HERDS OF GAME COMING DOWN TO DRINK. 75, 



" Being tired of shooting the zebras, blue wildebeests and 

 tsessebe antelopes, which owing to the drought, had assem- 

 bled in large herds from an enormous area of country to- 

 drink in the Mababe hundreds of which might be seen at 

 any moment from the waggons, I determined to make an- 

 other journey on foot in search of elephants to the Chobe." 

 " The weather was most intensely hot both day and night." 

 "In the evenings it was quite a sight to see the herds of 

 game coming down to drink. In cooler weather these ani- 

 mals would most of them have waited for the protecting cover 

 of night, before venturing down to the river, but the intense 

 heat made them forget their usual caution. Every evening, 

 from about five o'clock till dusk, I was seldom out of sight 

 of game of some kind buffaloes, impalas, koodoos, lech- 

 wes, reedbucks, blue wildebeests, tsessebes, and wild pigs 

 being the commonest; whilst sable and roan antelopes, 

 zebras, and an occasional giraffe or eland were also to be 

 seen." * 



Here again, Mr. Selous describes the neighbourhood 

 as swarming with heavy game, such as herds of ele- 

 phants, and herds of giraffes, also many lions, troops 

 of the latter being heard roaring grandly at intervals 

 during the night. 



Passing no\v to the consideration of the great Herds 

 of buffalo (Bos Americanus) on the prairies of North 

 America, accounts of these assemblages show that 

 the vast numbers of these animals seen during the 

 first half of the present century, seem to surpass- 

 anything in the way of really heavy game quadrupeds 

 that has been recorded elsewhere. 



"At any time between 1824 and 1836," says Colonel Fre- 



* A Hunter's Wanderings in Africa, a Narrative of Nine Years 

 among the Game of the Far Interior of South Africa (1871 l88o) r 

 by Frederick C. Selous, 1881, pp. 402 3. 



