WITH FLASH-LIGHT AND RIFLE 



The commerce in ivory proved to what extent this 

 war is being carried on. At Antwerp alone — not to 

 mention other ports — the import of ivory from 1888 

 to I go 2 amounted to six milHon five hundred thousand 

 pounds. We have not yet discovered a desirable sub- 

 stitute for the ivory, and so the destruction of the 

 elephant continues. If the governments do not soon 

 combine in restricting this slaughter, the African ele- 

 phant will ere long be counted among the extinct species 

 of animals. 



The Indian elephant is tolerably safe, compared with 

 his African cousin, because the tusks of the Asiatic male 

 elephant are small, and because the female has either no 

 tusks at all or insignificantly small ones. The African 

 elephant, on the contrary, has enormous tusks. Even 

 female elephants carry tusks, each weighing from ten to 

 thirty, or even forty pounds, while the average weight 

 of the single tusk of the male is fifty pounds. The size 

 and weight of tusks of exceptionally large animals are 

 sometimes phenomenal. In 1898 an old male elephant 

 was killed by native hunters not far from the Kili- 

 manjaro, the tusks of which had a combined weight of 

 four hundred and fifty pounds. These enormous teeth 

 created quite a sensation when they were brought to 

 market in Zanzibar. One of these tusks, the largest in 

 existence, is at present in the British Museum in Lon- 

 don, the other is in the United States of America. 



Yet tusks of over one hundred pounds are pretty rare. 



84 



