2 8o THE WILDERNESS AND JUNGLE 



the work. The elephant feeds on the march, 

 tearing* up juicy tussocks or pulling down 

 leafy boughs without stopping". To all its 

 virtues in life may be added a value after 

 death far in excess of that of any other animal. 

 The dreadful waste of this noble creature, 

 hitherto regarded only as so many tons of meat 

 and pounds of ivory, has certainly been a crime 

 past forgiveness. Is it also past atonement ? 



If anything is to be done, it must be done 

 at once. In the first place, the trade in 

 elephant ivory must be put an end to by in- 

 ternational agreement. It is clearly useless 

 to prohibit the slaughter of elephants in the 

 territories of one Power if their tusks are 

 valuable merchandise at the ports of another. 

 Ivory is not a necessary of life. Even were 

 it a foodstuff of the masses, the elephant 

 should no longer be slain to provide it. It is, 

 on the contrary, only a luxury for the making 

 of billiard balls or toilet articles, for which 

 bonzoline and ebony serve respectively quite 

 as well. We shall never again see elephants 

 roaming", as once they did, south of the Zam- 

 besi, but the remnant might at any rate be 

 saved for all time in Government Reserves 

 farther north, and experiments might even be 

 inaugurated in taming the younger members 

 of the herds with a view to their employment 

 in clearing the African forest, and thus, even 



