296 After Big Game in Central Africa 



work, according to the time at your disposal. When in a 

 hurry, you remove the flesh from the bony sockets which 

 hold the tusks and trim them with a small hatchet, the 

 opening being made gently and with great care if you do 

 not want to spoil the ivory. But if you have time you 

 bury the head, or, a simpler method, cover it with wet 

 earth ; after a week's time the tusks, which already work 

 loosely in their sockets, can be easily dragged out. 



In the Upper Zambesi and in the Moassi country the 

 natives call an adult male elephant "kunguru," a young 

 male " katchende," and tuskless females " niungwa " ; the 

 generic name of the elephant being " nzoou " or " ndjovo." 

 The elephant is said by them to have two enemies, car- 

 nivorous ants which creep into its trunk when it sleeps, 

 and snakes which bite its stomach. There is hardly need 

 to say how much these two assertions are due to the 

 imagination. I should like to see the reception the first 

 ants which wandered into an elephant's trunk would have ; 

 they would be cast out violently as though by an air- 

 gun. As to snakes, their fangs have difficulty in pene- 

 trating the human skin, in which they often break, let 

 alone that of an elephant. The elephant has only one 

 enemy man. It fears none of the animals. In addition 

 to intelligence relatively superior to theirs, it possesses 

 strength, size, courage if need be, and, moreover, a sense of 

 touch more delicate than that of any of them, even the 

 monkey. It travels everywhere, swims like an amphibian, 

 and crosses ravines and rivers, forests and thickets, without 

 distinction. Everything gives way before it. It climbs 

 and descends hills which one would think inaccessible to 

 it ; it crosses whole countries in a night, like an undisputed 

 master in his vast domains ; it is here, there, and every- 

 where, hiding like a mouse despite its great size, and noise- 

 lessly disappearing like an unseizable Proteus, much to the 

 discomfort of the hunter ; finally, if its life is spared, it is 

 ready to become once more, as in former times when it 



