In Wildest Africa ^ 



springbocks, and ostriches. Herds of hundreds of 

 elephants were to be seen. Every marsh, every river-bed, 

 was literally overcrowded with hippopotami. All other 

 kinds of animals that are now so scarce, such as the large 

 and handsome kudu, and all the different kinds of small 

 wild animals, were to be met with in vast numbers. 

 Although since the year 1652 South Africa had been 

 to a continually increasing extent occupied by the Boers, 

 all these wonderful things had managed to survive in rich 

 profusion up to the moment when, about a hundred years 

 ago, the great war of extermination began. X'arious 

 causes contributed to bring this about : the increasing 

 numbers of the settlers, their continual penetration farther 

 and farther into the interior, and, above all things, the 

 improvement of firearms. 



The natives, although very numerous in South Africa, 

 had, as happens everywhere, left the animal life of the 

 country in its abundance to the Europeans, who were 

 overrunning the land in increasing numbers. It was 

 reserved for these to bring the war of extermination to 

 an end in a short time. Truly a melancholy spectacle ! 



Wilhclm Pxjlsche describes all this in fitting words : ^ 

 " In Africa," he says, " a wonderful drama is to-day un- 

 folding itself before our eyes. It is the downfall of the 

 whole of a mighty animal world. What is being destroyed 

 is the main remnant of the great mammalian development 

 of the Tertiar\- j)eri()d. Once it spread in the same fulness 

 over Eun)j)e, Asia, and North America. Now in its 



' In a review of my hook With Flashlight and Rifle (Clcrman 

 edition). 



I 26 



