400 AFRICAN GAME TRAILS 



pipe, once or twice whinnying or neighing; but usually 

 making a succession of grunts, or bubbling squeals through 

 the nostrils. The long grass was traversed in all directions 

 by elephant trails, and there was much fresh sign of the 

 huge beasts their dung, and the wrecked trees on which 

 they had been feeding; and there was sign of buffalo also. 

 In middle Africa, thanks to wise legislation, and to the 

 very limited size of the areas open to true settlement, there 

 has been no such reckless, wholesale slaughter of big game 

 as that which has brought the once wonderful big game 

 fauna of South Africa to the verge of extinction. In certain 

 small areas of middle Africa, of course, it has gone; but 

 as a whole it has not much diminished, some species have 

 actually increased, and none is in danger of immediate 

 extinction, unless it be the white rhinoceros. During the 

 last decade, for instance, the buffalo have been recovering 

 their lost ground throughout the Lado, Uganda, and British 

 East Africa, having multiplied many times over. During 

 the same period, in the same region, the elephant have 

 not greatly diminished in aggregate numbers, although the 

 number of bulls carrying big ivory has been very much 

 reduced; indeed the reproductive capacity of the herds 

 has probably been very little impaired, the energies of the 

 hunters having been almost exclusively directed to the 

 killing of the bulls with tusks weighing over thirty pounds 

 apiece; and the really big tuskers, which are most eagerly 

 sought after, are almost always past their prime, and no 

 longer associate with the herd. 



But this does not apply to the great beast which was 

 the object of our coming to the Lado, the square-mouthed 

 or, as it is sometimes miscalled, the white, rhinoceros. 



