The genuine hunter is a hardy, indefatigable walker. Experience teaches him in what direction the herd is likely to stop, and to that he bends his steps. Again he conceals himself and repeats the former manœuvre. In this manner, in the course of the day, he can bring down three or four gazelles, which his friends or servants will lift up and carry to the camp in triumph. In the spring time, when the _djedi_, or fawns, sleep amidst the _alfa_, having taken their fill of the milk of their mother, it is easy to catch a dozen or fifteen of them in a single morning. It is the old hind that generally betrays them. But not such is the sport of persons of distinction, of the real horsemen. What the great chiefs affect is to hunt them on horseback. A dozen or fifteen cavaliers take the field, accompanied by their servants, and seven or eight greyhounds, and carrying with them tents and provisions. Directing their course towards a place where gazelles are usually found, they ride forward at a venture. When a herd of gazelles appears in the distance, they proceed towards it, covering their advance as much as possible by means of shrubs and the inequalities of the ground. When they get within a quarter of a league, the attendants who hold the hounds in leash, squeezing their throats to prevent them from giving tongue, dismount and let them slip. No sooner do they find themselves free than they go off like an arrow, the Arabs stimulating them to still greater speed by shouts and passionate invocations: "My brother! my lord! my friend! there they are!" The horsemen follow leisurely at a gentle gallop, so as not to be quite thrown out; and behind them comes the baggage. The best greyhounds will not fairly overtake the herd until after a course of two or three leagues. Then, at last, the spectacle becomes full of incident and interest. A thoroughbred greyhound picks out the finest animal of the herd, and springs forward. A contest of agility and swiftness ensues. The gazelle doubles, now to the right, now to the left, bounds forwards and backwards, leaps even over the greyhound, and strives sometimes to throw him out, sometimes to strike him with its horns. Its windings and doublings are all to no purpose. Ardent and indefatigable, its enemy hangs close upon its track. When on the point of being pulled down it utters plaintive cries, and chants, as it were, its death song—song of death to it, but of victory to the greyhound who seizes it by the back of the neck, and snaps the vertebral column with its teeth. The gazelle falls to the ground, and lies motionless at the feet of the victor, until the hunters come up and cut the throat of the still living animal.