284 NATUEE AND SPORT IN SOUTH AFRICA 



Basutos, Hottentots, Korannas, and Bushmen, do 

 what they would, could with their bows and arrows 

 and assegais make no impression on those dense 

 battalions. Even their hopos, or gigantic pitfalls, 

 into which the game were occasionally driven en 

 masse, served as no sort of check upon the exuberant 

 plenty among all the wondrous beasts of chase. 



Not until the European began to move abroad, 

 and firearms came into use, was there any sensible 

 decline among the mammalia of America, Africa, or 

 even India. In the days of matchlocks, and even of 

 flint-guns and smooth-bores, the destruction pro- 

 ceeded, of course, much more slowly than at present. 

 But with the introduction of percussion-caps a great 

 change came quickly in the annual bill of slaughter. 

 Improvements in rifling and precision rapidly fol- 

 lowed, and finally came the modern breech-loader to 

 complete the work of destruction. It is now — unless 

 some effectual method of preservation can be quickly 

 introduced — absolutely certain that the complete 

 extermination of the great game of Africa, America, 

 and Asia is merely a question of years. And in 

 Southern Africa especially, this period of extinction 

 is very close at hand. The quagga {Equus quag go) 

 has vanished; the white rhinoceros has all but 

 been shot out ; the giraffe, the elephant, the black 

 rhinoceros, the hippopotamus, Burchell's zebra, and 

 most of the great antelopes, are fast disappearing. 



