CHASE OF THE ELEPHANT 455 



Ancient medals representing large-eared elephants drawing 

 cliariots, are conclusive of the fact that the Eomans knew how 

 to catch and tame the African elephant. He was even considered 

 more docile than the Asiatic, and was taught various feats, as 

 ^\'alking on ropes, and dancing. The elephants with which 

 Hannibal crossed the Alps, as well as those which Pyrrhus led 

 into Italy, must undoubtedly have been African. At present he 

 is only killed for his ivory, his hide, his flesh, or from the mere 

 wantonness of destruction. The Cape colonists, to whom his 



r vices might be of great importance, have never made the 

 'tempt to tame him, nor has one of this species ever been 

 exhibited in England. 



The African elephant has a very wide range, from Cafraria to 

 Nubia, and from the Zambesi to Cape Verde, and the impene- 

 trable deserts of the Sahara alone prevent him from wandering 

 to the shores of the Mediterranean. Although in South Africa 

 llie persecutions of the natives and of his still more formidable 

 enemies — the colonists and English huntsmen, have consider- 

 ably thinned his numbers, and driven him farther and farther to 

 the north, yet in the interior of the country he is still met with 

 in prodigious numbers. Dr. Barth frequently saw large herds 

 winding through the open plains, and swimming in majestic 

 lines through the rivers with elevated trunks, or bathing in the 

 sliallow lakes for coolness or protection against insects. 



Dr. Livingstone gives us many interesting accounts of the 

 different modes of South African elephant-hunting. 



The Banijai on the south bank of the Zambesi erect stages 

 < )n high trees overhanging the paths by which the elephants 

 come, and then use a large spear with a handle nearly as thick 

 as a man's wrist, and four or five feet long. When the un- 

 fortunate animal comes beneath, they throw the spear, and if it 

 enters between the ribs above, as the blade is at least twenty 

 inches long by two broad, the motion of the handle, as it is 

 aided by knocking against the trees, makes frightful gashes 

 within, and soon causes death. They kill them also by means of 

 a spear inserted in a beam of wood, which being suspended on 

 the branch of a tree by a cord attached to a latch, fastened 

 in the path and intended to be struck by the animal's foot, 

 loads to the fall of the beam, and the spear being poisoned, 



iiises death in a few hours. 



