1 94 THE LAND OF THE LION 



pay their expenses if they are limited to three bulls. It 

 would seem to be a wise thing to license certain well-known 

 men to kill, within certain districts in Uganda, a given num- 

 ber, and to trade ivory of reasonable size, they depositing 

 in the government's hands a considerable sum say, 

 300 as their guarantee. A very substantial licence fee 

 would be paid, and the gain to the government and the 

 province would be considerable, for the ordinary ivory 

 trader, getting his ivory as he can, whether it has been 

 smuggled over the frontier or killed by natives who have 

 no right to kill it, is nothing less than a cause of evil and 

 demoralization wherever he goes. 



Modern rifles are so deadly that one or two shots, if 

 the elephant are standing, bring them down. But those 

 shots must reach certain vital spots in the vast bulk, and 

 many, forgetting this, confused by the very size of their 

 mark, only wound and fail to kill. Perhaps the surest 

 shot of all is the shot between the eye and the ear, nearer 

 the ear, and if you are standing so close as to be obliged to 

 shoot upward, lower than a line drawn between them 

 for of course, the bullet travels upward. The African 

 elephant's brain is very small, and protected by heavy 

 bone formations. Look at him as he faces you, and there 

 is no palpable place to aim at, as in the Indian elephant. 

 He can be killed, and quickly, by the frontal shot, but that 

 shot must be aimed well below the eyes where the trunk and 

 head join. There the cellular structure of the skull per- 

 mits a solid bullet to pass through quite a lot of light pack- 

 ing, as it were, straight to the little brain. Full in the 

 middle between the tusks the ball must strike, in order 

 to kill, and there must be behind it the driving power of a 

 good charge. As I have looked elephants full in the face 

 at thirty yards distance (I don't care for a nearer front 

 view) the mark seems a small one to me, and unless the 

 animal was on top of me, I should prefer to take him low 



