Major James Stevenson-Hamilton was warden of the Sabi (since 1902) as well as Singwitsi Reserves. During his inspection tour of Singwitsi during September and October 1903, Stevenson-Hamilton found that game was scarce. He was nevertheless delighted with the region and found it 'well worth protecting'. Besides the relics of hunting camps there were numerous small African homesteads, the occupants of which subsisted on trapping and hunting by bow and arrow. The scarcity of game he however attributed to systematic hunting by Boer hunters, who were in his opinion doing more damage in a week than the Africans in a year. They had apparently exterminated all the elephant, rhino and eland during the war, and regarded game laws and ordinances as "waste paper", while having "no sporting instincts and no sense of honour as a rule".
