270 NATURE AND SPORT IN SOUTH AFRICA 



and moved away. Mr. J. G. Millais shot some 

 splendid specimens in South-East Mashonaland in 

 1894. But many hunters have since been at work 

 in this region, and the sable antelopes and other 

 game of these wonderful natural preserves are not 

 likely to remain plentiful much longer. Already 

 their numbers are fast diminishing, and, despite the 

 enacting of game laws, it is too much to suppose 

 that with the opening up of Mashonaland and the 

 great influx of white men, game there can long 

 exist in their ancient plenty. The story of the 

 Transvaal will be repeated and the fauna will vanish 

 as snow vanishes before the sunshine. Mashonaland 

 and the neighbouring region seem to be the only 

 countries where sable antelopes were to be found in 

 large numbers. 



They are, however, widely distributed in sparing 

 numbers in Africa, north of the Zambesi. Selous 

 speaks of them as being found in the Manica plateau 

 north of the river. Livingstone also found them to 

 the north on his first great journey along the Zambesi 

 to the sea.^ Schweinfurth encountered them in 

 Central Africa in the neighbourhood of the Bongo 

 country, and Mr. F. J. Jackson and Sir John 

 Willoughby seem to have found them in small 

 numbers in East Africa. Along the banks of the 



^ Mr. G. Penrice has recently shot them in Benguella, in 

 Portuguese West Africa. 



