724 AFRICAN GAME ANIMALS 



length of time. Nor are they long silent, for aside from sub- 

 dued squeaks or growls, and occasional shrill calls, there are 

 queer internal rumblings. Their eyes are very bad. Like 

 the rhino, they can see only as a very near-sighted man sees. 

 At a distance of eighty yards or so, when in dull-colored 

 hunting clothes, one can walk slowly toward them or shift 

 position without fear of discovery. Even near by, if a man 

 is absolutely motionless, he stands a good chance to escape 

 observation, although not hidden. But the hearing is good, 

 and the sense of smell exquisite. They make many differ- 

 ent noises, and to none of these ordinary noises do the other 

 elephants pay any heed. But there are certain notes, to our 

 ears indistinguishable from the others, which signify alarm 

 or suspicion, and it is extraordinary to see the instantane- 

 ous way in which, on the utterance of such a sound, a whole 

 herd will first stand motionless and then move away. 



From immemorial ages elephants have been hunted for 

 their ivory. Whether the great Egyptian monarchs hunted 

 the African elephant is uncertain, although on their Asiatic 

 forays they certainly killed the Asiatic elephants which then 

 existed in Syria and along the valley of the Euphrates. But 

 the big tusks of the African elephants were already at that 

 time obtained by barter from the negro tribes south of the 

 deserts which border the lower Nile. For thousands of 

 years the range of the great beast has slowly shrunk; but the 

 slaughter did not become appalling until the nineteenth cen- 

 tury. In that century, however, the white elephant hunt- 

 ers, and later the natives to whom the white traders fur- 

 nished fire-arms, worked huge havoc among the herds, the 

 work of destruction being, beyond all comparison, greater 

 than ever before. In South Africa, and over immense tracts 



