70 THE SOCIETY LOR THE PRESERVATION OF 



roan as the modern Americans — wise too late — lament the irre- 

 parable loss of their bison. Lot us be wise in time, and so, while 

 consciously doing our duty in our own generation, lay up for our- 

 selves the gratitude of a posterity which will assuredly reckon our 

 gift at its true worth. 



In every country concerned with this question there are, I 

 suppose, various disabilities which make it difficult to deal with 

 the position, and the chief of these in North-Western Rhodesia is 

 that the Administration finds it practically impossible to prevent 

 the natives from destroying what game they care to. Personally 

 I do not think the Barotse kill very much game wantonly, but if 

 so it may be because they cannot, and not that they recognise any 

 obligation in the matter; and it follows that those varieties easily 

 trapped and shot will disappear more rapidly in districts where the 

 natives can obtain arms and powder than the sitatuuga, say — a 

 most elusive buck whose home is in the heart of the deep reed 

 swamps. 



The paramount chief, Lewanika, however, recognises to some 

 extent the value of the game as an asset, and he has preserved for 

 many years the lechwe antelope in the Barotse Valley proper ; 

 when the first expedition arrived at Lealui on the upper Zambesi 

 in October 1897 we were delighted to see many large herds of 

 wild lechwe all over the thickly populated country round the 

 chief's capital, and I need not say that the Administration has 

 done its best to assist Lewanika in this respect. Moreover, at his 

 request a clause was inserted in the Game Law reserving the 

 Diowa district lying north-west from Lealui from being shot by 

 white residents or visitors, and protecting also the lechwe, puku, 

 and sitatunga antelope on the lower waters of the Luena River, 

 and the lechwe and puku in the Barotse Valley itself. 



But though we may not be able to protect by enactment the 

 game from the naturally quite unscrupulous native hunter, I am 

 sure that the Administration can rely upon a good deal of sup- 

 port in this direction from Lewanika himself and his Council of 

 headmen. The commercial instinct is strong in these tribes, and 

 once convinced of the real value; of the big game they will, with the 

 continual encouragement of the Administration, be, I think, willing 

 to assist in some degree in its preservation from unnecessary 

 extermination. 



The most obvious method of securing this end is, of course, by 

 the establishment of adequate game reserves— sanctuaries where 

 game is undisturbed. But the settlement and development of the 

 wild countries has gone ahead so rapidly of recent years that it is 

 to-day very difficult to find areas sufficiently large and carrying 

 much game which do not suffer from one or other of the following 

 disabilities : firstly, that they may at any time be discovered to be 

 sufficiently mineralised, or else of sufficient value for purposes of 

 agricultural development as, to render them liable to expropriation 

 in favour of the miner or the farmer or both ; and secondly, that 

 areas which are not liable to such expropriation have usually a 



