CHAPTER V. 

 THE ZEBRA IN CAPE COLONY. 



THERE is apparently so much uncertainty as 

 to the present distribution of the larger wild 

 animals in Cape Colony, and so many 

 people appear to be sceptical as to the existence of 

 any game heavier than the springbok within its 

 present limits, that I am induced to write a few lines 

 upon a subject in which I take considerable interest, 

 collected partly from personal experience, and partly 

 from that of friends now residing in the Colony. To 

 begin with, I may mention that of all the magnificent 

 large game which have abounded within the Cape 

 Colony within the last century, the elephant, the 

 buffalo, the koodoo, the gemsbok, the hartebeest, the 

 zebra, and the leopard are the sole representatives ; 

 and, with the exception of the leopard, which is still 

 abundant, these animals are very seldom met with, 

 and only prolong a precarious existence in the 

 densest coverts, the remotest mountain tops, or, in 

 the case of the gemsbok, the most waterless deserts 

 of the western portion of the Orange River region. 

 The rhinoceros, the hippopotamus, the giraffe, the 

 quagga, the lion, the black wildebeest or gnu, the 

 roan antelope, the eland, and other noble game, have 

 all been exterminated or driven out of the Colony at 

 a remote or near period of the last hundred years, 

 in proportion to the measure of their several means 

 of defence or escape. Thus the unwieldy rhinoceros 



