334 KLOOF AND KARROO. 



slaughtered in thousands upon thousands for the 

 sake of their skins, which were sold at very low 

 prices, and shipped to England and elsewhere ; and 

 the plains of the Free State and Transvaal, which 

 not long since literally swarmed with noble game, 

 are now more denuded than even those of the Cape 

 Colony. The rhinoceros is now nearly extinct south 

 of the Zambesi, and the elephant only lingers in the 

 most inaccessible fastnesses of the tsetse fly country, 

 in Mashunaland, and one or two other localities. 

 The smaller antelopes, it is true, are still plentiful, 

 but only for the reason that their hides were not 

 worth powder and ball. If much of the romance 

 and pleasure of his life has departed from the Boer 

 with the decrease of game, he has only himself 

 to thank. 



Of late years the dress of the Boer has changed. 

 The springbok, blessbok, and other antelopes which 

 formerly grazed in countless thousands on the 

 karroos of the Old Colony, the rolling flats of the 

 Free State, and the high veldt of the Transvaal, 

 from whose skins the garments of the farmer were 

 made, have been so depleted and exterminated, that 

 most Boers now dress in fustian or moleskin. 

 " Veldt-schoons," however, shoes of home-tanned 

 leather, with the hair outside, are still invariably 

 used. True, the elephant hunters, who yet pursue 

 their dangerous calling in the far interior of Mashuna- 

 land, the Mababe veldt, or the Zambesi regions, and 

 the Vee, or pastoral Boers (literally stock farmers) — 

 nomads, who wander as their fancy or fresh pastures 

 may impel them — still wear the leathern garb of their 

 ancestors ; but ivory is not now so difficult to procure, 

 and land so much more scarce and less easily 



