162 NATURE AND SPORT IN SOUTH AFRICA 



ambassador, despatched the animal as a gift to the 

 Emperor of China, who in his turn sent the Dutch 

 East India Company 10,000 tael of silver and thirty 

 nightgowns, valued altogether at 160,000 crowns. 

 About the middle of the last century a liviog example 

 of the true zebra, the property of Frederick, Prince 

 of Wales, son of George II, was kept at Kew. There 

 is an excellent cut of this animal in Brook's 

 NatiwaX History, clearly showing it to be the 

 mountain zebra {Equus zebra) ; and the animal no 

 doubt came from the Dutch settlement at the Cape 

 of Good Hope. About this time (1742) the Cape 

 authorities issued an order prohibiting the destruction 

 of zebras in their settlements, under a penalty of £10 ; 

 and they were then offering premiums of £20 each 

 for young animals delivered in Cape Town. As 

 a general rule, however (notwithstanding the Kew 

 zebra, Brook's Natural History, and the reports 

 of occasional travellers from the Cape), so little was 

 known about the zebra, even towards the latter end 

 of the last century, that at furriers' shops in Europe 

 the skins were sold as " sea-horse hides." 



Sparrmann, the Swedish traveller, who explored 

 the Cape interior in 1772, is one of the first to give 

 us any accurate intelligence of the zebra and quagga. 

 Mr. Barrow (afterwards Sir John Barrow of the 

 Admiralty), secretary to Earl Macartney, Governor 

 at the Cape in 1797, adds some very interesting in- 



