412 EXTINCT AND VANISHING MAMMALS 



Fortunately the white rhinoceroses of the Congo-Nile race have little of 

 the aggressiveness that makes the black form so dangerous a brute. Their 

 realm lies far remote from civilization, and they leisurely roam over regions 

 wherein the call of forward struggling civilization is still faint. They are pro- 

 tected by the natural indolence of natives, and the commercial poverty of 

 nature. They have a fair chance to survive the native spear, but not modern 

 gun and powder, and today the negro marvels at the small bullet that brings 

 him so easy and big an exchange in meat. 



Judging from observations made by others and ourselves, from 2000 to 

 3000 white rhinoceroses may still be alive in the entire northern range. Just 

 how rapidly their numbers will decrease, depends upon the protection afforded 

 them. . . . Perhaps complete restrictions to traffic in the horns of white 

 rhinoceroses would be the most important step toward saving [them from 

 extinction]. (Pp. 90-91.) 



Christy (1923, pp. 64-65) writes of his experiences: 



In 1916 on the Congo side of the Divide, especially in the district opposite 

 the Meridi-Yambio section, I found the species individually was much more 

 common than anywhere on the British side. ... In a Greek store at Aba 

 ... I was shown a pile of at least a hundred rhino horns, worth from 1 to 3 

 apiece, I think the trader told me, but which he could not sell owing to the 

 restrictions put upon their sale in, or transit through, the Sudan. 



Westward of Aba, and more or less throughout the Haut Uele district 

 north of the Uele river, I came upon the animals . . . almost daily. . . . 



The small region in the Congo in which the animal is commonest is almost 

 uninhabited, and it would not be difficult for the Congo Administration to 

 enforce upon Chief Bwendi ... a prohibition in favour, of this interesting 

 species, forbidding at the same time the sale of rhino horn throughout the 

 Congo. 



Lang writes again (1924, pp. 176-177) : 



There is little fear of the destruction of these rhinoceroses by natives armed 

 with spears, as Christy supposes; the danger lies in gun and powder of 

 which there is always an abundance, of either lawful or smuggled provenance. 

 The few Azande hunters, 'justly famed among the tribes for dangerous exploits, 

 are admired as much for killing a rhinoceros with a spear as an elephant or 

 a buffalo .... These rhinoceroses are of course attacked when sleeping. . . . 



There seems to be no effective means at present of stopping the whole- 

 sale slaughter of this northern form. Its meat is one of the important parts 

 of the native diet, procurable at all times without much difficulty. Even 

 though the principal chiefs were willing to enforce protection there would 

 still be a great number of native poachers and such a law would never be 

 adequately respected. To properly police these vast areas is practically 

 impossible. 



The situation would be helped in part by the more drastic enforcement as 

 regards confiscations and fines for the transportation, sale and exportation 

 of the horns and pieces of hide. Khartum is the great center at present 

 for the exportation of horns to the Orient and for the manufacture therefrom 

 of articles sought alike by sportsmen and curio collectors. 



A recent decree provides that all Rhino horns in the Belgian 

 Congo, however acquired, shall become the property of the State. 

 Previously it had been lawful to kill an "attacking" Rhinoceros and 

 to keep the horns of one so killed. (Schouteden, 1927, p. [30].) 



