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They look at us and we at them; and we pass on to see a herd of doe koodoos, with a magnificently horned buck or two, hurrying off to the dry hill-sides. We have ceased shooting antelopes, as our men have been so often gorged with meat that they have become fat and dainty.
An hour's walk on the right bank, morning or evening, reveals a country swarming with wild animals: vast herds of pallahs, many waterbucks, koodoos, buffaloes, wild pigs, elands, zebras, and monkeys appear; francolins, guinea-fowls, and myriads of turtledoves attract the eye in the covers, with the fresh spoor of elephants and rhinoceroses, which had been at the river during the night.
He summarised the situation on the Modder, which he was unable to control with the troops at his disposal, and said that he was asking French to proceed to Koodoos Drift to check Cronje from the east. Lord Roberts was not the man to adhere stolidly to his own plan when a better one was laid before him.
Further on a whole herd of quaggas had come down, while through the woods could be seen the graceful horns of a troop of koodoos and other deer, though it was difficult to distinguish them among the trees. But we were more immediately interested with the numerous birds we were passing. It would be difficult to describe them all; but David, who was a good ornithologist, told us their names.
Give me a wildness whose glance no civilization can endure, as if we lived on the marrow of koodoos devoured raw. There are some intervals which border the strain of the wood-thrush, to which I would migrate, wild lands where no settler has squatted; to which, methinks, I am already acclimated.
The Modder forms the major axis of the ellipse, which it enters near Koodoos Drift and leaves at Paardeberg Drift, and like most South African rivers runs in a deep channel between banks intersected by the tributary dongas which the rains have scored in the soft soil, and which afford almost the only shelter from artillery fire. The whole area is commanded by the surrounding kopjes and ridges.
In this part of the country, buffaloes, elands, koodoos, and various antelopes are to be found, but we did not get any, as they are exceedingly wary from being much hunted. We had the same woodland and meadow as before, with here and there pleasant negro villages; and being all in good health, could enjoy the fine green scenery.
I missed the leopard, for I was at a considerable distance; but the report frightened the koodoos, and away they went, leaping over bushes, stones, and all impediments at a rapid rate, while the savage beast stole off, vowing vengeance, probably, against me for having disappointed him of his morning meal.
When we first saw koodoos, they were so much smaller than those we had been accustomed to in the south that we doubted whether they were not a new kind of antelope; and the leche, seen nowhere south of 20 Deg., is succeeded by the poku as we go north. This is, in fact, only a smaller species of that antelope, with a more reddish color.
The British Army was preoccupied with Cronje; and Kitchener's Kopje in De Wet's hands gave a strong flank protection to Steyn, and later on to De Beer, who, when driven out of his position north of Koodoos Drift by a resuscitated cavalry brigade under Gordon, crossed to the kopjes south of the river.
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