Zebras. 85 



though many of the stories told of their ferocity 

 are doubtless much exaggerated, they have 

 so far not proved themselves amenable to 

 domestication. In the catalogue of the African 

 Museum, dispersed in 1838, BurchelPs zebra 

 was described as " an animal that admits of 

 being tamed to a certain extent with consider- 

 able facility " ; it was said that " occasionally 

 a half-domesticated specimen was exposed for 

 sale at Cape Town, with a rider on his back " ; 

 and it was, however, added that the persons who 

 had most " opportunities of becoming acquainted 

 with its character regard it, even in the most 

 tractable state to which it has yet been reduced, 

 as wicked, treacherous, obstinate, and fickle " 

 a true character, no doubt, and one which could 

 be applied with equal justice to both of the other 

 species. At all events, the fact remains that 

 zebras have not been domesticated, our occupation 

 of the Cape having, unfortunately, had a very 

 different effect from that prophesied by the author 

 of the " Naturalist's Pocket Magazine/' who in the 

 year 1800 wrote :" Should the Cape of Good 

 Hope, which we have recently taken from the 

 Dutch, continue in our possession, the period of 

 this animal's being tamed and rendered service- 

 able may probably be not very far distant" the 

 species to which he referred being apparently the 

 common zebra, of which a by no means bad figure 

 is given, notwithstanding the fact that the artist 

 has coloured the animal's stripes a bright red. 



