70 THE SOCIETY FOR THE PRESERVATION OP 



sooner or later, with the increase of prosperity and 

 civilization under settled government. 



" One of the principal causes of the abundance 

 of African game in the past has been the existence 

 of powerful warrior tribes, which laid waste great 

 tracts of surrounding country for decades together. 

 In these devastated areas, the game increased until 

 its numbers were as great as the soil could support. 

 The barbaric power, that makes a solitude and calls 

 it peace, is the best game preserver. Legislation 

 can protect game from the rifle, but is powerless 

 to save it from giving way to civilization. The 

 Pax Britannica can never do for African game in 

 the future what the Zulu impis, the Masai Moran, 

 the slave-raiders, and the Dervishes have done in 

 the past. 



" The River Dinder is a local example of what 

 I mean. Travelling up it this year, between 

 Duraba and the Abyssinian frontier, I saw, with 

 the exception of two old blacks who were trying to 

 find their way from the Blue Nile to Kassala, not 

 a single human being. Yet my guides kept con- 

 stantly talking of villages which had stood there 

 twenty years ago, and of which not a trace remained. 

 The country was full of game. I should think it 

 very unlikely that there was anything like the same 

 quantity previous to the depopulation which went 

 on under Dervish rule." 



