Note 61 — THE MIGRATIONS OF MAMMALS.
Margaret R. Thomson translation
[Note 61] p. 258.—Numbers of Springbok.
“I beheld the plains and even the hillsides which stretched on every side of me thickly covered, not with herds, but with one vast mass of springboks; as far as the eye could strain the landscape was alive with them, until they softened down into a dim red mass of living creatures. To endeavour to form any idea of the number of antelopes which I had that day beheld were vain, but I have no hesitation in saying that some hundreds of thousands were within the compass of my vision.”—Gordon Cumming. With this should be compared what other sportsmen and travellers have in recent years told us of rapidly diminishing numbers.