160 NATURE AND SPORT IN SOUTH AFRICA 



inents, and the nearness of their land to habitats of 

 the zebra, this is somewhat remarkable. The giraffe 

 once or twice appears, but the zebra, so far as we 

 can learn, never; and this although the lion, and 

 many kinds of antelope, as well as other animals, 

 are to be found frequently displayed. The name 

 zebra is undoubtedly of African origin, and is supposed 

 to have been derived or corrupted from Zeuru, Zeora, 

 or Zecora, native North-East African names. 



The earliest glimpse of the animal in history 

 reaches us from the reign of Caracalla, when 

 a Mppotigris — together with an elephant, a rhi- 

 noceros, and a tiger — was displayed in the amphi- 

 theatre. In the time of Philip the Arabian, a 

 later Emperor, A.D. 244, twenty zebras were dis- 

 played together. After the Roman Empire, little 

 or nothing can be gleaned of this interesting beast 

 until comparatively recent times. Taohard, a Jesuit 

 priest, who sojourned at the Cape on his way to 

 Siam soon after the middle of the seventeenth 

 century, makes mention of the animal under the 

 name Zcinbra. He evidently obtained his particulars 

 at second hand, for his woodcuts are monstrosities, 

 and his descriptions wildly ludicrous. The early 

 Cape Dutch christened the mountain zebra Wilde 

 faard (wild horse), and the quagga Wilde esel (wild 

 ass) ; and Tachard flounders terribly in consequence. 

 He says : " There are both horses and asses here of 



