8 Great and Small Game of Africa 



scarcely ever have both their tusks perfect, whilst very often both of them 

 are more or less broken. How they break their tusks in such localities 

 I do not quite know, for I cannot call to mind having seen much evidence 

 of digging by elephants in hard ground. 



Elephants in South Africa feed upon leaves, bark, roots, palm- 

 nuts and wild fruits of various kinds, but very rarely, I believe, eat 

 any kind of grass. 1 There is one kind of tree, known to the natives 

 of Matabeleland as the Machabel, which grows very plentifully in 

 the Zambesi regions, of the bark and young leaves of which elephants 

 are especially fond. These trees often grow to a height ot 30 or 40 

 feet, with stems over a foot in diameter. Using their tusks like a blunt 

 chisel, elephants will cut through the bark of such trees at a height 

 of 4 or 5 feet from the ground, and then, after knocking a piece of bark 

 loose, get hold of it with their trunks, and by pulling at it strip the tree 

 of a piece of bark as broad as the piece they have got hold of, right up to 

 the top of one of the highest branches, for the bark of this tree peels off 

 very easily and does not break while being ripped from the tree. I have 

 often followed a large herd of elephants for miles through the Machabel 

 forests of Northern Mashunaland, without ever looking for their tracks on 

 the ground, simply by keeping on the line of the trees that had been peeled 

 of their bark. The outside bark of the Machabel tree is, however, not 

 eaten by elephants, but only the thin inner bark, which is much used 

 for the manufacture of rope and string by the natives, and has a very 

 sweet taste. Small trees of 2 or 3 inches in diameter elephants break 

 down with their trunks, but larger trees they butt down. I have seen 

 them doing this. They push against the tree with the thick part of 

 their trunks, and get it on the swing, giving way as it swings towards 

 them, but following it up as it goes back again, and putting all their 



1 Dr. Livingstone mentions one such case, as the only instance that had ever come under his notice 



