-* New Light on the Tragedy of CixiHsation 



brought about the forniation of the " Society for the 

 Preservation of the Wild Fauna of the Empire," which 

 devotes itself to the protection of animal life in general 

 throughout the world-wide British dominions. 



Let us now follow a little niore closely, under the 

 guidance of English writers, the process of the extermina- 

 tion of the South African animal world. This lamentable 

 work was completed very rapidly in the course of only 

 somethinof like a hundred years. From numerous English 

 authorities, as well as from the publications of the Society 

 already named, I have been able to ascertain that the last 

 " blaauwbok " was killed by the Boers in Cape Colony 

 about the year 1800. From extant sketches of this wild 

 animal, it appears that it was a smaller species of the 

 splendid horse-antelopes still to be found in other parts of 

 Africa. During the following seventy-five years the ex- 

 termination of several other kinds of animals was systemati- 

 cally carried out ; and exactly eighty years later the last 

 quagga, a kind of zebra i^Equus quagga) was killed by the 

 Boers. In England there is only one single specimen 

 preserved, and that in a very poor condition. It is to be 

 found in the British Museum. A further sacrifice to the 

 advancing Europeans was the giant, wide-mouthed, " white " 

 rhinoceros {^Rhinoceros siuius, Burch.), a mighty creature, 

 that formerly ranged in thousands over the grassy plains 

 of South Africa. The length of a horn taken from one of 

 them is given as 6 ft. 9 in., English measurement! Even 

 as late as the year 1884, a single trader was able to 

 pile up huge masses, small hills, of these rhinoceros horns 

 by equipping some four hundred tribesmen of the Matabele 



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