434 IVORY AND THE ELEPHANT 



Sea and commanding the Strait of Bab-el-Mandeb, is to-day, 

 as it was centuries ago, a centre of distribution for East Afri- 

 can ivory. Vessels came hither in medieval times from all 

 parts of the world, and among the innumerable articles of 

 commerce were elephants' tusks from Abyssinia, which 

 land furnished an immense supply of elephant ivory.* 

 Aden is now strongly fortified and has been called the 

 "Gibraltar of the East." 



There can be little doubt that, as a general rule, the 

 European supply of ivory was mainly, though perhaps not 

 exclusively, derived from Africa. It is true there appears 

 to be good evidence that in certain periods a consider- 

 able quantity of elephant tusks were brought from India, 

 but in spite of the express statements to this effect made 

 by the Venetian traveller, Marco Polo, and others, it is not 

 unlikely that what they believed to be Indian ivory had 

 originally come from Africa and either been transshipped 

 from some Indian port, or shipped at some iVfrican port, or 

 one in touch with Africa, by Indian trading vessels. In- 

 deed, the older writers, beginning with Cosmas Indico- 

 pleustos, insist upon the large quantity of African ivory 

 imported into India, and as late as the sixteenth century 

 we are told by Garcias ab Horto that the annual importa- 

 tion amounted to 600,000 pounds, probably an excessive 

 estimate. Several considerations, besides the active native 

 industry in ivory working, conspired to this end. In the 

 first place the tusks of the African elephants are, on the 

 average, both larger and heavier than are those of the Indian 

 elephants, and they are present with the females as well as 

 the males of the species; then, in medieval and later times, 

 these animals have been domesticated and trained in a great 

 variety of ways in India, whether as war elephants, as 



*W. Heyd, "Histoire du commerce du Levant au Moyen-Age," French edition, Leipzig, 

 1886, Vol. I, p. 35. 



