ERYTHKICA - AGKICI"IhTTTRAL ECONOMY IN GENERAL 



completely disappeared from En^threa where almost all animals of the cat- 

 tle tribe are rendered immune against it. 



A corollary to the tenacious struggle was the considerable increase in 

 the number of the cattle. According to the last census, made in 1905, there 

 were then already 300,000 head of fully grown cattle. 



The results of the census of the cattle of the colony of Erythrea are 

 found in ]Martini's report of 1913 (Vol II. Allegati No. 67, pp. 987-1000) (i), 



The census of 1905 supplied the following data : 



Camels Horses Cattle Sheep 



Census of 1898 . . 30,669 26,205 177,969 770,129 



" 1905 . . 46,933 29,789 295,717 736,132 



Difference + 16,264 + 3,584 117748 — 33 ,997 



If however it be remembered that on the occasion of this last census a 

 good third of the animals were not declared by the natives — alway averse 

 from such declarations because they fear taxes and also perhaps because 

 they are jealously reserved as regards their own property ; ;that these people 

 consume no meat whatsoever ; and that in the five years after the census 

 and until today the mortality from the plague, which once amounted to 

 wholesale massacre rather than decimation, has ceased, because no more cases 

 have occurred where serum vaccination is practised : if all these things be 

 remembered it is obvious that the figure 300,000 must in reality much more 

 than have doubled. The number of the heads of cattle must be at least 

 700,000, as was calculated in Erythrea in 191 1. Such number is equiva- 

 lent to one eighth of the total number of cattle in all Italy, found to be 

 6,198,861 at the last census. The production of sheep and goats is no less 

 large and increases continually. These animals numbered in 1905 nearly 

 a million and are now reasonably computed at more than two millions. 



These data taken from the census of 1905 and from other and more 

 recent information and researches — supplied by the district commissioners, 

 the direction of civil affairs and the direction of the institute for the produc- 

 tion of serum of Asmara — show that the number of cattle in Er\i;hrea 

 in relation to the poj^ulation is proportionately far larger than in Italy. 

 In Italy it is stated that there is one head of cattle for everj^ six or seven 

 inhabitants ; whereas in Erythrea, where before the war the population 

 was about 400,000, there were then about two heads of cattle for each 

 inhabitant. 



If the number of cattle be compared to the area of Erythrea — 115,000 

 square kilometres — there are found to be six heads to every square kilometre, 

 while in Italy there are 21.62 to ever^- square kilometre. 



(i) See also sheets XX and XXI of vol. IV. of the same rcjiort (Carte speciali) where is 

 reported the distributon of Wealth in live stock in the dilTerent districts of the colony (Distribu- 

 zione dclla ricchezza in bcstiame nelle varie regioni dclla colonia and Distribuzione del bestiame nelle 

 varic regioni della colonia. 



