74 Great and Small Game of Africa 



of driving a pair in his phaeton about London. Sir William Jardine, the 

 well-known naturalist, who had personal knowledge of the animal, describes 

 the quagga as equal or superior in size to Burchell's zebra, and as "still 

 more robust in structure, with more girth, wider across the hips, more like 

 a true horse ; the hoofs considerably broader than in the true zebra, and 

 the neck full, the ears rather small." Jardine describes the animal as the 

 most suitable for domestication of the zebra group, and mentions that he 

 had himself been drawn by one in a gig, " the animal showing as much 

 temper and delicacy of mouth as a true horse." It cannot be said that 

 examples of the Burchell's zebra, broken to bridle and rein in recent years, 

 have shown quite the same adaptability ; as a rule they have extremely hard 

 mouths. Again, John Barrow, afterwards the well-known Secretary to the 

 Admiralty, who travelled at the Cape in 1797, says of the quagga : "It is 

 marked on the fore-quarters only ; is well shaped and strong limbed, not in 

 the least vicious, but, on the contrary, is soon rendered by domestication 

 mild and tractable ; yet, abundant as they are in the country, few have given 

 themselves the trouble of turning them to any kind of use. They are 

 infinitely more beautiful than, and fully as strong as, the mule, are easily 

 supported on almost any kind of food, and are never out of flesh." 



On the other hand, although, when captured quite young and domesti- 

 cated, this animal appears to have been rendered fairly amenable and to have 

 acquired an excellent character, in the wild state it seems to have been savage 

 enough. Cornwallis Harris mentions the death of a native servant whose 

 skull was smashed in by the kick of a quagga, and speaks also of a narrow 

 escape of his own. He mentions also the case of "a wretched savage, 

 every finger of whose dexter hand had been stripped off by the long yellow 

 teeth of a wounded male." 



The quagga was almost invariably a denizen of the open plains, where 

 it ran in the old days in very large troops. Occasionally it seems to have 

 been found among the hills, but not often. Barrow, however, a most 



