If We Had Been Starving,
I Could Have Slaughtered Them With As Little Hesitation As I Should Cut Off
A Patient's Leg; But I Felt A Doubt, And The Antelopes Got The Benefit Of It.
Have They A Guardian Spirit Over Them?
I have repeatedly observed,
when I approached a herd lying beyond an ant-hill with a tree on it,
and viewed them with the greatest caution, they very soon showed
symptoms of uneasiness.
They did not sniff danger in the wind,
for I was to leeward of them; but the almost invariable apprehension of danger
which arose, while unconscious of the direction in which it lay,
made me wonder whether each had what the ancient physicians thought
we all possessed, an archon, or presiding spirit.
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* I propose to name this new species `Antilope Vardonii',
after the African traveler, Major Vardon.
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If we could ascertain the most fatal spot in an animal, we could dispatch it
with the least possible amount of suffering; but as that is probably
the part to which the greatest amount of nervous influence is directed
at the moment of receiving the shot, if we can not be sure
of the heart or brain, we are never certain of speedy death.
Antelopes, formed for a partially amphibious existence,
and other animals of that class, are much more tenacious of life
than those which are purely terrestrial. Most antelopes,
when in distress or pursued, make for the water. If hunted, they always do.
A leche shot right through the body, and no limb-bone broken, is almost sure
to get away, while a zebra, with a wound of no greater severity,
will probably drop down dead.
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