458 THE ELEPHANT 



with one stroke of his weapon, severs the tendon just above the 

 heel. The disabled monster falls shrieking to the ground, and 

 incapable of advancing a step, is soon despatched. The whole 

 flesh is then cut off his bones into thongs, and hung like 

 festoons upon the branches of trees till perfectly dry, when it 

 is taken down and laid by for the rainy season. 



African ivory is a not unimportant article of trade. The 

 annual importation into Grreat Britain alone, for the last few 

 years, has been about 1,000,000 lbs., which, taking the average 

 weight of a tusk at 60 lbs., would require the slaughter of 8,333 

 male elephants, doomed to destruction in order to provide us 

 with umbrella-stick or knife-handles, card-marks, fancy boxes, 

 or buttons. Above 1 00,000^. worth of Sennaar ivory is annually 

 exported from Alexandria, and Dr. Livingstone informs us that 

 between July 1, 1848 and June 30, 1849, the value of the 

 ivory shipped from St. Paul de Loanda amounted to 48,225^. 

 A considerable quantity likewise finds its way to Europe by 

 Zanzibar, the Cape, and the ports on the coast of Gruinea ; so 

 that the annual produce of Africa probably exceeds 200,000^. 



As the natives grow more alive to the value of the article, 

 and become better provided with fire-arms, the persecuted 

 giants disappear, and perhaps twenty years hence will become 

 as rare in the countries in which they once abounded, as the 

 sea elephant on Kerguelen's Land. 



When Lake Ngami was first discovered (August 1, 1849), a 

 trader, accompanying Messrs. Oswell, Murray, and Livingstone, 

 purchased ivory at the rate of ten good large tusks for a mus- 

 ket worth 13s. They were called " bones," and Dr. Livingstone 

 himself saw eight instances in which the tusks had been left to 

 rot, with the remainder of the skeleton, where the elephant fell. 

 The natives never had a chance of a market before, but in less 

 than two years after the discovery, not a man of them could be 

 found who did not fully know the value of ivory, and was of 

 course a more determined elephant-hunter than he had ever 

 been before. 



The Asiatic elephant inhabits Hindostan, the Chin-Indian 

 peninsula, Sumatra, Borneo, and Ceylon. In the latter island es- 

 pecially, he was formerly found in incredible numbers, so that 

 thirty years ago, an English sportsman killed no less than 104 

 elephants in three days. Major Rogers shot upwards of 1,400 ; 



