58 BUBCHELL'S ZEBBA. 



a beast of transport are so evident that they have com- 

 mended themselves to all military officers familiar with 

 African animals. Captain Lugard, in his work on our East 

 African Empire, after speaking of the elephant and other 

 beasts of transport, writes as follows : — - 



" There is another animal in East Africa which offers, as I 

 have said, possibihties of domestication, viz., the zebra. If this 

 animal were tamed, the question of transport would be solved. 

 Impervious to the tsetse-fly, and to climatic diseases, it would be 

 beyond cakadation valuable. 



"The species found both in East Africa and Nyasaland i,s 

 ' Burchell's ' (Eqnvs hurchellii). It is a lovely animal, of perfect 

 symmetry, and very strongly built, standing about fourteen 

 hands high. The bright black and wliite stripes of the zebra 

 would appear to be the most conspicuous marking imaginable. 

 Yet, when standing in the sparse tree-forest, it is one of the 

 hardest of all animals to see, and even after it has been pointed 

 out to me close in front, I have sometimes been unable to 

 distinguish it, though, as a rule, I am even quicker at sighting 

 game than a native. The flickering lights in a forest, and the 

 glancing sunbeams and shadows, are counterfeited exactly by the 

 zebra's stripes, and thus it is that nature affords protection to an 

 animal otherwise peculiarly liable to destruction in the jungle ; 

 in the open plains, where his enemies cannot steal upon him 

 unawares, he can rely for his safety on his own fleetness. 



*' The zebra throughout East Africa, so far as my observation 

 goes, has suffered complete immunity from the cattle-plague, 

 which has attacked most of the rest of the game. This disease 

 has now spread south to Nyasaland, and Mr. Sharpe reports that 

 between Mweru and Tanganyika Lakes he saw numbers of dead 

 zebra. Mr. Crawshay also rej^orts great mortality among the 

 zebra in that district. Here — in Masailand and on the Athi 

 plains — herds nimibering their thousands may be seen, and these 

 have not suffered from the plague. 



" Some years ago (1888) I advocated experiments in taming 



