With Flashlight and Rifle ^ 



take of their own accord, as they can raise money by 

 selling the skins to the trader. 



Immense quantities of skins find their way now to 

 the trade-centres. In Aden and Marseilles, for instance, 

 thousands and thousands ot antelope-skins are sometimes 

 to be found. It is an open secret that the greater number 

 of these skins are procured by armed native hunters for 

 the agents of European firms. The British Government 

 has long hampered the once thri\ing trade in antelope- 

 hides, by a very severe tax on the steamers running to 

 Aden, and this seems to be the only means of protecting 

 game. Even so, hundreds of thousands of antelope- 

 skins are exported as cow-hides ! This I have seen for 

 myself Formerly they used to be sent off quite openly 

 and only tied up ; nowadays they are covered with canvas 

 mats. The same thing happens in East Africa with 

 smaller animals — with the pelvic, for instance, and the 

 Bega monkey. 



While those regions of the north of Africa which 

 adjoin the Mediterranean possess a species of wild boar 

 similar to our own in torm, we find south ot the Sahara 

 quite another kind distributed over a wide area. 



In the Masai country a singularly unpleasing kind 

 is found — the wart-hog, whose name suggests that it is 

 not very beautiful ! It has a head covered all over with 

 warts and protuberances that give it a very grotesque 

 and ugly appearance. 



A second species, the river-hog, is found more in 

 the neighbourhood of populous districts, and for this 

 reason I seldom came across it. The wart-hog, however, 



434 



