The White Rhinoceros 53 



open grassy plains of the Southern Transvaal, where examples of this species 

 were encountered by the early Dutch pioneers ; and as the pasture to the south 

 of the Vaal River is very good and that stream is easily fordable at many 

 points during the dry season, there is no reason why some of these animals 

 should not have crossed it at certain times of the year. In the north-western 

 portions of the Transvaal the white rhinoceros was formerly very abundant. 

 Cornwallis Harris mentions that on one occasion during the year 1836, as 

 he was travelling through the Magaliesberg district, "eighty were seen 

 during the day's march, and on my way from our encampment in the valley 

 of the Limpopo to a hill only half a mile distant, no fewer than twenty-two 

 were counted, of which we were obliged in self-defence to slaughter four." 

 In a footnote Cornwallis Harris also mentions that Sir Andrew Smith, 

 whilst travelling about the same time through the country some two 

 degrees north of Magaliesberg, encountered during one day's march with 

 his bullock waggons, and without wandering to any great distance on either 

 side of their track, between 100 and 150 rhinoceroses, half of which were 

 probably of the square- mouthed species. Between 1840 and 1850 all 

 travellers who have left records of their journeys report having found the 

 white rhinoceros very abundant all over the country, wherever there was 

 water, to the north and west of the Limpopo between Secheli's country and 

 Lake Ngami. Gordon-Cumming encountered great numbers of these 

 animals, and mentions having seen upon one occasion upwards of a dozen 

 congregated together on some young grass, though he speaks of such a 

 sight as being very unusual. 



In one short hunting trip during 1847 or J 848 Messrs. Oswell and 

 Vardon are credited with having killed eighty- nine rhinoceroses, the 

 majority of which were probably of the square-mouthed species. 



C. J. Andersson also found these animals very numerous during his 

 travels between 1850 and 1854 in the country lying to the west and north- 

 west of Lake Ngami, and speaks of killing nearly sixty rhinoceroses of both 



