230 SCIENCE IN AFRICA 



even the fastidious traveller can enjoy a motor drive amongst 

 most of the larger game animals, viewing them at a distance of a 

 few yards in safety. The park is open to visitors for the dry six 

 months in each year, May to November. In 1928, when it was 

 first opened, 200 motors and lorries paid the entrance fee of ^^'i per 

 vehicle, this figure rose to 3,000 in 1930 and to 7,936 in 1936. At 

 present the receipts practically balance the current expenditure. 



Public demand for the extension of the system was such that in 

 1 93 1 the Union Government created the Kalahari Gemsbok 

 National Park for gemsbok (oryx), with an area of 3,000 square 

 miles, and allocated two areas of 1 1 ,000 acres in the Cape Province 

 as the Addo Elephant National Park for the preservation of the 

 South African variety of elephant, of which few survive, and another 

 1,700 acres as the Bontebok National Park to preserve a herd of 

 this rare species. The typical or eastern Cape Hartebeest is another 

 very rare animal, of which only one herd of about fifty remains on 

 a farm in Natal. This was placed under official protection in 

 1936. The mountain zebra remains to-day only in Ondtshon 

 District of the Cape Province and there are believed to be less than 

 one hundred left. It is hoped that the Union Government will take 

 over the farms which contain the remnant herd, and will proclaim 

 a national reserve there similar to that for the bontebok. 



In Zululand, the Umfulosi Reserve of some 60,000 acres, which 

 contains over one hundred specimens of the rare white rhinoceros, 

 deserves special mention. The future of this and the Hluhluwe and 

 Mkuzi Reserves, the former also containing a few white rhino, is 

 uncertain at the present, because they are heavily infested with 

 tsetse flies and are regarded as a danger to neighbouring farms. 



The Belgian Congo has also seen a striking development of 

 national parks in recent years. The Pare National Albert has an 

 area of more than 400,000 hectares. It is in two sections, including 

 all the famous Birunga volcanoes, and was extended in 1934 and 

 again in 1935 so as to include the Shabirimu Mountains, and the 

 valley of Semliki, and that part of the Ruwenzori range which lies 

 within the Congo boundaries. Shooting and fishing are strictly 

 forbidden. It has been conceived on rather different lines from 

 the Kruger Park, since till recently it has been regarded rather as 

 a section of Africa saved from the incursions of civilization, to be 



