Page:Africa by Élisée Reclus, Volume 4.djvu/142

 106 SOUTH AND EAST AFBICA. hyspna, jackal, and wild dog still linger amid the haunts of men, prowling about the farmsteads and sbeepfolds of the less settled distiicts. The squatters apply the general name of '* wolf " to all these predatory beasts. The domestic watch-dogs are said to be fully conscious of their blood relationship with the wild species, avoiding or fearing to attack them even when urged and encouraged to the combat. A few leopards, although continually stalked by the hunters, still have their lairs here and there in the dense thickets of the ravines. They are found even in the neighbourhood of Capetown, and are the most dreaded of all rapacious beasts in Austral Africa, being feared even more than the lion. This feline was formerly so numerous in the vicinity of the Cape, that, according to the statements of the old chroniclers, the early Dutch settlers con- stantly expected them to combine for a night attack on the fort itself. Now they have disappeared altogether from the settled districts, but they are still met by explorers on the upland plains of the Bushman country south of the Orange River. But here the lion is no longer a " king of the wilderness," striking terror into the hearts of men and animals by his voice of thunder. Having become more timid and more wary, he seeks rather to fall unawares on his victims than to alarm them by his mighty roar. Sportsmen are unanimous in asserting that, in the neighbourhood of the highways and human habitations, the lion has become a mute animal. While this beast of prey has withdrawn to the verge of the desert, the elephant and buffalo, who have left in the geographical names of the colony so many proofs of their former range, have found a last refuge on the coastlands in the dense Knysna woodlands skirting Plettenburg Ba}-, and in a few thickets near the Sneeuw-bergen. In these retreats they are protected by the game laws. In the island of Ceylon, where the elephant finds an abundance of food and water, a very small number onlj' are provided with tusks ; but in Austral Africa all possess these organs, which they employ to clear away the dry sands of the river beds down to the underground reservoirs, and to slice from the stems of acacias and other trees strips of bark which they slowh* masticate.* South of the Orange River not a single member is now to be found of the rhinoceros family, of which there formerly existed, and possibly still survive, as many as four distinct species in Austral Africa. The hippopotamus has succeeded better in escaping from the attacks of man, and some of these amphibians are still met in the waters cf the Lower Orange, as well as in the rivers of Kafirland and Zululand, here in association with the crocodile. Down to the middle of the present century a few still frequented the Great Fish River. The giraffe, the zebra, quagga, buffalo, gnu, and most of the twenty-seven species of antelopes which formerly inhabited the now settled districts of Austral Africa, have retired farther north to the regions of the Kalahari Desert, to Xamaqualand and Transvaal. The graceful kama (dorcas), most beautiful of all antelopes, the kudu (sfrepsiceros), the black antelope, and most of their congeners, • Alexander, An Erpeditioti of Diseorery into the Interior of Africa.