THE DECADENCE OF GREAT GAME 307 



hundred elephants were slaughtered round the lake, 

 one can appreciate the terrible nature of their exter- 

 mination ever since. It is not many years since, in 

 the Okavango country, beyond Lake Ngami, some 

 Boer hunters (the Van Zyls and others) drove a 

 herd of a hundred and four elephants into a marsh, 

 where they became helplessly embogged, and slew 

 every member of the troop before setting of the 

 sun. 



We found giraffes plentiful in 1890 in the dry 

 waterless acacia forests of the North Kalahari country, 

 some twenty miles south of the southern bank of the 

 Botletli, and were fortunate in being able to procure 

 fine specimens. When one reflects, however, how 

 constantly, even in these difficult and secluded 

 regions, native hunters are at work, one cannot 

 resist the conclusion that this wonderful quadruped 

 cannot last many years south of the Zambesi. Round 

 the adjacent country of Lake Ngami, in the 

 years following our expedition, many hundreds of 

 giraffes have been slain by native hunters, solely 

 for the value of their hides, from which sandals and 

 colonial whips (sjamboks) are now chiefly made. 

 Nothing can withstand such extermination! We 

 found in this region, also, wild ostriches, gemsboks, 

 hartebeests, and koodoos in some plenty. Amongst 

 all these fine creatures, however, the same incessant 

 destruction is going on. 



