Lake Victoria to Khartoum 



a year than the white man will do in three, and 

 trust to their cuteness to avoid detection. There 

 is a kind of freemasonry among them where an 

 elephant is concerned. You may send your 

 trusted orderly out to his own village where his 

 father and mother and all the rest of his kith and 

 kin live, to try and buy a small cow elephant's 

 tusk as a curiosity — money or sheep down — 

 and he'll return with the information that there 

 are none in the countryside. It seems odd, but, 

 after a week's march, he will quietly remark that 

 there were of course heaps, but they couldn't 

 dispose of them to the white man, as he was 

 probably offering to buy on purpose to report 

 them and get them into trouble. By way of 

 illustration, take the case of elephants that we 

 have all heard of, which have got away wounded. 

 What becomes of their tusks ? They get into 

 the hands of the natives who barter them for 

 so many sheep and cattle, and quite righdy too. 

 But how many in comparison do they shoot them- 

 selves, and say they found them dying of a wound 

 by a rifle-shot ? And who is to stop them so 

 long as this freemasonry continues, except an 

 English game ranger who goes about amongst 

 them, and, having gained their respect, puts down 

 the practice with a firm hand ? There are game 

 rangers and to spare in other parts of Africa for the 

 protection of other small game ; surely elephants, 

 whose valuable ivory forms such a large portion 



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