-^ The Spell of the Elelescho 



system, the system that abandons itself to restlessness — 

 that, in a word, which we call modern industry, modern 

 civilisation. 



To-day one may perhaps read in the East African 

 Gazette that Mr. Smith, the railway engineer, favoured 

 by extraordinary luck on a hunting expedition, has seen 

 one solitary bull elephant not far from Lake Nakuro ! 

 This is something quite out of the ordinary, and Mr. Smith 

 is to be congratulated. Unfortunately his efforts during 

 many years to have even one young East African elephant 

 sent to London have been without any result. A young 

 animal is no longer to be found. In the same number 

 of this newspaper, under another heading, we read the 

 report that the export of ivory this year by the Uganda 

 Railway has been utterly disappointing; the quantity carried 

 has been terribly small, hardly worth mentioning ! 



I had a talk lately with a travelling companion who 

 had spent some time with me in the wilderness ten years 

 ago, and who had just revisited those distant lands, availing 

 himself of the railway. Alfred Kaiser, a widely travelled 

 man, recalled to me the life we had lived together, when 

 there was yet hardly a trace of European influence among 

 the people of the interior by Lake Victoria. In memory 

 we saw again the inhabitants of then hardly known 

 Sotikoland receiving us mistrustfully on their frontier, 

 thousands strong. Their glittering spears sparkle in the 

 morning sun ; chiefs, ministers, and court ladies of the 

 Wakawirondo appear in camp in most primitive costume ; 

 club-armed warriors regard us with the most open distrust ; 

 cowry shells and artificial pearls form their costume and 



83 



