viii PREFACE 



The days when enthusiastic explorers traversed for 

 the first time those vast 



" Unfooted plains, where feed the herds of Pan," 



are long since gone by, and the naturalist and sports- 

 man of the present time can but look back with an 

 infinite regret to the lamentable and incredible waste 

 which has swept from existence so much of the appar- 

 ently inexhaustible fauna of but two generations since. 

 The spectacle of South Africa a mere void and 

 lifeless stretch of country, bereft ol those magnificent 

 throngs of wild creatures, which men still in middle 

 age can easily remember, is too hateful to contem- 

 plate ; yet such a spectacle is now within measurable 

 distance of accomplishment. If the attention of the 

 public at home and in South Africa can be seriously 

 directed to this subject ; if the remnant of the wild 

 game still left south of the Zambesi can be saved 

 from the fate of utter extinction — a fate which, from 

 present appearances, looks like being realized within 

 the next thirty years — the writing and publication 

 of these pages will not have been wholly in vain. 



Some portions of this book have appeared in the 

 Field, the Saturday Beview, the Fortnightly Beview, 

 Chamhers's Journal, the Fall Mall Magazine, and 

 Baily^s Magazine. I desire to thank the editors 

 of these publications for their kindly permission to 

 reprint here. 



H.'A. Bryden. 



Septemher 1897. 



