WITH FLASH-LIGHT AND RIFLE 



Askari, who fire at animals to perfect their rifle-shooting; 

 the natives, who have been supplied with fire-arms and 

 use them in the service of traders or to pay their taxes 

 with furs or hides or teeth, and others, but least of all 

 the sportsman-hunter. 



Before the Europeans put their foot into virgin 

 countries, the natives and the animals existed both in 

 large numbers and side by side. The animals them- 

 selves, beasts of prey and harmless beasts, had been 

 living for untold ages in the same parts of the vast 

 country. The white man took with him his idea of 

 harmful and useful animals, and has been busy killing 

 the first without protecting or preserving the latter. 



Laws for the preservation of elephants, while con- 

 sidered generally applicable to mere sportsmen, have 

 been considered an impediment to traders, who in some 

 way or other manage to circumvent inconvenient laws. 



At the instigation of the London conference, a law 

 was passed by some governments preventing the ex- 

 portation of elephant tusks under ten pounds each. 

 "On y mettra du plomb!" said a Congo trader, laconi- 

 cally, and a way was found of evading the law. Ger- 

 man Kamerun has exported, within the last decade, nine 

 hundred thousand pounds of ivory without collecting 

 an export duty, which is in other colonies ten to fifteen 

 per cent., and Great Britain and Germany collect no 

 duty on the import of ivory. Who can say how many 

 tusks of female elephants, made to weigh ten pounds 



398 



