198 THE LAND OF THE LION 
set out for the farther country are generally more experi- 
enced, men who have studied the dangerous game against 
which they pit their lives. Here accidents keep happening 
because anyone who can borrow a gun and take out a 
licence fancies himself capable of elephant hunting. Tak- 
ing little notice of wind or cover as they do, the marvel is 
that so many escape. A man is a fool to take any liberty 
with an elephant. 
So long as ivory fetches the price it does, and it must 
increase rather than diminish in value, it will prove a sore 
temptation to a poor man, finding himself in elephant 
country, not to attempt to pay off at one stroke the heavy 
price of his shooting licence. It is for that reason that 
I think sportsmen should welcome any legislation that 
places the elephant in a class by himself, and makes 
the man who wants to shoot one or two in British East 
Africa, where they do no damage, and are not too plenti- 
ful, pay heavily for the privilege. (Uganda elephants 
are another matter.) It seems rather a hardship, on the 
other hand, to prevent the native hunter who for ages 
has taken his modest toll of the herds, and certainly 
has not destroyed them, from doing as his fathers before 
him have done, just because rich sportsmen want all the 
fun, and the ivory too. 
Allow him to trade his occasional tusk if it is sizable. 
Forbid him otherwise to trade at all. Employ the right 
sort of traders to trade with him, and grant licences for 
such trade. Do this and the law will enforce itself, and 
small ivory and cow ivory will not be killed. Instead of 
prohibiting all ivory trading, which can never be stopped, 
give an opening to honest men to do the trading. ‘There 
will be no difficulty in finding them, for there is money 
in the business. At present the Kikuyu, N’dorobo, and 
other tribes have hundreds of tusks of buried ivory only 
waiting the coming of the unscrupulous ivory runner. 
