1 6 Great and Small Game of Africa 



will always remain wide areas of uninhabited country, where elephants, 

 although they may become comparatively scarce, are never likely to be 

 completely exterminated. p q Selous. 



In British East Africa 



Ndorobo Name, Mbaus or Elkanjaiavini ; Tembo and Ndovu of Zanzibar 

 and Mombasa Natives 



In East Equatorial Africa the elephant still holds possession of its 

 primeval domains ; still roams through the trackless wilds, wrecking the 

 woods ; or at times resorts to the precincts of cultivation, and plays havoc 

 with the natives' crops. Here, except in Uganda and adjoining districts, 

 firearms have not yet taken the place of hows and arrows or spears in the 

 hands of the natives, and vast stretches are almost uninhabited. In these 

 respects the conditions at the present day are not materially different from 

 what they may be supposed to have been almost since the beginning of 

 time. Man has, so far as we know, always co-existed with the elephant ; 

 and, being still in his primitive condition here, takes only, generally 

 speaking, the same toll of the great beasts' herds now as he has ever done 

 — a toll which does not upset the balance. Consequently, elephants are 

 probably about as numerous to-day, in parts of the territory referred to, as 

 ever they were. 



It must not be supposed, though, that the whole country is one vast 

 elephant preserve. Far from it. Indeed, you might almost travel through 

 the length and breadth ot the land without seeing one, if you did not 

 specially seek for them. Immense tracts are unsuited to the wants of these 

 animals ; and, though they may wander through them in their migrations, 

 it is only in certain widely-separated localities that all the conditions of 

 food, water, and cover are present in the due proportions constituting a 



