The original sketches left to us by Cornwallis Harris (which I must say do not always rise to a high level From the artistic point of view[36]) are coloured sketches accompanied by descriptions, and show us such multitudes of wild animals that they seem to border on the fabulous. For we see in them elephants, rhinoceroses, giraffes, buffaloes, zebras and antelopes, all gathered together in crowds, and thus one inclines involuntarily to the opinion that all these have been brought together in one picture merely to give illustrations of the various species. But my own observations have shown me that our artist is perfectly correct. One sees how necessary it is to make documentary records of such observations. The men of a later time, as I plainly realise, may be able to place before themselves a picture of all this primitive abundance of animal life only with the greatest trouble and by means of earnest study of every authority bearing on the matter. Enormous periods of time must have gone by to develop all the beauty and splendour of this so varied and so highly organised life. My thoughts range over far distant times. I see, looking so near that it seems as one could touch it with one’s hands, one of the mightiest volcanoes of our earth gradually unveiling itself and stripping off its robe of clouds. The volcanic regions below it remind me of the story of how all my surroundings were developed. Born in fire, and evolved, differentiated, and formed to so much beauty, which no hostile hand has yet come to destroy, the scene around me is so splendid that my eyes keep ranging over it, more and more eager to contemplate all its splendours. [Illustration: _C. G. Schillings, phot._ CRESTED CRANES IN FLIGHT.] [Illustration: _C. G. Schillings, phot._ IN A WONDERFULLY SHORT TIME VULTURES AND MARABOUS FLY DOWN FROM AN EXTREME HEIGHT IN THE AIR TO FALL UPON ANY DEAD ANIMAL.] A strange feeling comes over me. I think of all the beautiful spots of our old world. They have all been taken possession of under carefully devised arrangements and methods, well protected by the eye of the law, and often only occasionally open to access, and then on condition of payment. But the beauty I am contemplating has now been hopelessly abandoned to intruders, who have neither knowledge nor taste nor sense, and who are at this moment so barbarously destroying it.