In Wildest Africa -^ 



clearly unwarrantable. For instance, in one place he 

 tells how he once rode a zebra, that he had wounded, 

 for a considerable distance, back to his camp. 



Some fifty years later, at the period of the journeys 

 of Captain William Cornwallis Harris,^ as I have already 

 remarked, the same conditions prevailed, with regard to 

 the abundance of wild animals, as in the days of Le 

 Vaillant. It was almost a daily experience for the traveller 

 to be molested by lions. The Vaal River then teemed 

 with hippopotami. What is now the site of Pretoria 

 was inhabited by a number of rhinoceroses, that were 

 absolutely an annoyance to the explorer : " Out of every 

 bush peeped the horrible head of one of these creatures." 

 Of the neighbourhood of Mafeking he tells us that the 

 gatherings of zebras and white-tailed gnus literally covered 

 the whole plain ; that with his own eyes he had at one 

 time seen at least fifteen thousand head of wild animals 1 

 In another place he tells us of an absolutely overwhelming 

 spectacle. He saw at the same time more than three 

 hundred elephants ; to use his own expression, the plain 

 looked like one undulating mass. 



William Cotton Oswell, whom I have mentioned in 

 my earlier work, and who died as lately as 1893, knew 

 the countries of South Africa in the days of Livingstone, 

 and gives the same account of them as his predecessor 

 Harris. He once came upon more than four hundred 



^ Sir William Cornwallis Harris must be considered as a quite trust- 

 worthy authority. His works are indeed the most complete first-hand 

 evidence we have as to the state of the fauna of South Africa at the 

 time. 



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