290 AFRICAN GAME TRAILS 



killers. I know settlers who tried to preserve the rhinoceros 

 which they found living on their big farms, and who were 

 obliged to abandon the attempt, and themselves to kill the 

 rhinos because of repeated and wanton attacks on human 

 beings by the latter. Where we were by Neri, a year or two 

 before our visit, the rhinos had become so dangerous, killing 

 one white man and several natives, that the district com- 

 missioner who preceded Mr. Browne was forced to under- 

 take a crusade against them, killing fifteen. Both in South 

 Africa and on the Nile protection extended to hippopota- 

 mus has in places been wholly withdrawn because of the 

 damage done by the beasts to the crops of the natives, or 

 because of their unprovoked assaults on canoes and boats. 

 In one instance a last surviving hippo was protected for 

 years, but finally grew bold because of immunity, killed a 

 boy in sheer wantonness, and had to be himself slain. In 

 Uganda the buffalo were for years protected, and grew so 

 bold, killed so many natives, and ruined so many villages, 

 that they are now classed as vermin and their destruction 

 in every way encouraged. In the very neighborhood where 

 I was hunting at Kenia, but six weeks before my coming, 

 a cow buffalo had wandered down into the plains and run 

 amuck, had attacked two villages, had killed a man and 

 a boy, and had then been mobbed to death by the spear- 

 men. Elephant, when in numbers, and when not possessed 

 of the fear of man, are more impossible neighbors than 

 hippo, rhino, or buffalo ; but they are so eagerly sought 

 after by ivory hunters that it is only rarely that they get 

 the chance to become really dangerous to life, although in 

 many places their ravages among the crops are severely 

 felt by the unfortunate natives who live near them. 



The chase of the elephant, if persistently followed, en- 

 tails more fatigue and hardship than any other kind of 

 African hunting. As regards risk, it is hard to say whether 

 it is more or less dangerous than the chase of the lion and 

 the buffalo. Both Cuninghame and Tarlton, men of wide 

 experience, ranked elephant hunting, in point of danger, 



