240 ELEPHANT HUNTING [ch. x 



animals did such damage to property, or became such 

 menaces to human hfe. Among all four species, cows 

 with calves often attack men without provocation, and 

 old bulls are at any time likely to become infected by a 

 spirit of wanton and ferocious mischief, and are apt to 

 become man-killers. I know settlers who tried to pre- 

 serve the rhinoceroses which they foimd living on their 

 big farms, and who were obliged to abandon the 

 attempt, and themselves to kill the rhinos because of 

 repeated and wanton attacks on human beings by the 

 latter. Where we were, by Neri, a year or two before 

 our visit the rhinos had become so dangerous, killing 

 one white man and several natives, that the District 

 Commissioner who preceded J\Ir. Browne was forced 

 to undertake a crusade against them, killing fifteen. 

 Both in South Africa and on the Nile protection 

 extended to hippopotami has in places been wholly 

 withdrawn because of the damage done by the beasts 

 to the crops of the natives, or because of their 

 unprovoked assaults on canoes and boats. In one 

 instance a last surviving hippo was protected for years, 

 but finally grew bold because of immunity, killed a 

 boy in sheer wantonness, and had to be himself slain. 

 In Uganda the buffalo were for years protected, and 

 grew so bold, killed so many natives, and ruined so 

 many villages, that they are now classed as vermin^ 

 and their destruction in every way encouraged. In 

 the very neighbourhood where I was hunting, at Kenia, 

 but six weeks before my coming, a cow buffalo had 

 wandered down into the plains and run amuck, had 

 attacked two villages, had killed a man and a boy, and 

 had then been mobbed to death by the spearmen. 

 Elephants, when in numbers, and when not possessed 

 of the fear of man, are more impossible neighbours than 



