92 JOURNAL, BOMBAY NATURAL AISTORY SOCIETY, Vol. XIII. 
THE AFRICAN ELEPHANT. © 
(Elephas africanus.) 
The shooting of elephants within the circumscribed area known as the 
“ Aden Reserve ”’ is now absolutely prohibited, and as regards the rest. of the 
Protectorate, for some time past the imposition of heavy dues on ivory 
brought out of it has served in some measure to check their extirpation, but 
the stable door was not really shut until the horse had been stolen,— sufficient 
steps were not taken in the first instance to put a stop to the indiscriminate 
and unsportsmanlike slaughter of them that for some time went on, 
Elephants are wanderers at all times, and more than usually so in Somali- 
land, where food and water are scarce, and where they have to go long dis- 
tances in search of both one and the other ; and in the course of these 
wanderings there are still one or two herds, [am glad to say, which ring the 
changes at certain well-known water-holes in the Protectorate. I fear, how- 
ever, that the Anglo-Abyssinian Demarcation Treaty has, indirectly, num-. 
bered their days, and that in another five years there will not be an elephant on 
this side of the Shebeyli River. Some of my readers may be aware that the 
boundary laid down by that agreement transferred from the British to the 
Abyssinian sphere a large slice of the Gadabursi country in the S.-W. corner 
of the Protectorate, including the tract known by Somalis as ‘‘ The Barrowa,” 
This Harrowa is a long shallow valley, heavily forest clad, running from 
west to east and surrounded by hills and broken highlands—an ideal sanc- 
tuary for game, and as such all the elephants in the country seemed to look 
upon it, either when fleeing from the snare of the hunter or when driven back 
by the approaching heat and consequent scarcity of food and water, from 
their wanderings towards the Coast. The outskirts of this valley are frequent- 
ed by the villages of Ughaz Nur, an old Sultan of the Gadabursi tribe, who 
gave the Coast Administration in days gone bya good deal of anxiety owing to 
his intrigues with the Abyssinians, whose bands of marauding soldiery he was 
supposed to pass surreptitiously over the border, and allow to levy blackmail 
upon his weaker brethren, or to shoot down elephants, While his country was 
under our influence, however, it was possible, to some extent, to check the 
wholesale slaughter of these grand brutes by putting moral pressure upon him, 
and by seeing that rifles did not get into his hands, but now that, by the 
arrangement of 1897 above mentioned, both he and his countzyg have passea 
under the sway of the Lion of Judah, the Harrowa valley must surely soon 
cease to be the blessed retreat to the Somali elephant that it has been in the 
past. In fact, when in the vicinity, at Jifa Medir, a few weeks ago, I heard 
that the same old Chief’s son, Aysa (to whom I remember I took a great 
fancy when he piloted myself and a friend during a short sheoting trip in the 
Harrowa some five years ago, and whose perfect knowledge of the jungles made - 
him an invaluable as he was a pleasant companion), had obtained through the 
Abyssinians a large bore elephant gun, of French manufacture ; and that 
