The Cape Buffalo io5 



the Zambesi, as well as on the Upper Ouando or Chobi River • whilst 

 in the forests of the Knysna, near Mossel Bay, as well as in certain 'districts 

 of the eastern province of the Cape Colony where they are protected by 

 the Cape Government, buffaloes were said to be increasing in numbers. In 

 1896, however, came the rinderpest, that terrible plague which has lately 

 wrought such havoc amongst the game animals, as well as the domestic 

 cattle, of Southern and Central Africa. 



Statistics are still wanting as to the effects of this disease on the herds 

 of buffaloes living in the countries through which it passed to the south 

 of the Zambesi, but as it is known to have almost absolutely exterminated 

 the teeming herds of these animals which once existed all over East Africa, 

 it will probably prove to have been terribly destructive. 



I imagine that if a census could have been taken fifty years ago of all 

 the animals existing in Southern Africa to the south of the Zambesi, 

 buffaloes would have proved to have been one of the most numerous 

 species, and might possibly have rivalled in aggregate number the most 

 gregarious of the antelopes, for although blesbucks, springbucks, and 

 black wildebeests were then running in countless thousands on the open 

 plains of the Cape Colony, the Orange Free State and the Transvaal, 

 they were all confined to a comparatively small area of country, whilst 

 the buffaloes roaming in innumerable good-sized herds were distributed 

 over the whole of South Africa, from Mossel Bay to the Zambesi, 

 wherever there was both bush and water. 



The first Europeans who, some fifty years ago, penetrated to the 

 southerly portions of the present Bechuanaland Protectorate, and the north- 

 western portions of the Transvaal, met with great herds of buffaloes on 

 the upper waters of all the westerly tributaries of the Limpopo, such as 

 the Marico and Notwani ; but in 1872, when I first visited the interior of 

 South Africa, I found that these animals had long ceased to exist on any 

 of the upper tributaries of the Limpopo, though they were still plentiful 



