s, save that in a narrow strip of forest country near the
south coast, between Mossel Bay and Algoa Bay, some herds are preserved
by the Cape government. So, too, in the north of the Transvaal there are
still a few left, also specially preserved. It is only on the east coast
south of the Zambesi, and here and there along that river, that the wild
elephant can now be found. From these regions it will soon vanish, and
unless something is done to stop the hunting of elephants the total
extinction of the animal in Africa may be expected within another
half-century; for the foolish passion for slaughter which sends
so-called sportsmen on his track, and the high price of ivory, are
lessening its numbers day by day. A similar fate awaits the rhinoceros,
once common even near the Cape, where he overturned one day the coach of
a Dutch governor. The white kind, which is the larger, is now all but
extinct, while the black rhinoceros has become scarce even in the
northern regions between the Limpopo and the Zambesi. The hippopotamus,
protected by his aquatic habits, has fared better, and may still be seen
plunging and splashing in the waters of the Pungwe, the Limpopo, and
other rivers in Portuguese East Africa. But Natal will soon know this
great amphibian no more; and within Cape Colony, where the creature was
once abundant even in the swamps that bordered Table Bay, he is now to
be found only in the pools along the lower course of the Orange River.
The crocodile holds his ground better, and is still a serious danger to
oxen who go down to drink at the streams. In Zululand and all along the
east coast, as well as in the streams of Mashonaland and Matabililand,
there is hardly a pool which does not contain some of these formidable
saurians. Even when the water shrinks in the dry season till little but
mud seems to be left, the crocodile, getting deep into the mud,
maintains a torpid life till the rains bring him back into activity. Lo
Bengula sometimes cast those who had displeased him, bound hand and
foot, into a river to be devoured by these monsters, which he did not
permit to be destroyed, probably because they were sacred to some
tribes.

The giraffe has become very scarce, though a herd or two are left in the
south of Matabililand, and a larger number in the Kalahari Desert. So,
also, the zebra and many of the species of antelopes, especially the
larger kinds, like the eland and the sable, are disappearing, while the
buffalo