260 WILD BEASTS' SKINS IN COMMERCE 



suits of leather ' shamoyed,' not tanned supple, soft, 

 and comfortable garments, well suited for the life on 

 the veldt. The number of animals killed was limited 

 by their own personal needs and those of their families. 

 About 1850 the Boers learnt that the myriads of 

 antelope, quagga and zebra which wandered over the 

 plains had a marketable value other than as food or 

 supplying leather hunting-shirts. The skin-hunters 

 taught them that though the bodies of the creatures 

 might be left to rot on the veldt, the hides, not tanned 

 or dressed, but merely stripped from the body, were 

 marketable, to supply the European demand for 

 leather. The country was just sufficiently opened 

 up to have arrived at the stage at which the business 

 of the skin-hunter pays. Freight is high, but not 

 too high, and though hides of countless cattle and 

 sheep may be had for little enough in the settled 

 districts, the skins of the wild animals cost nothing 

 at all, except the value of powder and shot. Even 

 this was economized in South Africa. ' The Boers 

 of the pastoral Republic became perfect adepts at skin- 

 hunting,' writes Mr. Bryden. * They put in just 

 sufficient powder to drive the missile home, and care- 

 fully cut out their bullets for use on future occasions. 

 So lately as 1876, when I first wandered in Cape 

 Colony, I well remember the waggons coming down 

 from the Free State and Transvaal, loaded up with 



