242 AFRICAN GAME TRAILS 



as wellnigh to bring about the mighty beast's utter extermi- 

 nation. Ivory hunters and ivory traders have penetrated 

 Africa to the haunts of the elephant since centuries before 

 our era, and the elephant's boundaries have been slowly 

 receding throughout historic time; but during the century 

 just past its process has been immensely accelerated, until 

 now there are but one or two out-of-the-way nooks of the 

 Dark Continent to the neighborhood of which hunter and 

 trader have not penetrated. Fortunately the civilized 

 powers which now divide dominion over Africa have waked 

 up in time, and there is at present no danger of the exter- 

 mination of the lord of all four-footed creatures. Large 

 reserves have been established on which various herds of 

 elephants now live what is, at least for the time being, an 

 entirely safe life. Furthermore, over great tracts of terri- 

 \\ tory outside the reserves regulations have been promul- 

 NA, gated which, if enforced as they are now enforced, will 

 ^ prevent any excessive diminution of the herds. In British 

 East Africa, for instance, no cows are allowed to be shot 

 save for special purposes, as for preservation in a museum, 

 or to safeguard life and property; and no bulls with tusks 

 weighing less than thirty pounds apiece. This renders 

 safe almost all the females and an ample supply of breeding 

 males. Too much praise cannot be given the governments 

 and the individuals who have brought about this happy 

 result; the credit belongs especially to England and, to va- 

 rious Englishmen. It would be a veritable and most tragic 

 calamity if the lordly elephant, the giant among existing 

 four-footed creatures, should be permitted to vanish from 

 the face of the earth. 



But of course protection is not permanently possible 



