MR. BRYDEN'S SOUTH AFRICAN NOTES.* Mn. BRYDEN'S experiences of wild
life in South Africa are always welcome. He is thoroughly well informed on most subjects relating to sport, natural history, and travel south of the Zambesi ; and his observations gain much by his acquaintance with the works of the early travellers and hunters, such as Captain Harris, Baldwin, C. J. Anderson, °swell, and Levaillant, the " classics " of South African natural history. He is also a very representative man, writing
without race prejudice, and with a very catholic mind for all points of interest in the outdoor life of the "Old Colony," the veldt, and the hush. His chapters on birds and the incomparable flowers of Cape Colony are very fresh and new, and his descriptions lend a colour to many African scenes not unfamiliar in other pages. He lets us see the "blood-red aloe flowers," as well as the herd of sable antelope which are lying among them ; and be often leaves on the reader's mind vivid impressions of scenes which struck him, without labouring the description. That a book of
personal experiences in a wild country does gain by adequate descriptive writing seems to have escaped the authors of many recent records of travel. Here, then, is Mr. Bryden's description of the evening flight of the pelicans, witnessed on the banks of the Botletli River, near the great vanishing lake north of the Kalahari :—
"It was sunset as we struck the river, and the day was sinking across the flat and endless plains. On our right a vast mass of flaming reeds, now being burnt by the natives, sent an immense column of smoke far into the heavens. High in the air above the river, their flight clearly marked in long wavy skeins against the rose and amber sky, flew steadily hundreds upon hundreds of great birds, which the native boy who was riding with us informed us were pelicans. It was a marvellous and most beautiful sight. Each bird followed its neighbour in single file, and in the most regular order, the great wings (no one can imagine how great is the spread of a pelican's wings till they have been extended in a dead specimen) beating their passage through the air in solemn and stately fashion. There were numerous bands in the air, numbering some hundreds, and the long skeins and circles occasionally crossed or united in mid-air, all sharply silhouetted against the evening sky. Presently, before we actually reached the river, the skeins trended lower and lower, and the birds sank, still in orderly and majestic flight, into the shallows and reed-beds for their night's repose."
The author's previous works, Kloof and Karoo and Gun and Camera in South Africa, deal mainly with the practical aspects of sport and travel. Much of the present work is a naturalist's retrospect of the history of the most representa- tive South African animals. He brings their story down to the present day, and the information given is precise, and based on personal knowledge. The •vanishing animals, as most people are now aware, are those found only south of the Zambesi. The reason that there were many species which never did extend their range beyond that river is that it
• Natula and Sport in South Africa. By 11. A, Brydon. London Chapman and Rau.
lies beyond the northern limit of the dry extra-tropical climate. Many species, such as the sable antelope or the giraffe, can endure the tropical rains. But it seems obvious that the limit of many South African species, such as the white-tailed gnu and the pied antelope, never encroached
on the tropical region. The southern group are the vanishing animals, together with one which was able to endure any degree of warmth and damp, but for some reason never crossed the Zambesi. This is the great white rhinoceros, the largest of all African mammals except the elephant. In Mr. Bryden's pages we may track the ponderous square-nosed monsters, 14 ft. or 15 ft. long, and of the weight of four tons, creatures of which Oswell shot six within one-quarter of a mile as food for his natives, to their very last refuge. It is not quite certain whether a few may not still survive. It was surmised that, if anywhere, the last white rhinoceros would be found in a remote corner of North-East Mashonaland. Thither they were followed by Mr. Coryndon, who shot two, and sent the skins and skeletons to England, where one is mounted in the Natural History Museum, and the other in that of the Hon. Walter Rothschild at Tring. That it should be necessary to kill what were believed to be the last living examples of a sisecies, in order to put them in a museum, is doubtless justified on the grounds that some one else would have killed them and not preserved their remains. But as it happened, there was in 1894 another white rhinoceros refuge, in British territory and quite near Natal,—to wit, an unhealthy piece of swamp and jungle between the lower courses of the White and Black Umvolosi Rivers. It appears that six of this very last remnant were recently shot in this region, two being killed by an Englishman, of whom his countrymen have no reason to be proud. It is perhaps not too late to bring this fact before the public, for the swamp is in British territory, and there the principle of protecting the big game is so far recognised that three " reserves " have been established in the coast districts of Zululand, where shooting is not permitted. Since Mr. Bryden's chapters were written, one of these has been again thrown open to hunters, for a very singular reason. Big game much increased, and with the big game the tsetse-fly also appeared in far greater numbers than before. One important road running through the game reserve was beset by the fly, and as general opinion attributed the presence of the pest to the multiplication of wild animals, the latter are to be sacrificed. We are not convinced that the diagnosis is correct. In any case, there is a certain insolence and pre- sumption in the execution of the death sentence without reprieve on the very last survivors of a gigantic race.
In reviewing the present position of the different vanishing species Mr. Bryden has collated his own obser- vations with a memory well stocked with notes on the " animal " history and geography of South Africa, ranging from the days of the founding of Cape Colony, when elands and koodoos broke into the gardens and vineyards, elephants and rhinoceros made hay of the crops, and lions besieged the fort, and stalked the Governor in his garden. "This night," says one of the Governor's journals, dated January 23rd, 1653, "it appeared as if the lions would take the fort by storm." We need only refer here to the local distribution of the survivors, noting that Mr. Bryden's different observations are corroborated by several recent travellers who, with less wide experience of the country, have encountered one or other of the species. The "Old Colony" of the Cape has far the best record, except Khama's territory, far to the north. The black chief has, to the best of his power, preserved his animals from destruction. Elephants and Cape buffalo are preserved by Government in an isolated patch of jungle on the south border of Cape Colony. "Troops of these animals still range freely in the Kayena Forest and the Addo Bush, within sight of the Indian Ocean." For a thousand miles north every bead has been destroyed. The koodoo, the finest of the antelopes, except, perhaps, the eland, is preserved by some English proprietors in the eastern province. The mountain zebra is found in the Drakens'berg and Swaziland. The pied antelope, or bontebok, survives in one single troop, preserved by a Dutch gentleman, Mr. Van der Byl, near Cape Agulhas. It was very numerous but very local ; and the whole race were shot off by skin-hunting Boers between 1840 and 1870. The herd which forms the one exception has been preserved in the extreme south-west
corner of the peninsula by the families of Van Breda and on artistic individuality of working to order anonymously.
Van der Byl since 1830. The other vanishing animal, the white- • The Training of a Craftsman. By Fred. Miller. London; Virtue and Co.
tailed gnu, is now preserved in the Orange Free State. The quagga is extinct. Judging from the experience of Europe, where the aurochs has been preserved for centuries, and through many epidemics of rinderpestit is possible for all the surviving species to be maintained if the destruction is arrested at once. But unless something is done in the course of the next six months the white rhinoceros will have passed out of the ranks of the living.
In the nature of things there is little chance of what Mr. Bryden would like to see,—the restoration of the South African animals to their old position as " game " for the sportsman. If a syndicate bought, as he proposes, one hundred thousand acres in Mashonaland or on Lake Ngami, prospectors and miners would almost certainly invade and ruin the preserve. On the other hand, Africa is now very near to England, and money can accomplish much when spent by the class of wealthy Englishmen who take to sport, just as they would to business, with a single eye to success. The incidental increase in the wild life of districts preserved for big game is always great,—as, for example, in the Scotch deer-forests. It is only in preserving small game that the balance of Nature is destroyed.
We have confined our attention mainly to the story of the vanishing fauna of South Africa because that is the author's professed object in publishing his book. But there are charming chapters on teeming bird-life of the southern veldt and the Cape rivers. There in due season come, too, the stints, plovers, and sandpipers from the Arctic Circle, and the cuckoo, swallow, sedge-warbler, spotted flycatcher, water- hen, and dabchick, possibly from our own home counties. There are chapters on guinea-fowls, giraffes, fox-hunting in Bechuanaland, on sand-grouse, and other complete studies of the life of individual species. Nor are the flowers forgotten. Lovers of the garden who do not follow the publication of the Flora Capensis at Kew, with its catalogue of ten thousand species, will appreciate the following:—" When the rains fall the valleys and kloofs become, as by magic, carpeted with wild flowers. Pelargoniums grow in thick masses middle-high beneath the rock walls. Irises, gladioli, ixias, amaryllids, and other bulbous flowers star the earth ; heaths, orchids, strelitzias, heliophilas, and plumbago. Flowery shrubs abound." One practical conclusion will be drawn from Mr. Bryden's book. Those who go to South Africa for pleasure should stay in the "Old Colony."
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