4 BIG GAME SHOOTING 



by British explorers. The okapi, that strange survival 

 of an infinitely far-distant epoch, has only lately been 

 brought to light in the Congo forest regions, and in 

 a recent journey through East Africa, Abyssinia, and 

 Somaliland, Herr Neumann, a German scientist, has 

 discovered no less than seven new antelopes. Two 

 or three new species of zebra, and a perfectly new 

 form of giraffe, have been brought to light within 

 the last dozen years. In East Central, West, and 

 Central Africa there are immense stretches of country 

 which, for many years to come, will yield good sport 

 to the hunter. Even in South Africa, where for 250 

 years the Boer has educated himself to the use of 

 smooth-bore and rifle at the expense of the most 

 wonderful fauna in the world, the game is by no 

 means yet shot out, and in many parts of the in- 

 terior in Rhodesia, Khama's country, Ngamiland, 

 and South-East Africa good shooting is still to be 

 obtained. It is true that great ravages have been 

 made among the game of Africa since the era of the 

 percussion gun and, still more recently, of the breech- 

 loading rifle. The waste of life on the Karroos of 

 Cape Colony, the plains of the Orange Free State, 

 and the high veldt of the Transvaal has been almost 

 incredible. It is a melancholy thing to reflect that 

 upon these plains, where, forty or fifty years ago, 

 there were depastured hundreds of thousands of 

 many species of wild game, so that the face of the 

 country was darkened by their innumerable legions, 

 but a few thousands of springbok and blesbok are 

 now to be found. The advances of colonisation are, 



