164 NATUEE AND SPORT IN SOUTH AFRICA 



upon every mountain range of Southern Africa, from 

 Great Namaqualand to Swaziland. Now, alas ! only 

 a scanty, remnant — a few small troops here and there 

 — linger in the Cape Colony, in the ranges of 

 Snoeuwberg, Witteberg, Tandtjesberg, Zwartberg, 

 the Winterhoek, and one or two other localities, 

 where as far as possible they are preserved. Few, if 

 any, remain, to the mountains of Great Namaqualand, 

 where Sir James Alexander found them sixty years 

 ago in large numbers. A few still linger in the 

 Drakensberg and Lebombo (Swaziland), in the south- 

 eastern corner of the continent. Most unhappily, 

 preservation in a vast and thinly populated country 

 is very difficult ; native and Dutch gunners ivill 

 shoot for skins, or the mere love of slaughter ; and, 

 despite the efforts of English colonists at the Cape, 

 the rare mountain zebra of South Africa year by 

 year dwindles towards extinction. Within thirty 

 years it will probably have vanished, and another 

 noble form of animal life will be lost to us. 



I first set eyes on the mountain zebra some 

 years since in a wild and remote range — the Witte- 

 berg — in the eastern part of Cape Colony, between 

 Graaff Keinet and the coast-line. In company with 

 a Kaffir hunter I came suddenly upon a small troop 

 guarded by a sentinel — an old stallion. They were 

 a magnificent spectacle, far up in a precipitous piece 

 of savage mountain scenery. We had a long look at 



