CHAPTER III. 

 THE AFRICAN ELEPHANT. 



THE AFRICAN ELEPHANT — DIFFERENCE FROM THE INDIAN ELEPHANT — HUNTING THE ELEPHANT — 

 DELEGORGUE — GORDON CUMMING — THE ABYSSINIAN " HOCK-CUTTERS " — CAPTIVE ELEPHANTS 

 — BABY ELEPHANTS — ANECDOTES OF ELEPHANTS. 



THE Elephant which is found in Africa differs considerably in 

 appearance from the one just described. The head is rounder 

 and narrower, the ears are enormous, the rims nearly meeting 

 on the back of the head, and the tusk is much stronger. 



The African Elephant, EUphas Africanus (Plate LII), is called by 

 the Arabs Fihl. It is met with from the Cape of Good Hope as far 

 north as Nubia and Cape Verd. It consequently exists in Mozambique, 

 in Abyssinia, in Guinea, and in Senegal. 



African Elephants live, like those of India, in troops more or less 

 numerous. They are sometimes found alone : the Dutch call these 

 rodeurs, rovers or prowlers. They were formerly much more common 

 in the environs of the Cape of Good Hope than they are at present. 

 Thunberg relates that a hunter told him that he had killed in these 

 regions four or five a day, and that regularly. He added that the num- 

 ber of his victims had many a time amounted to twelve or thirteen, and 

 even to twenty-two in one day. This may, perhaps, have been but a 

 braggart's idle boast. Still they abound in the vast interior of Africa. 

 In the present day they are not used by man for any warlike or domestic 

 purpose, but are hunted for the sake of their ivory. 



Delegorgue, a French traveler, has published, more recently, some 

 curious accounts of their habits. Among these animals, gathered to- 

 gether in troops, there prevails a spirit of imitation which sometimes 

 makes them all do exactly what the first has done. Delegorgue relates 

 on this subject the following episode of one of his hunting excursions. 

 A band of elephants was coming toward him and his two hunting com- 



