sman, and the
increasing number of natives who possess guns. The Dutch Boer of eighty
years ago was a good marksman and loved the chase, but he did not shoot
for fame and in order to write about his exploits, while the
professional hunter who shot to sell ivory or rare specimens had hardly
begun to exist. The work of destruction has latterly gone on so fast
that the effect of stating what is still left can hardly be to tempt
others to join in that work, but may help to show how urgent is the duty
of arresting the process of extermination.

When the first Dutchmen settled at the Cape the lion was so common as to
be one of the every-day perils of life. Tradition points out a spot in
the pleasure-ground attached to the Houses of Parliament at Cape Town
where a lion was found prowling in what was then the commandant's
garden. In 1653 it was feared that lions would storm the fort to get at
the sheep within it, and so late as 1694 they killed nine cows within
sight of the present castle. To-day, however, if the lion is to be found
at all within the limits of Cape Colony, it is only in the wilderness
along the banks of the Orange River. He was abundant in the Orange Free
State when it became independent in 1854, but has been long extinct
there. He survives in a few spots in the north of the Transvaal and in
the wilder parts of Zululand and Bechuanaland, and is not unfrequent in
Matabililand and Mashonaland. One may, however, pass through those
countries, as I did in October, 1895, without having a chance of seeing
the beast or even hearing its nocturnal voice, and those who go hunting
this grandest of all quarries are often disappointed. In the strip of
flat land between the mountains and the Indian Ocean behind Sofala and
Beira, and in the Zambesi valley, there remain lions enough; but the
number diminishes so fast that even in that malarious and thinly peopled
land none may be left thirty years hence.

The leopard is still to be found all over the country, except where the
population is thickest; and as the leopard haunts rocky places, it is,
though much hunted for the sake of its beautiful skin, less likely to be
exterminated. Some of the smaller carnivora, especially the pretty
lynxes, have now become very rare. There is a good supply of hyenas, but
they are ugly.

Elephants used to roam in great herds over all the more woody districts,
but have now been quite driven out of Cape Colony, Natal, and the two
Dutch republic