The Blesbok 189 



absolutely bear out the reports of Cornwallis Harris and Gordon-dimming. 

 Such was the profusion of game that it seemed impossible — as these men 

 have assured me — that these throngs of animals could ever be exterminated. 



Yet the impossible has come to pass, and even the teeming blesboks have 

 been well-nigh cleared from those high and healthy pasture-lands which for 

 long ages of the past they must have so greatly adorned. Undoubtedly the 

 Dutch farmers of the Orange Free State and Transvaal have been the 

 chief actors in this miserable story of extermination. In the first instance, 

 on entering these new countries they shot game to support themselves, 

 their families, and servants, and for the pure pleasure of hunting. But, so 

 soon as they found a market for the skins of the game animals around them, 

 they became mere hide-hunters, and shot, week in week out, for the mere 

 value of the pelts. And thus, for the paltry reward of a miserable shilling 

 or two per skin, has the beautiful blesbok been brought at the present day 

 to the verge of extinction. I myself have seen, three-and-twenty years 

 ago, the waggons rolling down country to Port Elizabeth from the Orange 

 Free State and Transvaal loaded up with the dried skins of blesbok and 

 springbok. And any middle-aged London hide-broker will tell you that 

 from five-and-twenty to forty years ago tens of thousands of blesbok skins, 

 among the pelts of other South African animals, were annually disposed 

 of at the Mincing Lane Sale Rooms. 



In the whole of the Orange Free State and Transvaal there are now 

 remaining probably not more than 3000 head of these once innumerable 

 antelopes ; probably 2000 head would be nearer the mark. In the western 

 Transvaal, upon a few farms, fair herds are to be found, as also in places in 

 the Orange Free State. These are, as I have said, partially protected. 

 In 1890, towards the end of the year, I saw a respectable herd of blesbok 

 on one of these Transvaal farms, which I believe is still in existence. 

 But the tendency is, unfortunately, to allow picked specimens to be shot by 

 sportsmen desiring heads — for a pecuniary consideration — and it is to be 



