United States [North Dakota] 1832
George Catlin, Illustrations of the Manners, Customs, & Condition of the North American Indians. With Letters and Notes, Written During Eight Years of Travel and Adventure Among the Wildest and Most Remarkable Tribes now Existing, Volume I, Chatto & Windus, London, 1876, Letter No. 10. Mandan Village, Upper Missouri.
The antelope of this country, I believe to be different from all other known varieties, and forms one of the most pleasing, living ornaments to this western world. They are seen in some places in great numbers sporting and playing about the hills and dales; and often, in flocks of fifty or a hundred, will follow the boat of the descending voyageur, or the travelling caravan, for hours together; keeping off at a safe distance, on the right or left, galloping up and down the hills, snuffing their noses and stamping their feet; as if they were endeavouring to remind the traveller of the wicked trespass he was making on their own hallowed ground.
[Side note:] This little animal seems to be endowed, like many other gentle and sweet-breathing creatures, with an undue share of curiosity, which often leads them to destruction; and the hunter who wishes to entrap them, saves himself the trouble of travelling after them. When he has been discovered, he has only to elevate above the tops of the grass, his red or yellow handkerchief on the end of his gun-rod …, which he sticks in the ground, and to which they are sure to advance, though with great coyness and caution; whilst he lies close, at a little distance, with his rifle in hand; when it is quite an easy matter to make sure of two or three at a shot, which he gets in range of his eye, to be pierced with one bullet.
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Botswana and Namibia circa 1849
David Livingstone, Missionary Travels and Researches in South Africa, 1857, Chapter 2.
The space [Kalahari Desert] from the Orange River in the south, lat. 29 Degrees, to Lake Ngami in the north, and from about 24 Degrees east long. to near the west coast, has been called a desert simply because it contains no running water, and very little water in wells. It is by no means destitute of vegetation and inhabitants …. [A]nd prodigious herds of certain antelopes, which require little or no water, roam over the trackless plains.
Id., at Chapter 3.
Here, though the water was perfectly inaccessible to elands [species of antelope], large numbers of these fine animals fed around us; and, when killed, they were not only in good condition, but their stomachs actually contained considerable quantities of water.
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Zambia circa 1852
David Livingstone, Missionary Travels and Researches in South Africa, 1857, Chapters 11 and 12.
Troops of leches, or, as they are here called, “lechwes”, appeared feeding quite heedlessly all over the flats; they exist here in prodigious herds, although the numbers of them and of the “nakong” that are killed annually must be enormous. Both are water antelopes, and, when the lands we now tread upon are flooded, they betake themselves to the mounds I have alluded
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Leches in hundreds fed securely beside them, for they have learned only to keep out of bow-shot, or two hundred yards. When guns come into a country the animals soon learn their longer range, and begin to run at a distance of five hundred yards.
