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Updated: May 1, 2025
Now and then a young gnu was seen to fall behind with its mother, or the bull would drop out of the ranks, and switching it severely with its long tail, compel it to keep up. The older quaggas also seemed to keep their youngsters in excellent order.
The presence of his favourite prey, the quaggas, the gemsboks, and the elands, were sure indications that the king of beasts was not far off. Not much work was done that day. The heavy labour of curing the biltongue, that had occupied them the whole of the preceding day, and their disturbed rest, had rendered them all listless; and neither Von Bloom nor the others had any inclination for work.
Gnoos and springboks were to be seen in every direction, and quaggas, bonteboks, and several other varieties of antelopes, were in profusion over the now undulating country. Neither were our travelers sorry to have some repose for themselves, although every mile that they drew nearer to the Cape made them more anxious to return.
Besides, although the cow and the quaggas were shut in strong kraals, they dreaded each night that the lions would make a seizure of one or other of these animals; and the loss of any one of them, but especially their valuable friend "old Graaf," would have been a very serious misfortune. It was resolved, therefore, to try the gun-trap upon the lions, as it had succeeded so well with the hyenas.
His old associates were no longer in sight to tempt him from his allegiance; and with these considerations, aided by a slight dose of bit and spur, he turned his head, and moved sullenly upon the back track. Hendrik knew nothing about the route he should take. He followed back the spoor of the quaggas to the place where he had dropped his gun, which after riding a mile or two he recovered.
The lions, elephants, quaggas, and some others of the large game, it is true, have taken themselves off to remoter wilds, but the leopards, hyenas, baboons, antelopes, still inhabit these kloofs, while snakes, scorpions, and the like are as plentiful as ever.
It would be no slight undertaking to dig a pit of proper size, for they would require one that would at least hold half-a-dozen quaggas at a time. Then there was the carrying away the earth that should come out of it, the cutting the poles and branches to cover it, and the placing of these in a proper manner.
Now these circumstances coming into Hendrik's mind at the moment, led him to regard the quaggas with a certain feeling of curiosity. The sudden fright which the animals took on seeing him, and the comic appearance of the four with the stumped tails, rather inclined Hendrik towards merriment, and he laughed as he galloped along.
And now the question arose, as to how the quaggas were to be captured. This was the first point to be settled; and the four, Von Bloom himself, Hans, Hendrik, and Swartboy, sat deliberately down to concoct some plan of effecting this object. Of course they could do nothing just then, and the drove that had come to drink was allowed to depart peacefully.
But no the quaggas had always come to drink in day-time one only could be trapped, and then the others alarmed would keep away. There would have been reason in what Hendrik said, but for a remarkable fact which the field-cornet himself had observed when the quaggas came to the lake to drink. It was, that the animals had invariably entered the water at one point, and gone out at another.
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