VIII FORMER ABUNDANCE OF BUFFALOES 145 



with food. But, of course, the life I led at that time, 

 and the continual hard walking and running necessary 

 to earn my living, kept me in perfect training. 



In the interior of South Africa, where the nights 

 are very cold in the winter-time, buffaloes used to 

 get fairly abundant but never thick coats when in 

 their prime. The calves, which were born during 

 January, February, and March, were, when very 

 young, covered with soft hair of a reddish brown 

 colour, but as they grew, the reddish tinge gradually 

 disappeared and they became dun coloured. They 

 did not turn black until they were fully three years 

 of age. The hair of the Cape buffalo when full-grown 

 was always quite black and very coarse. The large 

 ears were bordered with long fringes of soft black 

 hair, and the end of the tail carried a good-sized 

 tassel. When old, both bull and cow buffaloes 

 lost most of their hair, first on the middle of the 

 back ; but the baldness gradually increased until 

 very old animals of this species became almost as 

 hairless as a rhinoceros. 



In the early 'seventies buffaloes were everywhere 

 very plentiful along the Zambesi and its tributaries, 

 but nowhere so abundant as along the Chobi river. 

 So numerous were they along both banks of this 

 river, that one would have thought that they had 

 reached the very limits of their food-supply. They 

 were usually found consorting together in herds of 

 from fifty or sixty to two or three hundred individuals. 

 Once I saw what I think must have been several 

 large herds collected together, as the total number 

 of the troop could not have been less than a thousand. 

 A grass fire had probably destroyed the pasture on 

 the ground where several herds had lately been 

 living, and they were all moving up the river 

 together in search of food. In districts where 

 buffaloes were plentiful, old bulls, which had either 

 been driven from the herds by younger animals 



