January we goi fuch a quantity of fine and tender fat, as we could with difficulty get into a box that would hold about ten pounds of butter. As at the commencement of our journey homewards through the defert, the hounds we had with us had unluckily devoured our ftock of butter, a farmer, who ftill accompanied us, ihewed us how to prepare the fat from about the heart of the elk, and to ufe it for dreifing victuals .with, and for eating on bread in the fame manner as is generally practifed with goofe-greafe and hogs-lard. The tafte of it alfo was very fimilar to thefe, and to the full as good ; and, indeed, i f I may be fuppofed to have been able to form any judgment of the matter at a time when we were fo iharp let, and in abfolute want of any thing elfe o f the kind, it was rather better. The breaft is likewife extremely fat, and is always looked upon as a great delicacy. The fleih is univerfally of a finer grain, more juicy and better tailed than that of the hart- beejl. When the elk-antilopes are hunted, they always run, i f poifible, againft the wind, even though the hunter himfelf ihould come from that fide, and attempt to drive them back. I have myfelf feen a moil evident inftance o f this, when on a hunting party with three others. In fa<£t, it is fuppofed, that being very fat and purfy, they find it eaiier to fetch their breath when they run againft the wind. They moft- ly keep together in large herds, and were fuppofed to migrate now and then to the fouthward, like the fpring- boks, when any great drought, or failure with refpe£l to rain and water, happens in the interior or northern parts o f Africa. Juft before our departure from Agter Bruntjes- boogie, fome Hottentots arrived there with the news, that they they had feen, between the two Vifch-riviers, an infinite number o f elks, which juft at that place turned back again and made towards the north. This piece of intelligence was in probability very true ; for on our return homewards, we found feveral fpots, which before were green and covered with herbage, grazed off quite bare, and al- moft as much beaten and trampled- under foot, as a place of encampment for cavalry. It was imagined, that fuch large herds as thefe, either would not deign to make way for any huntfmen on horfeback, or elfe that the foremoft of them could not avoid making fome refiftance, on account of thofe in the rear prelfing upon them. I f this were the cafe, it would have been a great misfortune for our fmall party to have met with this army of quadrupeds, as they would, in all probability, have jumped over our heads and trod us under foot, in cafe we had not had time or room enough to have got on one fide out of their way. The male elks, which are rather aged, and confequently flow and tardy, keep apart from the reft of the herd; and are generally fo fat and heavy, as, in cafe of being chafed, to tire immediately on the firft onfet. And indeed, o f the elk fpecies, the males are always the fatteft and largeft in the herd, and have evidently a fuller neck than the others; it is likewife thefe, that the hunter Angles out and is fure to come up with firft. I have been affured by feveral people, that fome of the younger and fleeter, but at the fame time fatter fort of bucks, will fometimes, when they are hard run, drop down dead during the chafe; and that melted fat, as it were, together with the blood, would at that time guih out of their noftrils. V o l . II. E e Being
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