66 ANIMAL LIFE IN AFRICA 



the country was suitable ; but from 1889 onwards the 

 rinderpest, sweeping west and south, worked dreadful 

 havoc with the herds from Somaliland to the Cape. At 

 the present day buffaloes are preserved in several dis- 

 tricts of the Cape Colony, and in the Game Reserves of 

 Zululand. In the Transvaal there are about three 

 hundred in the Reserve, representing the natural increase 

 from the fifteen or twenty individuals which the rinderpest 

 spared, as well as another herd of lesser dimensions on 

 the Sabi River, outside the sanctuary. 



Until a few years ago a few buffaloes existed in the 

 Umpeluzi Poort between Portuguese territory and 

 Swaziland. Of these eight were shot during the war by 

 a single individual, and in 1903 there were said to be 

 but three left, and they too have since disappeared. In 

 Damaraland and Southern Rhodesia some yet remain, 

 and though the vast Pungwe herds have vanished before 

 the combined attacks of hunters and disease, there are 

 still considerable numbers in the more northerly parts 

 of the province. North of the Zambezi they are found 

 in Mo9ambique, and there are undoubtedly herds in parts 

 of Portuguese Nyasaland, which was unvisited by the 

 rinderpest, and has been hitherto little penetrated by the 

 white sportsman. Thence buffaloes are spread through 

 Northern Rhodesia, British Nyasaland, and German and 

 British East Africa to Somaliland, Uganda, and the Nile. 

 Wherever they have not been severely harassed they 

 have increased largely since the cessation of the .epidemic, 

 and though nowhere approaching their old numbers, are 

 yet found in herds of considerable size. On the White 

 Nile and its eastern tributaries, they are, in some places, 

 very numerous indeed, and in the southern part of German 

 East Africa spots exist which sportsmen who have been 

 there speak of as having been literally swarming two or 



