LARGE GAME OF CAPE COLONY. 289 



The Quagga (Equus quagga), or quacha, is now 

 quite extinct within the Colony. Formerly it 

 abounded on every plain, and with a very little 

 preservation, might even now be adorning the 

 landscapes. The last observed on the Great Karroo 

 were three that still remained, in 1858, near the 

 Tiger Berg, in the neighbourhood of Aberdeen. In 

 a subsequent chapter I have dealt at some length 

 with the decline and fall of this handsome and 

 interesting quadruped. I was told not long since 

 that quaggas were still to be found in the Outeniqua 

 district, but I subsequently ascertained that my 

 informant had confounded them with zebras, 

 which did undoubtedly exist there. It is a moot 

 point whether Burchell's zebra (Equus Burchellii) 

 was not formerly found within colonial limits. 

 Paterson's "Journeys," 1777-8-9, would certainly 

 seem to imply that such was the case ; while 

 on pages 318 and 319 of his " Travels," Barrow 

 speaks of an animal of the zebra kind, yet differing 

 from the quacha and true zebra, seen near 

 Bambosberg at the end of the last century by several 

 Dutch hunters, which in several respects answers to 

 the description of Burchell's zebra. Naturalists 

 have, however, laid down, chiefly on the authority 

 of Cornwallis Harris, that this species never came 

 south of the Orange River. It is much to be 

 regretted that no record of South African travel 

 exists between the time of Peter Kolben, 1705, and 

 Sparrman, 1772. Such a record would, probably, 

 have done much to establish the true geographical 

 distribution (now for ever in doubt) of several 

 animals, notably the giraffe, white rhinoceros, and 

 Burchell's zebra. In 1705, Kolben's time, the 



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