In Wildest Africa 



small fortune ; it is to be found in no museum in Germany, 

 and is simply almost impossible to obtain. This former 

 abundance is now known only to few, and these only 

 specialists engaged in studies of this kind. But to 

 them it is also plain and terribly certain that, where the 

 like conditions come into being, the same process that 

 was at work in South Africa will produce the same 

 results. 



There can be no doubt about it. In a hundred years 

 from now wide regions of what once was Darkest Africa 

 will have been more or less civilised, and all that delightful 

 animal world, which to-day still lives its life there, will 

 have succumbed to the might of civilised man. That will 

 be the time when the fortunate possessors of horns and 

 hides of extinct African antelopes, and the owners of 

 elephant tusks, skulls, and specimens of all kinds will be 

 selling all this for its weight in gold. And no one will 

 be able to understand how it was that in our clay so little 

 thought was given to preserving as far as possible all 

 this valuable material in abundant quantities at least for 

 the sake of science, instead of sacrificing it wholesale to the 

 interests of trade, and to the recklessness of the new 

 settlers in those lands. For these men, who have to 

 struggle hard with the new conditions of life and its 

 necessities, can scarcely act otherwise than heedlessly and 

 short-sightedly. They will always take possession of a 

 district before settled conditions are introduced, and before 

 the Government is in a position to enforce the observance 

 of its regulations, however well-intentioned these may be. 

 So it will come to pass that it will suddenly be found no 



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