284 THE Gl ASO NYERO [ch. xi 



havoc among the cattle, and in consequence decimated 

 by starvation many of the cattle -owning tribes ; it killed 

 many of the large bovine antelopes, and it wellnigh 

 exterminated the buffalo. In many places the buffalo 

 herds were absolutely wiped out, the species being 

 utterly destroyed throughout great tracts of territory, 

 notably in East Africa ; in other places the few 

 survivors did not represent the hundredth part of those 

 that had died. For years the East African buffalo 

 ceased to exist as a beast of the chase. But all the 

 time it was slowly regaining the lost ground, and during 

 the last decade its increase has been rapid. Unlike the 

 slow-breeding elephant and rhinoceros, buffalo multiply 

 apace, like domestic cattle, and in many places the 

 herds have now become too numerous. Their rapid 

 recovery from a calamity so terrific is interesting and 

 instructive.^ Doubtless for many years after man, in 

 recognizably human form, appeared on this planet, he 

 played but a small part in the destruction of big 

 animals, compared to plague, to insect pests, and 

 microbes, to drought, flood, earth upheaval, and change 

 of temperature. But during the geological moment 

 covering the few thousand years of recorded history 

 man has been not merely the chief, but practically the 

 sole, factor in the extermination of big mammals and 

 birds. 



At and near Meru Boma we spent a fortnight hunt- 

 ing elephant and rhinoceros, as described in the pre- 

 ceding chapter. While camped by the boma, white- 

 necked vulturine ravens and black-and-white crows 

 came familiarly around the tents. A young eland bull, 



^ On our trip along the Guaso Nyero we heard that there had 

 been a fresh outbreak of rinderpest among the buffalo. I hope it 

 will not prove such a hideous disaster. 



