Lake Victoria to Khartoum 



distinguishable from any other tusks. North of 

 these, as far as the Kafu river, through Uganda 

 proper, an eighty-pound tusker is a good one — 

 that is the local term for those whose tusks 

 average eighty pounds apiece ; after which, going 

 further north still, come the Unyoro elephants 

 and those inhabiting the Nile province, which 

 are bigger than any, running to a hundred and 

 twenty pounds or so per tusk. 



Over in the Congo the tusks also attain very 

 large dimensions, judging by convoys of Congo 

 ivory that are brought into Uganda for shipment 

 home. But it is excessively difficult to obtain a 

 licence to shoot over the other side of the Nile, 

 where there are millions of acres of virgin forest 

 unexplored, and swarming with our valuable long- 

 toothed friends. 



Cow ivory is of very much finer quality than 

 bull ivory, but one is not allowed to shoot cows, 

 and even if one picks up a cow's tusks they are 

 confiscated by Government. They are very 

 much shorter and thinner than those of the bull. 

 I should think one of thirty pounds would be 

 a big tusk. 



One may not shoot a bull in Uganda or in the 

 Sudan with tusks under eleven pounds weight 

 each on pain of being fined and having the 

 tusks confiscated, and now in British East 

 Africa the minimum has been raised to sixty 

 pounds the pair with the same penalty attached 



ii6 



