orts'), and in equal quantities. M'tese, his son,
no sooner came to the throne, than he indulged in shooting them down
before his admiring wives, and now he has only one buffalo and a few
parrots left."

In Kouka, near Lake Tchad, antelopes and ostriches are both kept tame,
as I was informed by Dr. Barth.

[South Africa.]--The instances are very numerous in South Africa
where the Boers and half-castes amuse themselves with rearing zebras,
antelopes, and the like; but I have not found many instances among
the native races. Those that are best known to us are mostly nomad
and in a chronic state of hunger, and therefore disinclined to
nurture captured animals as pets; nevertheless, some instances can
be adduced. Livingstone alludes to an extreme fondness for small
tame singing-birds (pp. 324 and 453). Dr. (now Sir John) Kirk, who
accompanied him in later years, mentions guinea-fowl--that do not
breed in confinement, and are merely kept as pets--in the Shire
valley, and Mr. Oswell has furnished me with one similar anecdote. I
feel, however, satisfied that abundant instances could be found if
properly sought for. It was the frequency with which I recollect to
have heard of tamed animals when I myself was in South Africa,
though I never witnessed any instance, that first suggested to me
the arguments of the present paper. Sir John Kirk informs me that:

"As you approach the coast or Portuguese settlements, pets of all
kinds become very common; but then the opportunity of occasionally
selling them to advantage may help to increase the number; still,
the more settled life has much to do with it."

In confirmation of this view, I will quote an early writer,
Pigafetta (_Hakluyt Coll._, ii. 562), on the South African kingdom
of Congo, who found a strange medley of animals in captivity, long
before the demands of semi-civilisation had begun to prompt their
collection:--

The King of Congo, on being Christianised by the Jesuit missionaries
in the sixteenth century, "signified that whoever had any idols
should deliver them to the lieutenants of the country. And within
less than a month all the idols which they worshipped were brought
into court, and certainly the number of these toys was infinite, for
every man adored what he liked without any measure or reason at all.
Some kept serpents of horrible figures, some worshipped the greatest
goats they could get, some leopards, and others monstrous creatures.
Some held in venerati