“During the pursuit of the Zebra, which was confined to the most steep and elevated parts of this rugged range, I repeatedly fell in with and killed the Klipspringer. Once extremely abundant in the Cape Colony, it is now daily becoming more rare--the venison being deservedly reputed among the first that the country affords, whilst the elastic hair is sought above all other materials for the stuffing of saddles. Long, padded, and standing out vertically from the side, it resembles moss in texture, and constitutes, as in the chamois of the Alps, a natural cushion to protect the animal from the contusions to which its habits must render it constantly liable. No antelope possesses more completely the lively gambolling manners of the young kid--none bound with greater force or precision from rock to rock, or clear the yawning abyss with more fearless activity. Found usually in pairs among the most precipitous rocks, and inaccessible summits, the Klipspringer would appear in Southern Africa to supply the place of the ibex and chamois; and such is the rigidity of its stiff pasterns, and the singular formation of the high cylindrical hoof, that even when at speed there is no track left but by the tips of the toes, whereas every other class of ruminant would leave, under similar circumstances, some traces also of the spurious hoofs. The most trifling obliquity or ruggedness of surface thus affording a secure foothold, the little animal, ‘whose house is on the hill-top,’ entertains a sense of self-security which oftentimes proves its ruin. Looking down from some craggy pinnacle, as if in derision of the vain efforts of its pursuer, it presents to the rifle the fairest of targets; and tumbled headlong from its elevated perch, pays the penalty of its rashness. Missed, it bounds from ledge to ledge, on which the human eye can mark no footing--balancing at one moment upon the giddy verge of a precipice where barely sufficient space exists for the hoof to rest--at the next casting itself recklessly into the bottomless chasm, and pitching, as if by miracle, upon some projecting peak, where all four feet appear to be gathered into the space of one. Another spring, and, clear of the intervening gulf, it is nimbly scaling yon perpendicular barrier, that resembles the wall of a lofty citadel--and now it is sweeping securely away over the naked and polished tablets of granite which pave the summits of those elevated regions.”