-* The Tragedy of Civilisation 



behalf of the white traders who equipped them for the 

 purpose. 



Thus disappeared the white-tailed gnu (Connochcetes 

 gnu], the bontebok {Damaliscus pygcirgus], the blesbok 

 (Damaliscus albifrons], the true quagga (Eqnns quagga}, 

 the mountain zebra (Equus zebra], the splendid roan 

 antelope {Hippotragus leucophceus], the Cape buffalo 

 (Bnbalus caffer}, the elephant, the so-called white rhino- 

 ceros (Rhinoceros siiuns}, the black rhinoceros (R. bi- 

 corms], the giraffe, the hippopotamus, and the ostrich 

 except for a few preserved individuals in the case 

 of the first three ; completely in the case ot all the 

 others. The number of animals still to be found there 

 in the last third of the previous century was immense, 

 but it is hard to realise the dense crowds of them that 

 must have existed there a hundred years before that. 

 And side by side with them from earliest times lived 

 the coloured races. Like the American Indians, they 

 levied their toll upon the animal kingdom without im- 

 pairing it. It was left to the reckless and purposeless 

 slaughtering indulged in by civilised man to achieve the 

 seemingly impossible, and turn this thickly inhabited 

 region into a desert. 



To my mind there is a groundwork of truth under- 

 lying the myth of a Paradise, in which the animal world* 

 lived all together in harmony. Trustworthy observers 

 have told us that in the Arctic regions the sea-lions 

 creatures of exceptional intelligence and seals and rein- 

 deer and birds do not budge an inch on the approach 

 of men, and show no trace of fear. This must have 



9 



