PLAYFUL ANIMALS

Evening Star, Issue 22441, 11 September 1936, Page 1

PLAYFUL ANIMALS

“Motorists, Beware of Elephants!” That is a warning to sightseers' in Kruger National Park, South Africa. Mr S. P. Bekker, the Administrator of tho Transvaal, and Mrs Bekker went there last year to photograph wild animals. A lioness gave them a good “ close-up ” when she advanced toward their car, walking round it with tho critical eye of a car-owner at a motor show. Then, rising on her hind legs at the back of the car, the lioness peered through tho rear window. Curiosity thus satisfied, she stretched herself out near the rear wheel and scratched playfully at the tyres until the car was driven slowly away. Another amateur photographer, with more rashness than sense, left his car to photograph a sable bull standing near the roadside. He did not know that the bull had been severely wounded in a fight. The photographer was within 6yds of the bull when it charged. Before his wife and native hoy were able to beat it off the man was gored through tho leg. Had he been tackled by a lion in this way the story would have had a different ending. At Pretorius Kop—as at all other entrances to the park—there is a large notice warning people to keep to the roads. This was shown to a tourist. Half an hour later ho was found manoeuvring round a pride of somnolent lions. Fie told an official that he did not consider the notice binding, as it did not conclude with “ By Order.” 8,000 MILES OF PARK. The Kruger National Park is not a zoological gardens. It covers an area half the size of Victoria, and it contains enormous numbers of wild beasts living just as God made them, unfenced and untended; preying and preyed on. There are about 140 areas on the continent of Africa set aside for tho preservation of wild life, hut only nine have been given the guarantee of permanency by the status of national park. Of these tho largest is Kruger Park, an area of 8,000 square miles, between the Transvaal and Portuguese territory. -7 When the first voortrekkors under Louis Triegard and Jan van Rensburg crossed tho Orange River in 1835 and travelled north to Zoutpansherg, they met with prodigious quantities of wild life. A century later big game had disappeared from many parts of the Transvaal, and had it not been for the establishment of the Sabi and Shingwedzi Reserves in 1898 and 1903, now Kruger National Park, wild life there would have been a thing of the past. Under protection all species increased considerably, and the animals are now as plentiful as they were when the first white man settled in South Africa. No Visitor ’has any difficulty in becoming: iHtclquainted with some of the magnificent species with which South Africa has been so richly provided. With any luck, tho visitor will see dozens of wild species. Among the more striking are the lion, zebra, hippopotamus, African elephant (motorists, beware!), giraffe, blue wildebeest, eland, sable antelope, roan antelope, waterbuck, impala, inyali. kudu, warthog, leopard, cheetah, giant bustard, ground hornbill, and lilac-breasted roller. The visitor will obtain enough photographs to bore his enemies and astonish his friends. The big game hunter (lovestricken or Indian Army) should go elsewhere. Gnus may be carried, but only under seal and for protection. The motor car does not frighten the animals. So many cars have passed through the area that lions and elephants have become as blase as pedestrians, and jackals almost as impudent. If Kruger Park is a rich field for the naturalist, the territory to the north— Northern Transvaal and Southern Rhodesia—is the country for the geologist and archaeologist. This is tho country of King Solomon’s mines, where legend and fact are still strangely mingled. Wide areas of ancient mine workings still hold their problems for the historian. Were these mines worked by the Egyptians, who transported their gold thousands of miles up the coast, or were they worked by some extinct race which once inhabited the south? The question seems to have remained unsolved. _ There are more than 5,000 old mine workings in this part of Africa. Many of the modern mines were discovered because of the old ones. It has bean argued that the old workings are the remains of King Solomon’s mines, from which ancient Egypt obtained her riches. The theory is supported by tho fact that such extensive workings have been found in no other part of the world, and bv knowledge that there was early traffic in goods and precious metals along the cast coast of Africa, from Sofala to what is row Suez. OLD BUILDINGS. Massive old building remains have been found in Southern llhodisia, especially at Zimbabwe. Hero there is a groat wall of granite blocks, 50 fj in height, a border of chevron markings facing flic rising sun. One authority, Miss Caton Thompson, describes the ruin as fourteenth century native work; another, Frobinius, thinks it is Indian in origin. Other archaeologists incline to the belief that the wall was built by tho Egyptians. There are also smaller piles of ruin toward the coast. These fortresses might have been used by carriers of gold. South Africa is still a land of gold. More than £1.100,000,000 worth of gold has already been extracted from the mines, and indications are that there is still more than that in the ground. The gold deposit is unlike any other in the world. It is like a seam of coal, known to stretch for more than 100 miles. The deepest mine has a vertical shaft of 8,500 ft. One establishment—tbo Crown mines—uses more electricity than tho city of Melbourne.