40 THE SOCIETY FOR THE PRESERVATION OF 



There are conditions obtaining which would seem to render 

 the estabhshment of reserves a matter of great difficulty. 



The British South Africa Company, by special treaty with 

 Lewanika, the king of the Barotse, reserve for that chief and his 

 people hunting rights over a large portion of North-Western 

 Rhodesia. The nearest approach to a reserve which could be made 

 in the territory originally ruled over by Lewanika would be to 

 prohibit white people killing game — a useless restriction while the 

 Barotse and adjoining subordinate tribes are free to hunt every- 

 where, and have, as is at present the case, a very large supply of 

 guns and ample opportunity to buy powder in the adjoining Portu- 

 guese territory. 



Again, considering the whole of Northern Rhodesia from the 

 point of view of natives, game preservation, and reserves in par- 

 ticular, though no part or very small areas of the territory are 

 thickly inhabited, yet there is very little uninhabited country; it 

 is difficult to propose any area as a reserve which would not include 

 a considerable native population. Besides elephants, many species 

 of antelopes, and particularly pigs, do much damage to native crops. 

 Entirely to prevent natives in any district from killing game, and 

 to turn any large area into a sanctuary, would impose a real hard- 

 ship on the native inhabitants, who are generally a peaceful and 

 industrious agricultural population. 



But should the administration for tnese reasons find it im- 

 possible to set apart reserves, adequate legislation should still be 

 able to protect the game in quantity. 



In South-Central Africa, wherever muskets and powder are 

 obtainable by the native, it is the native who is the great game 

 destroyer. Before he got firearms he trapped and hunted with 

 bows and arrows, but made little impression on the number of 

 game; but with firearms he exterminates. North-Eastern Rho- 

 desia has been able to stop the import of powder, and in that 

 country there seems little danger of the game being diminished 

 by natives. Not so in North-Western Rhodesia, where the long 

 Portuguese boundary and the Barotse and other as yet semi-con- 

 trolled tribes foster the importation of and trade in powder. Recent 

 occupation by Government posts in the North-West of North- 

 western Rhodesia has to some extent made the work of the Portu- 

 guese powder trader a matter of difficulty ; but the trade in powder 

 and guns is by no means stopped, and the game will continue to 

 decrease at the hands of the native until control of the importa- 

 tion of powder from Portuguese West Africa is effected. 



But the native is now only a danger to game in parts of Northern 

 and Western North- Western Rhodesia. In the rest of Northern 

 Rhodesia legislation prohibiting the slaughter of game by white 

 hunters and settlers is all that is necessary to preserve the various 

 species in quantity. 



More than, or fully, half of Northern Rhodesia is tsetse-fly 



