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infected with the sickness, they gave up, from fear 

 of contagion, the practice of domesticating the calves 

 of the gnu. As in the case of the true quagga, the 

 bontebok, and the blesbok, the habitat of the black 

 wildebeest was singularly and quite unaccountably 

 restricted. The old Cape Colony, west of the Kei 

 river, the Orange Free State, and Griqualand West, 

 may be cited as its true habitat. Occasionally, a few 

 were found a day or so north of the Vaal river, on 

 Transvaal soil, but not often. Harris speaks of 

 meeting them again on his journey south, on the 

 Chonapas — now the Mooi river, some twenty or 

 thirty miles north of the Vaal. Their favourite, and 

 indeed almost constant ranging ground, was, however, 

 the flats of the Orange Free State and the vast 

 karroos of Cape Colony. Here they roamed in 

 immense numbers, until the Dutch settlers began to 

 find their skins a marketable commodity. Thence- 

 forward their downfall proceeded rapidly. They 

 were slain day by day, month by month, year by 

 year, in tens and hundreds of thousands, until the 

 land which had supported them for long ages prac- 

 tically knows them no longer. 



Whether the few reasoning and reasonable farmers 

 in the Free State, who have taken of late years to 

 preserving the poor remnant of black wildebeest left 

 to them, will be able to arrest complete extermina- 

 tion, and restore the ancient breed is doubtful. I 



