lo AFRICAN ELEPHANT 



the high plateaus and the Zambesi, there was at the same date a good 

 number of elephants, especially in the dense wait-a-bit-thorn jungle 

 to the west of the Gwai river. In these vast areas of country, which 

 can never be inhabited by Europeans, elephants will probably continue 

 to roam for centuries, even without special protection, as the natives 

 of Matabililand and Mashonaland, if not completely disarmed, can do 

 but little harm ; while in a country where the big tuskers have been 

 shot and the survivors rendered wild and cunning, with an enormous 

 extent of country over which to roam, it will not pay Europeans to 

 hunt them for profit. 



" The average height at the shoulder of full-grown male elephants 

 in southern Africa ranges from lo feet to lo feet 6 inches. This 

 appears somewhat less than the average in the neighbourhood of Lake 

 Rudolf, where Mr. A. H. Neumann ascertained by measurement that 

 old bulls usually stand about lo feet 8 or 9 inches at the shoulder. 

 The average size of the tusks is, I believe, always less in southern 

 than in equatorial Africa. No large tusks have been obtained in the 

 Addo bush or the Zitzikama forest, where the bulls seldom grow tusks 

 exceeding 45 lb. in weight. When I first visited Matabililand, in 

 1872, although the elephants inhabiting those parts of the country 

 where there was no tsetse-fly had been much harried by English and 

 Boer hunters, the greater part of the fly-infested districts had scarcely 

 been touched ; and there were still many parts of the vast area between 

 the plateaus of Matabililand and Mashonaland and the Zambesi where 

 the elephants had never been molested. During the next few years, 

 however, swarms of Lo Bengula's hunters, besides a small number of 

 Europeans, waged constant war on the elephants, and killed most of 

 the big tuskers. Between 1872 and 1874 not less than 60,000 lb. 

 weight of ivory was sold to traders by Lo Bengula ; and if we add 

 to this amount 40,000 lb. (which is a low estimate) for the ivory 

 obtained by Europeans and their native hunters in Matabililand 

 during that time, we have a total of 100,000 lb. of ivory obtained 

 in this district in the three years preceding 1875. Most of this ivory 

 I saw, and I also heard of all the exceptionally large tusks either traded 

 from Lo Bengula or obtained from elephants shot by Europeans ; 

 while in 1874 I saw many tons of ivory obtained from Sipopo, then 

 paramount chief of the Barotsi. I think, therefore, that I am justified 

 in expressing an opinion as to the average size of elephant-tusks in 

 the interior of South Africa, before the herds had been decimated and 

 the finest tuskers destroyed. The ivory brought from the country 

 immediately north of the central Zambesi averaged somewhat larger 



