MARCH 95 



The eland, to which hunters give the palm as the 

 most splendid of all antelopes, is vanishing fast. Game 

 laws, it is true, have been enacted for the protection 

 of these and other of the fauna of Bechuanaland, but 

 who is to enforce them in that wild country ? Even 

 if the Bechuanas (who are worse than the Boers, 

 inasmuch as they slaughter game heavy with young, 

 or with young at foot) could be restrained, who is to 

 stop the inroads of hunting Namaquas ? But it is vain 

 to lay all the blame on the black man. The craze for 

 big game makes the English traveller, with his express 

 rifles and countless resources for traversing unwatered 

 regions, as murderous as the native. Saddest of all 

 chronicles is that of the beautiful giraffe 



'The sight of a troop of giraffes browsing peacefully in 

 their native acacia forests, reaching with upstretched neck 

 and extended tongue at some green succuleut leafage far 

 up in the spreading learned-doom tree, is one of the most 

 beautiful things in nature. No man that has seen such a 

 spectacle is ever likely to forget it. ... Although I have 

 set eyes on many rare and beautiful things in the African 

 wilderness, that most fascinating revelation of wild animal 

 life will never fade from memory.' 



Let us hope Mr. Bryden's finger did not itch for 

 the trigger. One doesn't quite trust him, so fondly 

 does he linger in the previous page over the delicacy 

 of giraffe marrow, in bones three feet long 'the 

 greatest luxury of its kind in the world.' Well, the 

 world will have to go without this luxury soon, it 

 seems ; well would it be if this were the sum of the 



