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THE NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC MAGAZINE 



the bamboos. There were over three 

 hundred in all. 



It is generally understood that large 

 bull elephants are more frequently to be 

 found apart from the herds, but our ex- 

 perience does not bear this out. Three 

 bulls that we have shot, having tusks 

 each weighing lOO pounds or over, have 

 been herd bulls. In Uganda we often 

 found bulls unaccompanied by cows, 

 singly and in small herds numbering up 

 to 15 individuals, but it was not among 

 these that we found the largest tusks. 

 We have found the large old bulls enjoy- 

 ing the society and protection of large 

 herds of cows and young animals (see 

 page 789). 



A GUARD OF HONOR 



One splendid old bull well known in 

 Uganda, who has been seen by many 

 hunters, is so well protected by a large 

 herd of most aggressive cows, who charge 

 at the slightest intimation of danger, that 

 he still survives. These old bulls are 

 very rare, for when a bull has developed 

 tusks of 50 pounds, which is at quite an 

 early age, perhaps 25 years, he becomes 

 the target of every hunter, native or 



white, who sets eyes upon him ; thus it 

 is only the more crafty or timid indi- 

 viduals that, seeking the protection of 

 large herds or clinging to the more in- 

 accessible regions, such as dense forests, 

 manage to survive to a ripe old age and 

 develop a full growth of ivory. 



The best bull at present in our collec- 

 tion for the group is a young adult stand- 

 ing II feet 3 inches at the shoulders with 

 tusks of 100 and 102 pounds respectively. 

 These are young ivory, and there can be 

 no doubt that were this elephant to have 

 lived 50 years longer they would have 

 attained a weight of 200 pounds each. 

 Such tusks are not abnormal ; they are 

 simply the tusks of a good, healthy bull 

 \;ho has been intelligent and lucky enough 

 to keep his life until his ivory was full 

 grown. 



It would seem worth while that the 

 world's permanent record of elephant life 

 should contain a specimen that illustrates 

 the fullest development of the African 

 species, the finest living representative of 

 this race of animals. Such an elephant 

 can be secured now, but it will soon be 

 too late, for the remaining monster speci- 

 mens will be killed for their ivory. 



ZANZIBAR 



By Mrs. Harris R. Childs (Eleanor Stuart) 



HUNDREDS of tourists and gov- 

 ernment employees, on the man- 

 ifold errands of empire, see the 

 town of Zanzibar without knowing much 

 of it, or ever exploring beyond the Ger- 

 man or English tennis clubs. But this is 

 less remarkable than the fact that mer- 

 chants, priests, secular missionaries, mili- 

 tary and diplomatic whatnot, Indians, 

 Arabs, Parsis, and Europeans (as incon- 

 spicuous artisans or petty traders) act- 

 ually live in the town year in and year 

 out without so much as walking half a 

 mile beyond the terminus of the little 

 American railway at Bu-bu-bu, a village 

 a few miles from the town itself. The 

 precedent for this neglect — and the social 

 fabric of Zanzibar is dependent on prece- 

 dent — is undoubtedly the indifference of 

 the early explorers, who fitted out cara- 

 vans in the old town; and, bent on dis- 



covering a volcano or a nyanza far afield, 

 never wasted time in wandering about 

 the glorious island itself. 



On the first day that one leaves the 

 road behind and finds oneself at large in 

 the dense green of Zanzibar's titantic 

 verdure one is conscious of a newness 

 of interest as when one reads for the 

 first time some book of very distinctive 

 imaginative quality. 



The woods and fields, the "shambas" 

 (plantations), are like the contents of a 

 Brobdignagian glass house ; the colors of 

 flowers and trees themselves are so ele- 

 mentary as to seem like a child's concept 

 of beauty in nature, and when, unex- 

 pectedly, without preparation of any kind, 

 the sight of the clove trees, shining green, 

 red-stemmed, symmetrical, stretches be- 

 fore one, with the ultramarine of the 

 Indian Ocean as a background for their 



