HOW THEY RECONNOITRE.

Otago Witness, Issue 2509, 16 April 1902, Page 53

HOW THEY RECONNOITRE.

First of all he would do as a Boer scout dejes — climb to the top of some kopje commanding wide views over the "veldt in all direction^ and remain there if need be for hour 3, lying quiet all the while lest he should startle some birds or wild animals that happened to be near him, and thus betray his whereabouts. Anything that moves there can be seen by him a leagtv' off. If it gets behind some detached hill which screens it from view, he will wait long enough to satisfy himself whether tho game has doubled back or gone off in n fresh direction, or is quietly browsing on the le verse slope In the last ea-e he makes up his m:nd to get nearer and descends from hi- post of observation cautiously, knowing full well t'>nt they havp sentries somewhere 011 tl'c crest of that hill. His horse will stop, if np"d be. where* he left it ; so, bending low to dodge from reck to rock, or creeoi.is: through iousr gva%s. or running along the bed of a div watereoui-e. he can approach unseen to within a few hundred yards of the hill where thc-e sentinel antelopes are stationed. Then ho lies clo e e, keeping s-teadfaft watch 0:1 the skyline, where every moving object will bp clearly visible in sharp silhouette against the cleaJ licht While lip crouches thero. huddling beneath a bank so that the' wind as it sweeps over him can liaidlv catch the taint of his presence, hundred- of small dec;- iray cros«i t!-.p voldt close by. but he will aiot run th« •i-k of «tartbnjr them by a sonrd. The hunter who i< aftpr eland cr wildebeest doe=. not ?lmot at t-pringbok, but le's them so by while ho vatehps those sentinels, whom movement- tell him cxactlv what the Rieaf hold i- dome? behind the lull.