Karoo means 'dry thirst land' and is one of the world's unique arid zones. The Karoo, a wonder of the scientific world, is an ancient, fossil-rich land with the largest variety of succulents found anywhere on earth. There are over 9000 species of plants in the Great Karoo and the Beaufort West district alone is home to more than the whole of Great Britain. The great Karoo is an integral part of the world's scientist, botanists, archaeologists, geologists, palaeontologists and ecologists. Game animals, to which these plains and mountains are home, make the Great Karoo an outpost of nature where man's intrusion is but a light touch. On the plains are found many species of buck, Hartman Mountain Zebra, fallow deer, wild ostrich, guinea fowls, the Egyptian goose and lynx. The endangered black rhino and riverine rabbit have been resettled at the Karoo National Park, which now also has 11 of the redeveloped plains quagga. Bird-life is abundant and black eagles, the monarchs of the mountains, are plentiful. At the end of the last century one of the largest fighting forces ever to leave the shore of Imperial Britain, arrived at the Cape to engage the Boers in what was termed the last of the gentlemen's wars.' The Anglo Boer War, the centenary of which will be commemorated from 1999 to 2002, was the British whom between 1815 and 1914 fought the longest, bloodiest, costliest and most humiliating war. British solders with all their paraphernalia of battle crossed the plains of the Great Karoo. During the anniversary hundreds of tourists will visit and follow their trail northwards, visiting lonely graves, which dot the plains, and blockhouses which still guard the railway bridges as a grim reminder o these turbulent times.