CHAPTER VIII 



ZEBRAS AND QUAGGAS 



Africa south of the northern tropic, that is to say, 

 the Ethiopian Africa of naturalists, is the home of 

 a group of more or less fully striped members of 

 the horse-family, commonly known as zebras and 

 quaggas. As to the derivation of the latter name 

 there is no sort of doubt, quagga being the Dutch 

 corruption of the Hottentot title — qua-cha — of one 

 of the southern species, which is taken from the 

 animal's cry. With regard to the origin of the 

 name zebra, there is a difference of opinion. In 

 one dictionary ^ it is stated, for instance, that the 

 name comes from the Hebrew tzebi, meaning 

 splendour or beauty, and connected with the verb 

 tzdbd, to shine, and the equivalent of the Arabic 

 zib, beauty. An old writer, Job Ludolphus, in his 

 Historia /Ethiopica, published at Frankfort-on- 

 Maine in 1681, states^ that these animals are called 

 zecora in Abyssinia and zebra on the Congo ; 

 while Colonel Hamilton Smith ^ shows that zebra 

 " seems to be the Negro mutation of the Abyssinian 



^ Ogilvie's Studenfs English Dictionary, London, 1865. 



* Book i. chap. x. 



^ Naturalises Library, Horses, 2nd ed. p. 321. 



