but on a much larger scale than the inkonka of the colony, with long spiral horns, tanned legs, very long hair on his breast and quarters—a beautiful animal, weighing from 250 lbs. to 300 lbs., and very fierce when wounded. They inhabit the coast from this to Delagoa Bay, and are numerous. The does are often to be seen in large herds, and are likewise very beautiful, resembling a fallow deer, but are of a much darker red, striped and spotted with white. They have no horns, and are half the size of the stag; and nowhere else in Africa have I met with them.

Baldwin was evidently very much struck with the beauty of these antelopes, for, referring to the first of the species which he shot, he says: "When I at last secured him I thought I should never sufficiently admire him." On another occasion he says: "I wounded an inyala doe, and had a long chase after her, but eventually lost her. They are wild and wary, and it requires the greatest caution to get a shot at them."

The only other author, besides Angas and Baldwin, who, as far as I know, has written anything concerning the inyala from personal experience is the Hon. W. H. Drummond, who was travelling and hunting in Zululand and Amatongaland from 1867 to 1872, and who subsequently recorded his observations on the wild animals he met with in those countries in a book entitled The Large Game and Natural History of South and South-East Africa. As his remarks concerning the inyala are very much to the point, I think they are well worth quoting. He writes concerning this antelope as follows:—

Perhaps the most beautiful of all the antelopes that I have seen is the inyala, the white lines with which it is striped being more numerous, more regular, and much better defined than those of either the koodoo or the striped eland, which, as far as I know, are the only two animals which possess them at all. Unfortunately, it does not exist except in the low, fever-stricken districts of the Bombo range, about the 28th degree of south latitude. It frequents the densest thickets it can find, and is wary and difficult to stalk; indeed, I should fancy that more people have caught fever by hunting this antelope than in the pursuit of any other animal in Africa, except perhaps the elephant. Of course, as with most game, early morning and evening are the best times during which to look for it, and early dawn implies being wet through to above the waist by the heavy dew and the subsequent drying of one's things by the heat of the sun—a pretty certain method of getting fever; evening, on the other hand, means not getting home till hours after dark, and breathing during that period the fatal miasma, which, as soon as the sun sets, begins to rise from all over the great lagoons and dotted plains where this antelope is chiefly found. Inyala-shooting and fever are all but synonymous; but to those who have already had the latter, and with whom the mischief as regards constitution is already done, ample amends are made by the graceful beauty of the antelope and the magnificence of its skin. Its horns almost exactly resemble those of a koodoo of eighteen months or two years old, though, if anything, they have a broader spread.

The range of this beautiful animal is very limited, and even yet has not been quite accurately ascertained. Angas first met with it on the northern shores of St Lucia Bay, in latitude 28 degrees south, which seems to be its extreme southern range. North of St. Lucia Bay it is, or was, plentiful in the neighbourhood of all the rivers which flow through the wooded plains that lie between the Lebombo Hills and the sea as far north as Delagoa Bay, being particularly numerous in the thickets which border the Pongolo, Usutu, and Tembe rivers. North of Delagoa Bay its distribution is very imperfectly known; but, as it has been shot on the lower course of the Oliphants river, it doubtless exists along the Limpopo between the point where the former river joins it and the sea. To the north of the Limpopo it is probably found along the coast-line wherever conditions suitable to its habits exist, namely, dense jungle in the immediate neighbourhood of swamps and rivers, as far north as the great Sabi river. At any rate, several Kafirs whom I have questioned in the De Beers compound at Kimberley, and who were natives of the coast country near Inyambani, were evidently well acquainted with it, describing it accurately and giving it the Zulu name of inyala.

North of the Sabi, and between that river and the Zambesi, the inyala has, I believe, never been met with. Personally, I have never come across any trace of it, nor obtained any information concerning it during my travels on the lower course of either the Zambesi, Pungwe, or Buzi rivers, the latter being the first important stream met with flowing into the Indian Ocean north of the great Sabi river.

Thus, until quite lately the range of Angas's bushbuck was supposed to be confined to the coast-line between St. Lucia Bay and a point somewhere to the south of the great Sabi river; but amongst a parcel of skins sent from Nyasaland in 1891 by Mr. (now Sir Alfred) Sharpe to Dr. P. L. Sclater, the well-known zoologist, was the unmistakable hide of a male inyala, and subsequent research has brought to light the fact that this beautiful antelope, whose habitat had hitherto been supposed to be confined entirely to the country immediately north and south of Delagoa Bay, is also an inhabitant of the jungles on the central course of the Shiré river. In a consular report concerning the state of Nyasaland, published some years ago, Sir H. H. Johnston, amongst his most interesting notes on the fauna of the country which he had so ably administered, wrote: "In the west Shiré and lower Shiré districts only is found the very handsome inyala antelope."

Concerning the skin previously mentioned, which was obtained by Mr. (now Sir Alfred) Sharpe, Dr. P. L. Sclater wrote as follows:—

Mr. Sharpe brings a flat skin of what is apparently a male of this antelope (the inyala), hitherto not known to occur so far north. He gives the following notes on it: "This antelope is found in a piece of thick, scrubby country bordering the Moanza, which enters the Shiré on the right bank near the Murchison cataracts. I have never seen it alive myself, but have heard of it frequently from the natives, by whom it is called bo, the 'o' being pronounced very long. It frequents the thick scrub, and only occasionally comes out to the edges of the grass flats. I have never heard of it in any other part of Nyasaland."

However, although the fact of the existence of the inyala in Nyasaland was only established as lately as 1891, I think that a specimen of this antelope was undoubtedly shot near Cape Maclear, on the shores of Lake Nyasa itself (where apparently it is not now known to exist), by the late Captain Faulkner in 1866. In his narrative of a journey to Lake Nyasa, in connection with the Livingstone search expedition sent out from England under the command of Lieutenant Young in that year, Captain Faulkner has written, in a little-known work entitled Elephants' Haunts: "I had walked a long way without seeing anything, and as it was getting late, was about returning, when I saw a beautiful antelope feeding near a narrow strip of swamp." This antelope he killed, and then described it in the following words: "He was in splendid condition, and a distinctly different animal from any I had hitherto seen; height at shoulder, 3 ft. 4 in.; spiral horns, 21 in. long, slightly curved forward, skin of a greyish colour, and covered with white spots, belly white."

Now, either this antelope shot by Captain Faulkner on the shores of Lake Nyasa was an inyala, or it belonged to a species still unknown to science. Seeing that it has now been ascertained that the inyala is an inhabitant of certain thickets on the banks of the Shiré river, at no great distance from the place where Captain Faulkner shot his unidentified specimen, I am inclined to think that the former supposition is the most probable, and that a mistake was made in describing the animal as covered with spots; for if this sentence had read: "Of a greyish colour, and covered with white stripes, or white spots and stripes," the whole description, meagre though it is, would have been applicable to a male inyala, which the length and shape of the horns, and the standing height at the shoulder, seem to show that it was. It certainly was not a bushbuck, with which animal Captain Faulkner was well acquainted; and as the Kafirs chopped off its horns, and the skin went rotten and was not preserved, and the description of the animal in question may have been written from memory by a man who was not a trained observer, some want of accuracy was to be expected. The fact that the shaggy hair which hangs from the neck and chest, and fringes the flanks of the male inyala, and is such a very noticeable characteristic of this species of antelope, was not mentioned by Captain Faulkner, is certainly very curious; still, I am inclined to the belief that the animal which he shot on the shore of Lake Nyasa was an inyala. If not, there exists in that district a nearly allied species still unknown to science, which I do not think is likely, though it would be worth while to make careful inquiries amongst the natives living near Cape Maclear as to all the antelopes of the bushbuck tribe with spiral horns with which they are acquainted, in order to clear up the mystery.

The foregoing notes represent all the information I have been able to gather from the works of travellers and sportsmen concerning the habits and distribution of the inyala, and I will now give a short account of a journey undertaken by myself to the Usutu river, in Amatongaland, in search of these antelopes, during which I was able to obtain some knowledge of them at first hand.

It had long been my ambition to add the head of an inyala, shot by myself, to my collection of hunting trophies, but year after year had rolled by, without my having been able to spare the time to undertake a special journey to the country near Delagoa Bay in search of it, until I recognised that, unless I made a determined effort, my large collection of South African antelope heads would for ever remain incomplete and unsatisfactory, ungraced as it would have been by the spoils of one of the handsomest species.

Thus I left Matabeleland in September 1896, at the conclusion of the native rebellion in that country, with the fixed resolve to do my best to kill a male inyala before quitting South Africa.

Leaving my wife in the care of kind friends at Kimberley, I proceeded by the shortest route, viz. by rail viâ Pretoria to Delagoa Bay, and found myself in the now important town of Lourenço Marques on the evening of Monday, September 21.

There I was fortunate enough to make the acquaintance of Messrs. Gould and Edixhoven, two gentlemen who were most kind and obliging to me in every way, and who spared no pains to render me all the assistance in their power to enable me to carry out the object I had in view. They introduced me at once to a trader from Amatongaland, who had lately come down to Delagoa Bay, and who was just about to return to his station near the junction of the Pongolo and Usutu rivers. Mr. Wissels (the gentleman in question), a Cape colonist of German extraction, I found was about to return to his station by boat on the following day; and when he heard that I wished to shoot an inyala, he told me that these animals were plentiful in the neighbourhood of his station. Then he most kindly offered to take me there with him, and to find Kafirs who knew the haunts and habits of the antelopes in question to go hunting with me.

I had but very little preparation to make for the journey before me, but before I could leave Delagoa Bay it was necessary for me to get a passport from the authorities to travel in Portuguese territory, and also to obtain a licence to carry arms. Thanks to the ready kindness of Mr. B. Cohen,[17] and the courtesy of the Portuguese governor of Lourenço Marques, I obtained all the necessary licences in an unusually short space of time, and was ready to embark on Mr. Wissels's large, open sailing-boat by four o'clock on the afternoon of Tuesday, September 22. The same evening, after a good dinner at a small hotel on the opposite side of the bay, we ran out to sea with the tide, by the light of a most glorious full moon, and after passing a reef of rocks which projects into the sea from the southern shore of the bay immediately opposite Reuben Point, on which there is a lighthouse, we anchored about midnight in quite shallow water to wait for the morning breeze, by the help of which Mr. Wissels expected we would be able to run right into the mouth of the Maputa river, in time to catch the inflowing tide.

After a not too comfortable night, passed on mealie bags which had not been arranged to serve as a bed, we awoke just as the day was breaking, but before the moon had quite set, and found that a strong breeze had sprung up, before which we ran right into the mouth of the Maputa river in a very short space of time. The Maputa is the name given to the united streams of the Pongolo and Usutu, below their confluence, and carries to the sea the muddy water of the former commingled with the clear stream of the latter, which takes its rise amongst the far-off hills of Swaziland. As the height of the country above sea-level at the junction of these rivers is, I believe, under 400 feet, it follows that the Maputa runs through a very level tract of country. Like all rivers flowing into the Indian Ocean, on the east coast of Africa, it is a tidal stream fringed on both banks along its lower course by monotonous, dismal-looking mangrove swamps.

The country between the Maputa and the Tembe—which latter is the river flowing into the southern portion of Delagoa Bay—is reputed to be very fruitful, and to carry a large native population, who, however, have suffered terribly of late years owing to the depredations of locusts. The district is called Matuta. To the south the land does not appear to be so rich, and must be more sparsely populated, as elephants are said to still maintain a precarious footing there. After entering the mouth of the Maputa, both wind and tide being favourable, we ran up its course at racing speed, and by ten o'clock had passed the limit of the mangrove swamps. So far the only sign of life we had seen was numerous large flocks of curlews feeding on the mud-banks on both sides of the river. These birds appeared very similar to the species so familiar to British shore-shooters, and were equally wary and shy of close acquaintanceship.

About eleven o'clock we reached the Portuguese military station of Bella Vista, in charge of an officer, who, after he had inspected my papers and found them all in order, was very civil, and invited us to join him at the late breakfast which is one of the two substantial meals partaken of by the Portuguese in Africa.

Our host seemed to be something more of a sportsman than most of his countrymen, and only the day previous to our arrival had shot a fine reedbuck ram, and a short time before a bushbuck ram, having killed both with buck shot. He also possessed a good pair of inyala horns, which, he told me, had been obtained from the natives on the Pongolo river. We remained at Bella Vista for a couple of hours, conversing in French on various topics, especially the late Matabele rebellion, in which our host seemed to take a great interest. He was very emphatic in his condemnation of the policy of raising a police force from amongst the natives of a conquered country. "However," said he, "it is the English way; they have done it in Natal and Zululand too, and may yet live to regret it; qui vivra verra." "But," said I, "you Portuguese surely do the same thing, for wherever I have travelled in your possessions, I have always met with your black soldiers." "That is true," said he, "but still our policy is very different from yours; for we never employ natives as police or soldiers in their own country; all the black troops you see in our East African possessions being recruited in Angola, and vice versa, and thus all native levies in the Portuguese service are looked upon as foreigners by, and are themselves out of sympathy with, the tribes amongst whom they find themselves."

After bidding adieu to our host and resuming our journey, we continued to make very good progress, with the help of wind and tide, and although we now and then lost a little time by sticking on a sandbank, we had done so well by sundown that Mr. Wissels expected to make a record run up to his station. During the afternoon we passed a few hippopotamuses and an odd crocodile; but they were few and far between, and appeared to be very wild and wary. Our luck, however, was not to last, for during the hour which intervened between the setting of the sun and the rising of the moon (which was now but one day beyond the full) the wind veered right round, and commenced to blow fresh and cool from the south. We soon found it impossible to make any further progress, even with the oars, after the sail, which had done us such good service throughout the day, had been lowered; for the strength of the wind blew us in under the bank. So, yielding to necessity, we made our heavy craft fast to a tree for the night, and then, after having made a hasty meal, washed down by a cup of tea, we turned in under our blankets, which were once more spread on the top of the mealie bags.

On the following morning, just at daybreak, two hippos passed down the river close to our boat. They were very wary, however, and gave but little chance of a shot, even had we wished to kill them, which I, at any rate, did not. The weather had now completely changed, the sky being overcast with an unbroken sheet of cloud, whilst the temperature had become quite cool and pleasant, with a strong breeze blowing from the south. It looked to me as if we were going to have a day or two of cloudy weather, which would end in rain when the wind dropped; but as it was very early in the season for rain, Mr. Wissels thought it was only a cool spell which would blow off again in a day or two. However, all progress by boat being impossible as long as the southerly wind lasted, my companion, knowing that my time was limited, advised me to get some carriers and push on at once on foot to his station, which was about thirty miles distant, and in the vicinity of which inyala were to be found. This proposition entirely coinciding with my own wishes, one of our two Zulu boatmen, an excellent fellow named Longman, was sent off to engage four carriers, and soon after midday returned with four Amatonga women; for, in this part of the country, the women act almost exclusively as porters.

Of the ladies who, after a considerable amount of haggling, at length agreed to carry my baggage to the junction of the Usutu and Pongolo rivers, three were already in the afternoon of life—gaunt, bony, wrinkled, hideous hags. The fourth was a younger and pleasanter-looking woman, who, in addition to her load, which weighed about forty pounds, carried a two-year-old child, slung in a goat-skin, at her back. It took some time to arrange the price which was to be paid for their services, but at last, after testing the weight of the loads, they agreed to carry them to Mr. Wissels's store for a certain price. This, however, had to be paid in advance, in accordance with a custom which is general throughout every portion of the Portuguese dominions in South-East Africa—a custom which is most humiliating to the pride of an Englishman, as it seems to say, "By bitter experience we black people have learnt that white men will cheat us if they can, and therefore we do not trust them."

At last everything was ready, and I was able to start on my journey at about two o'clock, accompanied by my four lady carriers and Longman, the Zulu, whom Mr. Wissels had most kindly given me to act as guide and headman. That afternoon we walked for about three hours, and slept at a small Amatonga kraal on a rise above the Maputa river. The country through which we travelled was neither flat nor hilly, but consisted of a succession of undulating rises separated by boggy streams. The soil on the surface was of pure white sand, which rendered the walking very heavy. These sandy rises were for the most part free of trees or bush, though patches of thorny scrub were to be seen here and there, as well as some large thorn trees in the hollows.

The Amatonga about here seem to live in families rather than in large communities, as we passed several kraals, none of which contained more than half-a-dozen huts. Each little community seemed to possess a few head of cattle of a small breed, which is probably identical with that found throughout Eastern and South Central Africa, though in certain localities it has become very dwarfed. At the time of my visit to Amatongaland the people were very badly off for food, as for several successive years their crops had more or less been destroyed by a wing of that mighty army of locusts by which the whole of South-Eastern and South Central Africa has been devastated continually ever since 1890.

Arrived at our destination for the night, a hut was placed at my disposal by the headman of the village, which I found perfectly clean, and free from anything which might have made it interesting to an entomologist. Indeed, I will here say that I found all the Amatonga huts in which I slept during this trip perfectly clean and comfortable. The people themselves are too well known to need any detailed description. They are nearly allied to the Zulus in race, language, and general appearance, and most of them understand and speak pure Zulu. In their own dialect, which I was not able to follow, the letter "h" is very noticeable; for instance, the Zulu word "inkuku," a fowl, becomes "huku" in Satonga. I found no difficulty in understanding them when they spoke Zulu, or in making them understand "Sintabele," the native language with which I am best acquainted, and which is itself a dialect of Zulu.

On waking the following morning, I found that the weather looked very threatening, as the clouds had become quite thick, and rain was evidently near at hand. However, after a good deal of opposition on the part of my lady porters had been overcome, we made a fairly early start, and soon reached the Maputa river at the place where we had to cross it in a native ferry boat, which proved to be merely a very disreputable-looking old dug-out canoe.

On our way here we passed along the edge of a marsh, and as we were doing so I heard a reedbuck whistle, but as the morning was very dull and misty, neither Longman nor I could at first see any sign of the animal that had thus needlessly betrayed its existence. However, after walking a short distance in the direction from which the sound had proceeded, we made out three reedbucks, which, as they ran from behind some reeds into the open ground, I saw were a ram and two ewes. They almost immediately stood, the ram with his hind-quarters towards us; so, judging the distance between us to be about three hundred yards, I put up the third sight, and sitting down took a careful shot at him. I thought I heard the bullet strike, but as he ran lightly behind the two ewes without showing any sign of being hit, I began to think I must have been mistaken. Before going far, however, he stopped suddenly for a few moments, and then rolled over on his side, apparently dead. On walking up to him, however, we found him still alive, although on examination the bullet proved to have passed through the lower part of his heart, having first hit him in the belly between the hind-legs and gone forwards through the whole length of his body.

Whilst Longman and I were cutting up the reedbuck, the lady porters took their loads to the ferry, which was close at hand, and then returned for the meat; and when we had got everything down to the river, we shouted for the ferryman to take us to the other side.

It was some time before the native Charon made his appearance, and, whilst we were waiting for him, my lady porters ate up about half the reedbuck, and I also made a good breakfast, and skinned the head, which was a pretty good one. Just where we crossed the river we saw some elephant spoor which looked fairly recent, and the natives told us that a herd of these animals roamed over the country between the Tembe and Maputa rivers, and sometimes passed close to their kraal on their way to drink in the latter stream. The banks of the river presented a very pretty appearance at the time of our crossing, as all the bushes were covered with convolvulus creepers in full bloom.

It was past midday when we again resumed our journey, and light showers had already begun to fall, and continued to do so during the remainder of the day, becoming heavier towards evening, so that by the time we reached the little kraal where we intended to pass the night, I was pretty damp, though not exactly wet through. With the aid of a big fire, however, I got my things dry again before nightfall, and spent a comfortable night in a clean native hut.

During the night it rained a good deal, but when day broke no rain was actually falling, although heavy watery-looking clouds were coming up fast from the south. Taking advantage of the temporary respite, I managed to get my traps packed up, and my unwilling porters under way, as I knew that I should not be able to persuade them to start if rain were actually falling. We had not proceeded far, however, before being caught in a soaking shower, which soon wetted me to the skin, as, not expecting rain, I had not brought a waterproof coat with me, and was only lightly clad. There was nothing for it but to push on to Mr. Wissels's store. It proved to be farther off than I had anticipated, as it was one o'clock before Longman and I arrived there, whilst my lady porters did not turn up until three hours later, in a very bedraggled condition.

During the morning's walk we had passed a large fresh-water lake or lagoon, on which there were numbers of spur-winged geese, one of which I should have tried to shoot for food, had I not been so cold and wet that my one idea was to reach Mr. Wissels's store as soon as possible. After passing the lagoon we crossed a broad marshy plain, where I saw three reedbucks, and also the spoor of two waterbucks, which I am afraid are almost the last of their species in this part of the country, where not many years ago these animals must have been very numerous. On at length reaching the store, I found that the white man—a German sailor, whom Mr. Wissels had left in charge, and whom I had expected to find there—had gone down to the Maputa river with carriers to bring up some bags of maize, and was not expected back till the following day. Thus, I only found some Amatonga natives looking after the store, who, although they were civil and obliging enough after Longman had told them all about me, were yet unable to give me the same kind of welcome that one white man always extends to another in the wilds of Africa. For instance, had Mr. Wissels's friend been at home I should have borrowed a shirt and trousers from him whilst I dried my own; but, in the nature of things, the naked Amatonga were unable to oblige me in this way; however, they did the next best thing, and built a big fire beneath a large thick-foliaged tree; and by the help of this I managed to get myself tolerably dry in the course of the afternoon.