A FEW SPECIMENS OF ELEPHANT-TUSKS SECURED BY THE EMISSARIES OF 

 DEUSS & CO., IN PORTUGUESE EAST AFRICA. 



XII 



A Dying Race of Giants 



EVERY one who knows Equatorial East Africa will 

 bear me out in saying that it is easier nowadays 

 to kill fifty rhinoceroses than a single bull-elephant 

 carrying tusks weighing upwards of a couple of hundred 

 pounds. 



There are only a few survivors left of this world- 

 old race of giants. Many species, probably, have 

 disappeared without leaving a single trace behind. The 

 block granite sarcophagi on the Field of the Dead in 

 Sakkarah in Egypt, dating from 3,500 years ago, are 

 memorials (each weighing some 64 tons) of the sacred 

 bulls of Apis : the mightiest monument ever raised by 

 man to beast. Bulls were sacred to Ptah, the God of 

 Memphis, and their gravestones — which Mariette, for 

 instance, brought to light in 185 1 — yield striking evidence 

 VOL. II 511 33 



