( H. II] ZEBRAS 49 



within a couple of hundred yards before moving slowly 

 away. On two or three occasions at lunch herds of 

 zebra remained for half an hour watching us with much 

 curiosity not over a hundred yards off. Once, wlien we 

 had been vainly beating for lions at the foot of the 

 Khikania ridge, at least a thousand zebras stood, in 

 herds, on every side of us, tliroughout lunch ; they were 

 from two to four hundred yards distant, and I was 

 especially struck by the fact that tliose which were to 

 leeward and liad our wind were no more alarmed than 

 the others, I have seen them water at dawn and 

 sunset, and also in the middle of the day ; and 1 have 

 seen them grazing at every hour of the day, although I 

 believe most freely in the morning and evening. At 

 noon, and until the late afternoon, those I saw were 

 not infrequently resting, either standing or lying down. 

 They are noisy. Hartebeests merely snort or sneeze 

 now and then, but the shrill, querulous barking of the 

 " bonte quaha," as the Boers call the zebra, is one of the 

 common sounds of the African plains, both by day and 

 night. It is usually represented in books by the syllables 

 •' qua- ha-ha " : but of course oin- letters and syllables 

 were not made to represent, and can only in arbitrary' 

 and conventional fashion represent, the calls of birds 

 and mammals : the bark of the bonte quagga or common 

 zebra could just as well be represented by the sylhibles 

 " ba-wa-wa," and as a matter of fact it can readily be 

 mistaken for the bark of a shrill-voiced dog. After one 

 of a herd has been killed by a lion or a hunter, its 

 companions are particularly apt to keep uttering their 

 cry. Zebras are very beautiful creatures, and it was 

 an unending pleasure to watch them. I never molested 

 them save to procure specimens for the museums, or 

 food for the porters, Avho like their rather rank Hesh. 



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