The Ruined Cities of ZululandWalmsley, Hugh Mulleneux
History
The Ruined Cities of Zululand
Walmsley, Hugh Mulleneux
South Africa -- Description and travel; Zululand (South Africa)
The colour of the males is a rusty yellow, with a brownish tinge here
and there, giving place to reddish tufts of hair running down the face.
The head small in proportion to the body, which is heavily and
powerfully built. The eyes full, large, and soft, and the horns sloping
backwards and twisted spirally. Taught by former experience, the hunter
lay concealed behind the rocks. Masheesh, Luji, and Noti making a long
circuit, came upon the rear of the eland, who were quietly grazing like
tame deer in a park. The old buck, who generally led the herd, would
soon take the alarm, and, raising his head, gaze around. Uttering a
whistling cry, the rest would gather round him, as they moved away in
single file for the hill-side. The alarm would spread, and at one
moment there could not have been less than a hundred and fifty eland
moving near them across the plain. Still the hunter's rifle was not
heard, for the deer had taken a wrong direction. At length, a troop of
ten headed straight for the rock where Captain Hughes lay; the loud
report of his rifle rang out, still more startling the flying antelope,
while a deer, bounding several feet into the air, fell stone dead, shot
through the heart. The eland was a female, easily distinguished as such
from the very great difference of colour, being of a light pale yellow,
with a splendid pair of spirally-twisted horns. Without moving, the
hunter waited, hoping that some of the herds, now wildly scouring the
plain, would come within shot. Trotting jauntily along, his little feet
hardly seeming to touch the ground, a young eland came to the side of
the dead mother. It was of a different colour to the female. Of a pale
orange tint, the horns were short, and not twisted. There were many
mouths to feed in camp, and the child eland was three parts grown.
Again the sharp crack of the rifle was heard ringing across the plain,
and the young antelope fell dead close to the mother, just as a herd of
seven came bounding along at top speed within fifteen paces of the
ambush. Seizing a spare rifle, the hunter sighted the leader of the
troop, and a third sharp report woke up the echoes of the rocks. His
foreleg broken, the eland still galloped on, his speed much diminished
but yet considerable. Dashing after them came Masheesh, his long
straight spear in his hand, his ostrich plume streaming backwards in the
wind, his limbs naked save the usual ox hide round the waist. Singling
out the wounded buck, the Matabele brave followed it. Its foreleg
hanging useless, still the antelope struggled on, bidding fair to get
away, but Noti headed it, and the animal came struggling along, in a
direction which would lead it to within ten paces of the savage chief.
Poising the long bright assegai, Masheesh stood for a moment motionless,
while a gleam of light seemed to traverse the air, and the antelope fell
heavily forward. The next, Masheesh bent over the struggling deer, the
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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