OCR Text |
Show 594 ON THE GAZELLES OF ALGERIA. [May 2, stony Gantaras that crop up out of the sand in this part of the Sahara as well as in the " Dhaias " or " Houaths," or depressions in the desert where the wind has swept the bottom clear of sand. The Rime is found, generally speaking, in any part of the Sahara where sand predominates and where there is vegetation and where rain has fallen, though you may travel for days even in parts of this purely sand-dune country or in the Erg without coming across it. Throughout the Algerian Sahara the Rime is very difficult to approach even where very numerous, much more so than tbe Dorcas; in m y experience, it is shyer, much more easily scared, goes further when disturbed, and is much more on the alert than the Dorcas. This, I think, is largely clue to the fact that every Chambi or Arab of the south carries a gun and many of them have greyhounds (the Sloughi) ; many are professional hunters for meat to supply the markets of El Oued, Ouargla, Ghadamis, and other towns. I have during the past few weeks seen many hundreds of Rime and have only secured four specimens, only once having obtained a shot at less than 400 yards. I devoted six days to hunting them from two camps and only got two, the only two chances I bad, excluding a long galloping shot from the shoulder. In this district the Rime appeared to avoid the dunes where approach would have been possible, and kept to the bare level plateaux of the Gantaras " or the plains of the Dhaias. Further south, in the Erg and in the waterless region between A'in Tai'ba and Ghadamis, the Rime is less sophisticated, and my Chaambi hunter told me that he had hunted in this country at places where water is 20 days apart and had been able to kill many Rimes. On one occasion he and two other professional hunters were 50 days hunting, and killed 90 Rimes and 7 Addaxes, returning from time to time to Ghadamis to dispose of the meat. I may remark that it appears to m e that the meat being putrid makes little difference in its saleable value. I have seen camel-loads of stinking Gazelle- and Addax-meat brought into Ouargla market and sold by auction to crowds of eager buvers. Only men accustomed to the country aud able to bear the fatigue of long days of fast travelling on Mehara, and indifferent to thirst and the severe labour of hunting in deep sand, could succeed in the places these men frequent. The nearest point to Ouargla where Addax have been killed this year (1899) has been 3 days south of Ai'n Tai'ba. 1 Gantara or Kantara in Arabic literally means a bridge, and is a term used by the Arabs to describe the ridges and plateaux of rock (? or gypsum) that crop up in the sand-desert: as a rule the Gantaras are ridges banked by sand hills running parallel with the Oueds or surrounding the Houaths, |