192 THE LAND: OETHE LION 
elephants into a morass and securing the tusks of thirty of 
them. It is only a very few years since such slaughter was 
forbidden in English territory. Many an adventurous 
or broken man turned to elephant hunting for a living, 
and to-day many an explorer or sportsman, pushing his way 
into the Abyssinian country, expects to pay a not incon- 
siderable part of his heavy travelling expenses out of the 
price he hopes to get for his ivory. Selous, as he tells us 
in his well-known book, made his living from ivory, and 
Newman was reputed to have laid by a large sum. These 
and all other ivory hunters killed everything, big and small, 
cow and bull, that carried tusks. If ivory averaged them 
ten shillings a pound, and their animals averaged them 
sixty pounds the pair of tusks, each elephant would mean 
430 —a large sum. But when the outlay that was neces- 
sary is taken into account, the long distances food had to 
be carried, the great journeys made, the preparations for 
defence against uncertain or warlike tribes, but little profit 
remained to most of them. In the Protectorate, under 
present government regulations, no one can kill elephant 
unless a £50 licence is taken out. ‘This permits the holder 
to shoot two. A third he can take, on his paying £15 extra. 
It seems to me that these restrictions are not sufficient. 
Many an idle man is now tempted, when word reaches 
him at Nairobi or elsewhere, that elephant are in some 
approachable locality, to take out a licence and enter on a 
small speculation to the amount of £50. He seldom 
covers his expenses, it is true, but surely no good is gained 
by encouraging his onslaught on the fast disappearing game. 
I should advocate the issue of a special permit costing 
£100 to kill two elephants in the Protectorate, and so check 
the present very prevalent custom among settlers and 
loafers, of trying to make a little money each year from their 
slaughter. Many poor beasts go away wounded, and there 
is no doubt at all that some undersized tusks are taken and 
