240 THE ELEPHANT. 



species in existence, namely, the African (Loxodonta 

 Africana), and the Indian (ElepJias Maximus, Lin.}. 



As regards Africa, the elephant is found through- 

 out all the more central portions of that vast Con- 

 tinent, as high up, at least, as Abyssinia. Its limits 

 to the southward would appear to be about the 

 32nd degree of latitude. Little more than a century 

 ago it was an inhabitant of the Cape Colony, 

 where, by all accounts, the breed is now extinct. 

 Thuuberg, in his second journey into Caffraria, in 

 1773, informs us, indeed, that he met with a man 

 who told him " that in his younger days the elephant 

 was very numerous in the Dutch possessions, even 

 to near Cape Town itself; that in travelling to and 

 from that place one might kill great numbers of 

 them ; that he himself had often shot from four to 

 five in a day, and sometimes twelve or thirteen ; and 

 that twice in his life, when he was out in pursuit of 

 those animals, he had shot with his own gun twenty- 

 two each day." 



Sparman says " that, in the country near the 

 Cape, elephants are sometimes seen in large herds, 

 consisting of many hundreds; and that, in the more 

 remote and unfrequented parts of the interior, they 

 are still more numerous." 



Indeed, since the introduction of fire-arms, the 

 increased value of the tusks, and the esteem in 

 which the flesh of the elephant is held by the 

 natives, who slaughter both females and young 

 without mercy, the number of these animals, as 

 regards Southern Africa, would seem to be every- 

 where rapidly decreasing; and if the destruction 



