CHAPTER XVIII 



THE LAST OF SOUTH AFRICA's GAME HAUNTS 



Decrease of game in South Africa — Journey from Mashunaland to 

 the East African coast — Find country full of game — Elephants 



Great herds of buffaloes — Five old bulls — Bushbucks— Other 



antelopes and zebras — Curiosity of the latter animals — Wart- 

 hogs, bush-pigs, and hippopotamuses — Numbers of carnivorous 

 animals — Three Hons seen — Fine male wounded, and subse- 

 quently killed. 



During the twenty years succeeding my first 

 arrival in South Africa in 187 1, I had constantly 

 wandered and hunted over vast areas of country, 

 from the Cape Colony to far away north of the 

 Zambesi, and in that time had seen game of 

 all kinds — from the elephants, rhinoceroses, and 

 buffaloes of the forest regions north of the Limpopo 

 river to the wildebeests, blesboks, and springbucks 

 of the southern plains — gradually decrease and 

 dwindle in numbers to such an extent that I 

 thought that nowhere south of the great lakes 

 could there be a corner of Africa left where the 

 wild animals had not been very much thinned out, 

 either as a result of the opening up and settlement 

 of the country by Europeans or owing to the 

 extensive acquisition of firearms by the native 

 tribes. 



In the year 1891, however, when attempting, on 

 behalf of the British South Africa Company, to 

 discover a route free from the tse-tse fly between 



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