212 Great and Small Game of Africa 



this excellent determination that he has — or had, two or three years since 

 — more than two hundred head of these now extremely scarce antelopes 

 running wild upon his farms. There are two other farmers in the Orange 

 Free State by whom black wildebeest are also preserved ; but the total 

 number now existing in the whole of South Africa is probably now well 

 under 600 or 700 head. Until a few years since there used to be one 

 small herd also preserved on a farm near Victoria West in the Cape 

 Colony. The last reports I had of this troop were, however, not very 

 encouraging ; the herd was dwindling from in-and-in breeding, and I fear 

 has now become quite extinct. It is sad to reflect that of all the tens and 

 hundreds of thousands of these antelopes to be found throughout the plains 

 of Cape Colony and the Orange Free State fifty years ago, there now only 

 remains a miserable remnant of five or six hundred head, preserved with diffi- 

 culty on the farms of two or three Free State Dutchmen. During the last ten 

 years or so, several living specimens of these antelopes have been imported 

 to Europe. It has been found that they breed well in captivity, and there 

 are now in this country and upon the continent a fair number of black 

 wildebeest. This is very encouraging, and if the two or three Orange 

 Free State farmers would give their remaining stock a chance, the race 

 might, without doubt, be saved from the fate of utter extermination — a 

 fate which seems almost certain to overtake it in the next few years. But, 

 unfortunately, few Dutch farmers in South Africa are proof against the 

 temptation of a pecuniary bribe. These Boers find that they can easily 

 obtain from rich men at Johannesburg and elsewhere £ 10 and more for 

 the privilege of shooting — or having shot for them by the farmer's more 

 practised son— a single head of these rare animals. The bribes are, as I 

 happen to know, being pretty freely offered and accepted, and the preserved 

 wildebeest are thus gradually being reduced in numbers ; so that, within 

 ten or fifteen years' time, they are, I fear, likely to have become nearly 

 extinct. In addition to this temptation, a head or two of these protected 



