194 THE LAND OF THE LION 
pay their expenses if they are limited to three bulls. It 
would seem to be a wise thing to license certain well-known 
men to kill, within certain districts in Uganda, a given num- 
ber, and to trade ivory of reasonable size, they depositing 
in the government’s hands a considerable sum — say, 
£300 as their guarantee. A very substantial licence fee 
would be paid, and the gain to the government and the 
province would be considerable, for the ordinary ivory 
trader, getting his ivory as he can, whether it has been 
smuggled over the frontier or killed by natives who have 
no right to kill it, is nothing less than a cause of evil and 
demoralization wherever he goes. 
Modern rifles are so deadly that one or two shots, if 
the elephant are standing, bring them down. But those 
shots must reach certain vital spots in the vast bulk, and 
many, forgetting this, confused by the very size of their 
mark, only wound and fail to kill. Perhaps the surest 
shot of all is the shot between the eye and the ear, nearer 
the ear, and if you are standing so close as to be obliged to 
shoot upward, lower than a line drawn between them — 
for of course, the bullet travels upward. The African 
elephant’s brain is very small, and protected by heavy 
bone formations. Look at him as he faces you, and there 
is no palpable place to aim at, as in the Indian elephant. 
He can be killed, and quickly, by the frontal shot, but that 
shot must be aimed well below the eyes where the trunk and 
head join. There the cellular structure of the skull per- 
mits a solid bullet to pass through quite a lot of light pack- 
ing, as it were, straight to the little brain. Full in the 
middle between the tusks the ball must strike, in order 
to kill, and there must be behind it the driving power of a 
good charge. As I have looked elephants full in the face 
at thirty yards distance (I don’t care for a nearer front 
view) the mark seems a small one to me, and unless the 
animal! was on top of me, I should prefer to take him low 
