A few years back
this veldt swarmed with big game, with elephants and giraffes, and
they are even now occasionally seen. We managed now and again to get
a glimpse of some of the beautiful "Impala" buck, or of a small lot of
blue wilderbeestes vanishing between the trees, like a troop of wild
horses. There are still plenty of lions about, but we did not hear any:
whether it was that they had gone to the high-veldt after the cattle, or
that they do not roar so much in summer, I do not know. Perhaps it is as
well that we did not, for the roar of a lion is very generally followed
by what the Dutch call a "skrech." After roaring once or twice to wake
the cattle up, and make them generally uneasy, the lion stations himself
about twenty yards to the windward of the waggon. The oxen get wind of
him and promptly "skrech," that is, break their rims and run madly into
the veldt. This is just what the lion wants, for now he can pick out a
fat ox and quietly approach him from the other side till he is within
springing distance.
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