74 CATTLE 



of the Orange river buffaloes from those inhabiting other parts of 

 South Africa, and also the date when these skulls and horns were 

 obtained. The buffaloes living on the Orange river were, it must be 

 remembered, not an isolated race, but only the advanced guard of the 

 species which originally had spread southwards from the valley of the 

 Limpopo by way of the Notwani and Marico rivers to the Molopo, 

 and thence through Bechuanaland to the Orange river. In those 

 days south-western Africa was not such a dry desert country as it 

 is now. Perennial streams, the haunt of the hippopotamus, then 

 poured their waters into the Orange river through Griqualand and 

 what is now the eastern portion of the Kalahari Desert, and the 

 buffaloes no doubt followed the courses of these streams southwards. 

 I think, at any rate, it is more probable that buffaloes reached the 

 Orange river from the countries to the north rather than that they 

 spread northwards from the coast through the plateaus of Cape Colony. 



" These buffaloes, living along the banks of the Orange river, seem, 

 however, either to have been all killed off, or driven northwards again 

 into southern Bechuanaland a long time ago, as although the French 

 traveller Le Vaillant met with buffaloes on the Orange river about the 

 year 1783, the missionary John Campbell does not mention seeing any 

 of these animals during his travels in 181 3 until he reached a point not 

 far from the present town of Kuruman, in southern Bechuanaland. 



" Since, therefore, buffaloes ceased to exist along the Orange river 

 so long ago, one would imagine that there must be very few skulls and 

 horns in existence in Europe to-day which certainly came from that 

 locality, and unless Dr. Matschie has had the opportunity of examining 

 a large number of the skulls and horns of buffaloes from every part 

 of South Africa in which these animals were once found, it appears 

 to me impossible to establish the truth or otherwise of his view 

 that there were once several different species or races of the Cape 

 buffalo existing in Africa south of the Zambesi, distinguishable one 

 from another by the constant differences to be observed in the con- 

 formation of the horns of the males. 



" Unfortunately, this is a question which can now never be definitely 

 settled, since throughout the whole of Africa south of the Zambesi 

 there are but very few buffaloes, comparatively speaking, left alive. 

 In this portion of the continent these fine animals have entirely ceased 

 to exist over vast areas throughout which they once ranged in great 

 numbers. 



" For my part, I do not for a moment believe that if a collection of 

 1000 heads of buffalo bulls existed to-day, which had been brought 



