Chapter 25 - A Narrative of Hunting Adventures in Southern Africa by Mayne Reid
Blesboks and Bonteboks
Next morning our party inspanned and treked over the desert plain in a north-easterly direction. They were two days in crossing it, and their oxen suffered much from thirst, as during the two days they did not taste water. For themselves they had water enough. Part of the contents of each wagon was a good water-cask, that held eighteen gallons; and these, of course, they had filled before leaving the spring. One of these casks they divided among their horses, allowing them a little over two gallons apiece; but that was nothing for two days’ march over such a country. Even the yägers themselves required as much. This statement would not surprise you, if you had ever travelled in a tropical clime and over an arid waterless plain under a hot glaring sun. There thirst is provoked in a short while, and water will quench it only for a few minutes at a time. The appetite constantly returns, and calls for copious draughts; so that a traveller will often consume not glasses, but gallons, of water, in a single day!
Having crossed the desert plain, the hunters now entered upon a country that differed entirely from that they had left behind.
They had arrived in a country of vast extent, upon which stood hills of strange and varied forms. Some were of a rounded, hemispherical shape; others were cones; others had flat-table tops; and still others pierced the sky with sharp needle-like pinnacles. These hills were of various sizes—some approaching the dimension of mountains; but most of them rose directly from the plains, without any piedmont or “foothills” intervening between the level surface and their sloping or precipitous sides. The country bore a very strong resemblance to the plateaux that lie among the Cordilleras of the Andes; and the geological formation of this part of Africa is very similar to the table-lands of Mexico.
Many of the mountains of conical and pyramid form stood isolated upon the plain, some of them bare of vegetation from base to summit. Others, again, carried a dark mantle of forest, that covered only their lower half, above which rose bare peaks of white quartz that under the sun glittered like snow.
The plains between were some of them of vast extent—so wide that at times the mountains that bordered them could be but dimly seen. But there were plains of every size and form. Their surface was covered with a species of grass quite different from that of the region our hunters had hitherto been passing over. It formed a short sward like a meadow lately mown, or a well-browsed pasture-ground, for such in reality it was—well-browsed and closely cropped, and trodden to a hard turf, by the countless herds of wild ruminant animals, of which it was the favourite range. Unlike the long flowing sweet grass upon the plains south of the Orange River, these were covered with a short crisp curly herbage of saltish taste; and in many spots an effervescence of that mineral covered the ground, whitening the blades of grass like a hoar-frost. Salt deposits, or salt-pans as they are termed, were also common, some of them extending for miles over the plain.
The yägers had reached a peculiar country, indeed. They had arrived in the “zuur-veldt,” the country of the sour grass—the favourite home of the blesbok and bontebok.
What are these?
They are two antelopes, whose gracefulness of form, swiftness of foot, but, above all, the lively and striking colour of their bodies, have rendered remarkable.
They belong to the genus Gazella, but in many of their habits they differ considerably from the gazelles, though differing so slightly from each other that by both travellers and naturalists they have been regarded identical.
This is not so. They are distinct species, though inhabiting the same country, and following the same mode of life. The blesbok (Gazella albifrons) is neither so large nor so brilliantly marked as the bontebok, (Gazella pygarga). His horns are of a light colour, nearly white, while those of the bontebok are black. In the colour of the legs there is also a marked difference. The legs of the bontebok are white from the knee down, while those of his congener are only white on the insides—the outsides being brown.
The bontebok is not only one of the loveliest antelopes in Africa, but one of the swiftest. Indeed, there are those who hold that he is the swiftest. In size he equals the European stag, and his form is light and graceful. His horns are fifteen inches in length, black, robust at the base, semi-annulated and diverging. They rise erect from the top of his head, bending slightly backward, and then forward at the tips.
But it is the beautiful colouring of his skin which is the principal characteristic of this antelope. In this respect both he and the blesbok bear some resemblance to the antelopes of the acronotine group—the hartebeest and sassabye.
The colours of the bontebok are purple violet and brown of every shade—not mingling together, but marking the body as if laid on by the brush of a sign-painter. Hence the name “bontebok,” or “painted buck,” as given by the Dutch colonists to this species. First, the neck and head are of a deep brown, with a tinge of the colour of arterial blood. Between the horns a white stripe commences, and after reaching the line of the eyes widens out so as to cover the face to the very muzzle. This mark, or “blaze,” is common to both the species, and to one of them has given the trivial name “blesbok,” (blaze-buck.)
The back is of a blue lilac colour, as if glazed; and this extends along the sides, so as to remind one of a saddle. Bordering this, and running along the flanks, is a broad band of deep purple brown. The belly and insides of the thighs are of pure white colour; the legs are white from the knees down, and there is a large white patch on the croup. The tail reaches to the hocks, and is tufted with black hair. Such is the colour of the bontebok, and that of the blesbok differs from it only in the points already mentioned, and in its colours being somewhat less marked and brilliant. Both are beautiful creatures, and their skins are much prized by the native savages for making the “kaross,”—a garment that serves them both as a cloak by day and a bed and blankets at night.
The habits of both species are quite similar. They dwell upon the plains of the “zuur-veldt,” congregating in vast herds of many thousands that cover the ground with their purple masses.
In this respect they resemble the springboks and other gazelles; but they have habits peculiar to themselves. The springboks, when alarmed, take to flight and scatter off in any direction, whereas the bonteboks and blesboks invariably run against the wind, bearing their noses close along the ground, like hounds upon a trail!
They are fleeter than springboks, and also more shy and wary, as though they knew that their spoils are more valuable to the hunter, and therefore required greater skill and speed to preserve them.
Both species were once common in what are now the settled districts of South Africa, their range extending to the Cape itself. That is now restricted to the “zuur-veldt” districts, north of the Great Orange River.
A few bonteboks are still found within the colonial borders in the district of Swellendam; but their existence there is accounted for by an act of the Government, which places a fine of six hundred rix-dollars upon any one who may destroy them without licence.
Our young yägers had now arrived in the land of the blesbok and bontebok.