THE WHITE RHINOCEROS 137 



fauna of South Africa, the persecution being con- 

 tinued in season and out of season, without 

 intermission. Giraffe, elephant, buffalo, eland, 

 hartebeest, and a host of other noble forms 

 diminished rapidly under their attacks, and the 

 Boers were aided by a multitude of native gunners 

 which the advance of civilisation had provided 

 with more or less reliable firearms. 



Prominent in the host of vanishing creatures 

 stood the great white rhinoceros, whose immense 

 size promised a corresponding amount of meat 

 and at certain seasons an abundance of fat also 

 to his destroyers. The very harmlessness of the 

 unfortunate colossus was but an added incitement 

 to the destruction of so meek a quarry. " He was 

 just the very thing for young gunners to try their 

 'prentice hand on," said Oswell. These considera- 

 tions eventually compassed the death of almost 

 every white rhinoceros south of the Zambesi, and 

 so rapidly was the animal shot out, that like the 

 true quagga, the American bison and the northern 

 sea-cow, it had practically vanished before it was 

 even recognised as rare. In 1880 hunters began 

 to notice the great scarcity of Rhinoceros simus : 

 it was hardly to be found even by the most 

 diligent search over the very plains once so 

 abundantly enlivened by its burly presence. 

 Scientific naturalists abruptly realised that it had 

 all but vanished from Southern Africa. The 



