288 COMMERCIAL PROSPECTS 



forest foi- the shelter of this beast. Provided the most religious care — 

 such care is effectual in India — was taken of the females and voung-, there 

 is no reason why a certain number of male elephants should not be killed 

 vearlv bv designated agents of the Government, and their ivory be sold 

 to merchants as part of tlie Protectorate revenues. I see no reason whatever 

 now whv the female African elephant should not lie tamed and used as 

 a trans[)ort animal. For this purpose it might eventually prove advisable 

 to import trained Indian females, who might assist in teaching the young 

 captured Africans. The experiments I have tried myself in tlie way of 

 rearing baby elephants who had not yet been weaned from tlieir mothers 

 })roved unsuccessful, as a])]iarently it is im})Ossil)le to rear any African 

 e]e})hant on cows" milk. Perhaps, however, my four faihnvs in this 

 respect need not be held to discourage other experiments. In any case, 

 the late ]Mr. Pichard Ijaile showed that it was ])0ssil)le for natives to 

 cai)ture yomig elephants able to subsist on leaves and grass, yet not so old 

 as to be utterly unmanageable or untamable. It may be alony this line that 

 the next ex]ieriments will be made, and imi'orted female Indian elephants 

 might be of" use in taming the newly captured elei)han1s. In time, when 

 Abican elephants had been trained to keddah work, the whole system of 

 capturing, taming, and training elephants might be conducted on Indian 

 lines. If after many years of trial the African elephant is pronounced to 

 be hopeless as a domestic animal (and it should be remembered that most 

 male African elejdiants in cajitivity have shown theniselves to be hopelessly 

 savage), then at least for its magnificent ivory the creature is worth 

 preserving as an asset to the t^tate. If the Indian elephant shows himself 

 to be more docile than the African elejdiant, it must be remembered, 

 on the other hand, that he is of very little value for his ivory. 



Zebras of two kinds (the magnificent Grevi/i and the ecjually handsome 

 but smaller Grant's zebra) exist in the I'ganda Protectorate in countless 

 swarms. The foals are easily captured bv the natives, and can be reared 

 by means of asses as foster-mothers, the ass being one of the commonest and 

 cheapest of domestic animals, at any rate over the eastern })arts of the 

 Uganda Protectorate. These fine large asses, in fact (which are simply the 

 Nubian ass slightly domesticated), might of themselves be an article of export. 



Giraffes and most of the larger African antelopes should be strictly 

 preserved, but when they increased unduly in numbers specimens of them 

 might be captured for sale and transmission to zoological gardens. Where 

 any of these animals are really found in excess, and have to be thinned, 

 it must be remembered that their hides are almost always of value 

 commercially. 



Either there is no true tsetse fly anvwhere in the Uganda Protectorate 

 or it is not able to ol)tain and introduce into the bodies of dome>tic animals 



