ZEBRAS AND THEIR CHARACTERISTICS 161 



extraordinary beauty. The first have a very little 

 head and pretty long ears ; they are all covered over 

 with black and white streaks that reach from their 

 back to their belly, about four or five fingers broad." 

 Here the mountain zebra is evidently intended, and 

 the description is not unlike. But. passing to the 

 Wilde esel (quagga), Tachard reproduces nothing but 

 fancy or false report : " As for the asses, they are of 

 all colours. They have a long blue list that reaches 

 from head to tail; the body being like that of the 

 horse, full of broad streaks — blue, yellow, green, 

 black, and white, all very lively." Poor Tachard 1 

 the early Dutch settlers had evidently hoaxed him, 

 unless his imagination ran away with him ! Kolben, 

 who was at the Cape in the first decade of 1700, 

 also trusts to his ears and not to his eyes in 

 describing the zebra or quagga. He too speaks of 

 the Cape wild ass as streaked with " white, blue, 

 and chestnut." Kolben's woodcut of the zebra is 

 nothing but the figure of a stout pony, striped, and 

 carrying a flowing mane and tail. Too evidently 

 Kolben's portrait was, like his written description, 

 purely an effort of imagination. 



Now and again we get in bygone days other brief 

 mention of the zebra. Tellez informs us that the 

 Great Mogul paid 2000 ducats for a specimen. 

 Nauendorf relates that the Governor of Batavia, to 

 whom a zebra had been presented by an Abyssinian 



