As the report of the rifle sounded, he plunged madly forward, and was instantly lost to sight in the thick scrub. But I felt sure he carried death with him; and so it proved, for we found him lying dead not twenty yards from where he had stood when the bullet struck him. The fatal missile had passed right through his shoulders, and having expanded on impact, had torn his heart to pieces. I had the dead female brought to where the male had fallen, and laid them side by side; then stood admiring them for a long time before I could bring myself to skin them. To thus secure a very handsome pair of inyala antelopes—whose excellently mounted skins are now safe in the Mammalian Gallery of the Natural History Museum at South Kensington—on the very first day I had ever hunted for them, and after little more than an hour's search—was indeed a most glorious and exceptional piece of good fortune, which, however, has been balanced by many and many a day that I can remember of unrequited labour in search of game.

I think I had here better give Mr. Angas's very careful descriptions of the inyala antelope, male and female, as they are so detailed and precise that they cannot be improved upon—except that, for a reason which I shall refer to presently, I imagine that the male whose skin he described could not have been fully adult.

Mr. Angas tells us that his notes "were drawn up from recently killed specimens which he in vain attempted to purchase from the Boers who possessed them," and are as follows: "The adult male is about 7 feet 6 inches in total length, and 3 feet 4 inches high at the shoulder. Though elegant in form, and with much of the grace of the solitary koodoo, the robust and shaggy aspect of the male bears considerable resemblance to that of the goat. Legs clean, hoofs pointed and black, with two oval cream-coloured spots in front of each fetlock, immediately above the hoof. Horns of the specimen in question, 1 foot 10 inches long,[18] twisted and sublyrate, very similar to those of the bushbuck, but rather more spiral; very sharp polished extremities of a pale straw colour, rest of horns brownish black, deeply ridged from the forehead to about half the length of the horn. Prevailing colour, greyish black, tinged with purplish brown and ochre; on the neck, flanks, and cheeks marked with several white stripes like the koodoo. Forehead brilliant sienna brown, almost approaching to orange; mane black down the neck, and white from the withers to the insertion of the tail; ears, 8 inches long, oval, rufous, tipped with black, and fringed inside with white hairs. A pale ochreous circle round the eyes, which are connected by two white spots, forming an arrow-shaped mark on a black ground; nose black; a white spot on each side of the upper lip; chin and gullet white; and three white marks under each eye; neck covered with long shaggy hair, extending also under the belly and fringing the haunches to the knees; two white spots on the flanks, and a patch of long white hair on the interior portion of the thigh; a white tuft under the belly, and another on the dewlap. On the outer side of the forelegs is a black patch above the knee surrounded by three white spots; legs below the knee bright rufous colour; tail, 1 foot 8 inches long, black above, with tip and inside white." This most detailed description is, I think, that of an animal not fully adult, as in the three full-grown male inyalas which I saw in the flesh all the buff, ochreous, and orange tints described by Mr. Angas had turned to greyish black, except to a slight extent below the knees, whilst none of them had any white stripes on the cheeks or neck; and, as the general ground colour of the young male is reddish brown, and that of a full-grown male greyish black, it goes without saying that, as the young animal grows from kidhood to maturity, the former colour gradually gives place to the latter—till, in a very old male, there is no buff or ochre left except on the legs below the knees. Of the female, Mr. Angas's description is as follows: "Smaller than the male, and without horns; total length, 6 feet; nose, to insertion of ear, 10 inches; length of ear, 6-1/2 inches; height from forefoot to shoulder, 2 feet 9 inches; tail, 1 foot 3 inches in length; becoming very pale on the belly and lower parts and white inside the thighs; a black dorsal ridge of bristly hair extends from the back of the crown to the tail; nose black; the white spots on various parts of the body nearly resembling those of the male, only the white stripes on both sides are more numerous and clearly defined, amounting to twelve or thirteen in number; tail, rufous above and white below, tipped with black."

As soon as I had stripped the skins, with the leg-bones still attached, from my two beautiful specimens, I had them carried, together with the skulls, to Gugawi's kraal, on the edge of the bush, and there spent the remainder of the day in preparing them for mounting. Of the meat, which was all brought in, I sent a couple of haunches over to Mr. Wissels, and then, after keeping a small piece for myself, gave the remainder to Gugawi, to divide amongst his people as he thought fit.

Next morning I was up and out in the bush just as day was breaking, accompanied only by my guide of yesterday and Longman, who, however, kept some distance behind, in order to allow my guide and myself to approach our game as noiselessly as possible. We had been creeping about in the dense jungle for some three hours without having seen anything, although there was a good deal of fresh spoor about, and twice we had heard inyalas dash away through the bush without getting a sight of them, when suddenly my guide crouched to the ground, at the same time pointing towards a large ant-heap growing out of the dense scrub, and itself covered with undergrowth. Following the direction of his arm, I made out a reddish patch not fifteen yards away in the gloom of the bush; and, taking it for an inyala doe, I fired into it point-blank, as I required another specimen for mounting. At the shot, the animal fell, and on creeping up to it, I found that it was a young male. It was something less in size than a full-grown female, from which it did not differ in any way in coloration and the number and distribution of white stripes and spots. It was thus interesting, as showing that the male inyala changes in general colour from bright red to dark grey, only losing the rufous and orange tints on the ears and forehead—which were still conspicuous in the type specimen described by Mr. Angas—when fully adult.

As it was now getting on for midday, I had the young inyala carried forthwith to the kraal, where I remained until about four o'clock, then again sallied forth, and did another two hours' jungle-creeping before dark. I saw an inyala doe, and could have fired at her, but, thinking there might have been a male accompanying her, did not care to do so too hurriedly, and whilst I was straining my eyes peering into the bush all around her, she either saw or winded me, and bounded off, quite alone as far as I could make out.

Early the following morning I was again in the bush, and just after sunrise came on a male inyala close to the river. He was standing behind a mass of tree stems, with just his tail showing on one side and part of his head on the other. He was evidently looking at us, and as I knew he would be off in a moment, giving but little chance of a shot, I thought I had better try and put a bullet into him through an interstice amongst the tree stems, where I could see what I took to be part of his neck. I made a bad shot, however, as my bullet, instead of passing through the opening, imbedded itself in the wood of one of the tree stems, and the inyala went off uninjured.

On returning to the kraal, Gugawi proposed to take me to a spot some few miles higher up the Usutu, where he said there were plenty of inyalas, whilst at the same time the bush was not so dense as near his kraal. Being by this time thoroughly sick of crawling about bent nearly double, I hailed with delight the idea of finding the game I was seeking in a country where I could walk upright, and visions of inyalas feeding through open glades passed through my mind—visions, alas, which were never realised, for in my small experience I never found these antelopes anywhere except in dense bush. However, I was glad of the change, and soon had everything ready for a move.

In the afternoon we travelled some five or six miles up the river, and pitched camp in a bit of jungle near the water's edge. The Usutu river is here very broad, and reminded me strongly of parts of the Chobi; but whereas the banks of the latter river, as I knew it in the early 'seventies, abounded in game of many descriptions, from the elephant downwards, there was not a track to be seen along the Usutu of any kind of animal with the exception of the inyala. All the wealth of wild life which Baldwin saw in this same district in 1854 had melted away before the guns of the native Amatonga hunters; for, be it noted, this is a country in which but very little game has been killed by white men. Rhinoceroses, buffaloes, koodoos, waterbucks, impalas, lions,—all are gone, the only game left being the inyalas, which owe their preservation to the dense jungles in which they live; and even they are being rapidly killed off, as the natives are always after them, lying in wait for them in the paths made by the hippopotamuses or creeping stealthily through the bush in their pursuit.

Curiously enough, in these thickets, where inyalas are so numerous, there are very few bushbucks, although the surroundings are in every respect suited to their requirements. I can only account for the scarcity of the bushbucks, where inyalas are plentiful, by supposing that the latter animals will not tolerate the former—considering them too nearly akin to themselves to make good neighbours; for a male bushbuck might be excused, I think, for making love to an inyala doe, which scarcely differs from one of his own females in any way except size, and that probably not to a sufficient degree to stop his advances during the rutting season; which, of course, would be resented by the male inyala, and the latter being the more powerful animal, has been able to drive his rival out of his preserves. If jealousy is not answerable for the scarcity of bushbucks in these jungles where inyalas are so plentiful, I fail to understand why the former animals should be so numerous lower down the river under exactly similar conditions, except that there there are no inyalas.

In the open expanse of water, some half a mile in breadth, just opposite our camp, several hippopotamuses were grunting and playing about on our arrival, and as long as we remained here there were always some of these animals in sight. In the evening I went out after inyala, but though I saw plenty of spoor, I did not catch sight of one of the animals themselves. Soon after dark a heavy thunderstorm came up from the south, and continued with much lightning and torrents of rain till long after midnight. Having neither a tent nor a waterproof sheet, I, like my native companions, of course got soaking wet; and we had to sit shivering in our drenched blankets until daylight, as the heavy rains had put our fires out and we could not get another alight, everything being wet.

Soon after dawn, however, we managed to get a fire under way, and I then had a cup of warm coffee. Just as the sun was rising I went out into the dripping bush, and returned to camp dry and warm before midday. In spite of what Gugawi had said as to the bush being more open round this camp than near his own kraal, I found but little difference, and should describe all the bush in which I hunted on the Usutu river as dense jungle. In the course of the morning I just caught a glimpse of an inyala—a male evidently by his colour—but failed to get a shot at him. I also saw a large number of the beautiful crested guinea-fowls, which in this district seem to be more numerous than the common South African species. During the heat of the day I remained at our bivouac, and, as the sun was intensely hot, managed to thoroughly dry all my belongings, which had got so wet during the previous night's rain. In the evening I again went out into the bush, and just at dusk caught sight of the hind-quarters of an antelope amongst the thick scrub ahead of me. The light was fast failing, and although I felt sure it was an inyala, as there were apparently no other kinds of antelopes in the district, yet I could not in the least tell whether it was a male or female, but, hoping for the best, fired, and saw nothing more.

On forcing my way through the scrub to where the animal had been when I fired, I found a fine inyala doe lying on the ground, just on the point of death, the bullet having struck her in the left thigh and passed through the whole length of her body into the cavity of the chest. Although disappointed that it was not a male, I skinned her carefully for mounting; and she now forms part of the fine collection of South African mammalia which is in the Museum at Cape Town.

It would be but tedious reading were I to continue to describe in detail my further bush-crawling experiences in search of inyalas. Suffice it to say that, on October 1 and 2, I secured two more fine males, whose heads I preserved for my own collection. Although I should have liked to have got a fourth male for the South African Museum, I did not think it prudent to remain any longer in my camp on the edge of a swamp, where I knew the air must be reeking with malarial poison, as, besides the exhalations from the marsh, the ground (from which I was only separated at nights by a little dry grass and a blanket) had been soaked to the depth of two feet by the recent rain, thus rendering the conditions more than usually unhealthy. The weather, too, was now again looking very threatening, and I did not relish the idea of any further lying out in the rain; as I knew, from former experience, that I should probably have to pay for the wettings I had already suffered, by some attacks of fever—a disease from which I had been entirely exempt for seven years, but the poison of which I knew was still in my blood, and would be likely to be again stirred into activity by my recent exposure to unhealthy conditions.

Hence, on Saturday, October 3, I packed up my things and returned to Gugawi's kraal, walking on in the afternoon to Mr. Wissels's store. At Gugawi's I met an Englishman, who informed me that he had come down from Barberton, and was travelling about amongst the Amatonga, buying skins of wild cats, jackals, etc., which he hoped to sell again at a profit to the Kafirs working in the mines in the Transvaal. He seemed much surprised when I told him that I had only come to Amatongaland in order to shoot an inyala, and frequently remarked in the course of our conversation, "Well, I'm ——; so you've come all this —— way to shoot a —— buck." He also informed me that he was not very well, as he had been "on the burst" for the last three days; but this confidence was superfluous, as no one could have approached within ten yards of him without realising his condition.

On my arrival at the store I was disappointed to find that Mr. Wissels was absent, having again returned to Delagoa Bay for another cargo of maize. Had he been at home, I should have endeavoured to obtain a specimen of Livingstone's antelope—a species which I have never shot, and which Mr. Wissels had informed me was numerous in most of the jungles near his store. These little animals are very similar in habits to the diminutive blue buck of Natal, and as they inhabit dense bush, are not often shot, except by driving, and Mr. Wissels had promised that when I returned to his station he would collect a lot of Kafirs and get up a drive for me. However, as I did not know when he would return, and was anxious to get back to Kimberley as soon as possible now that I had accomplished the main object of my journey, I did not care about waiting for him, but determined to get on as quickly as possible. Had Mr. Wissels been at home I should probably have returned to Delagoa Bay by boat, but now I had the prospect of an eighty-mile walk. I had no difficulty in getting carriers, as Gugawi's men, who had brought my things to the store, and with whom I had been associated for the last week, volunteered to go on with me to Delagoa Bay; and it pleased me very much to find that they did not insist on being paid beforehand, but trusted to my honour to deal fairly with them.

On the evening of the day on which I returned to Mr. Wissels's store, the weather looked very unsettled; but on the following morning all signs of rain had cleared off, and the sun rose red and fiery in a cloudless sky. I got away early, and on the evening of the third day slept within sight of the lights amongst the shipping in Delagoa Bay. During those three days the heat had been intense, and in those eighty miles I never put my foot on a piece of firm ground, but plodded painfully through deep white sand, like the soft sand of the sea-shore. Indeed, all this flat country to the south of Delagoa Bay must once have been at the bottom of the sea—from which it has been upheaved probably at no very distant time, geologically speaking, as I noticed that the patches of sandy soil which were under cultivation were full of oyster and other sea-shells. Water seemed to be everywhere close below the surface, but was not good—having an unhealthy, slimy taste, and making bad tea. Indeed, except in the actual stream of the Usutu river, I never tasted anything but swamp water during this trip. As I tramped along mile after mile in the deep sand and beneath the blazing sun, I could not but think regretfully of my elephant-hunting days of over twenty years before, when I used to do the same sort of work day after day and month after month without feeling it, and got up every morning without an ache or pain, fresh and ready for the next day's work. But one cannot last for ever; and on this long weary tramp there were moments when I would have given a good deal for a horse, or even a donkey, and on the first day's walk the sun gave me a bad headache.

On the evening of the first and the morning of the second day we passed through some quite uninhabited country, and here I shot two duiker antelopes and a steinbuck. I also saw some quite fresh elephant spoor, and just caught a glimpse of a little Livingstone's antelope, whose local name is "schlengarn," in a patch of thick bush. The country was looking fresh and green, with the sprouting grass after the recent heavy rains; and hundreds of beetles were now running over the sand, which was a good deal more than warm. Indeed, it was so hot that I think a baboon would have hesitated to sit down on it.

But my weary tramp came to an end at last, and early on the morning of October 7 I crossed the Bay of Delagoa to the town of LourenÇo Marques, and, thanks to the kind assistance of Mr. Edixhoven, got all my specimens packed and conveyed on board the Pembroke Castle the same day, for transport to England, where they duly arrived in very good order.

The same evening I left Delagoa Bay by train for the Transvaal, and finally reached Kimberley on October 10. Here I had a slight attack of malarial fever—a matter of a few hours only—succeeded by two more in Cape Town, and a final attack on board ship on my way to England. But these attacks were very slight and only lasted for a few hours at a time, and I can only say, with Drummond, that ample amends have been made for any little inconveniences I may have suffered, by the pleasure of the thought that I have not only added a pair of inyala heads to my own private collection, but have also enriched our National Museum of Natural History with two beautiful specimens of this rare and handsome antelope.