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Updated: May 27, 2025
Now this hartebeest, although an ill-shaped antelope, is one of the very swiftest of the tribe; and the wild hound does not capture it without a severe chase. In fact, he could not capture it at all, if speed were the only point between the two animals. But it is not. The hartebeest has a weakness in its character, opposite to which the wild hound possesses a cunning.
This day Mr John Rennie, being out hunting on Hyndhope Fells, fell in with two wild Bushmen, dressed in sheepskins. They ran off on his approach, but made no demonstration of hostility. He came upon six hyenas devouring a hartebeest, and brought me its skull and horns. "11th. Visited by three Boers from the Tarka desirous of exchanging horses and cattle for guns and ammunition.
The hartebeest is speedily identified, because he is unlike any other antelope in appearance and exists in such large numbers in nearly every part of East Africa. Indeed, if a returned traveler were asked what animal is most typical of the country he would at once name the hartebeest. He sees it so much and so often that after a time it seems to be only a necessary fixture in the landscape.
These little calves come into the world fully equipped for running, and almost immediately after birth go bounding along after their mothers, so awkward and so funny that I'm not surprised that their own mothers look perpetually amused. The hartebeest, or kongoni, is hard to kill. The Dutch gave him the name for that reason. It often seems as if bullets have no effect on him.
The herds of zebra and hartebeest literally numbered thousands, but, except as the latter were occasionally required for food for the porters, we seldom tried to shoot them. Every Boer settler we saw was interviewed and every promising lion clue was followed to the bitter end, but without result.
The platform was comfortable; it only needed hot and cold running water to be a delightful place to spend a tropic night. I shot a hartebeest and had it dragged beneath the tree. Then my two native gunbearers and I made a satisfactory ascent to the platform. We had a thermos bottle filled with hot tea, and some odds and ends in the way of solid refreshments.
After a march of a mile through the tall grass of the open, we gained the glades between the jungles. Unsuccessful here, after ever so much prying into fine hiding-places and lurking corners, I struck a trail well traversed by small antelope and hartebeest, which we followed.
A strange suspicion entered the mind of Von Bloom, and, calling upon them to saddle the quaggas, he, with Hans and Hendrik, rode off towards the place where the hartebeest had been last seen. They approached the ground with caution; and under the shelter of some bushes were enabled to get within two hundred yards of the spot without being observed. A singular spectacle rewarded their pains.
After traversing the open plain, the road led through a grove of young ebony trees, where guinea-fowls and a hartebeest were seen; it then wound, with all the characteristic eccentric curves of a goat-path, up and down a succession of land-waves crested by the dark green foliage of the mango, and the scantier and lighter-coloured leaves of the enormous calabash.
While looking keenly about I detected, within easy rifle-shot, a fine hartebeest, trembling and cowering behind a tree, as if it expected the fangs of the lion in its neck. Though it had its back turned to me, I thought a bullet might plough its way to a vital part, and without a moment's hesitation I aimed and fired.
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