4 Great and Small Game of Africa 



Rudolph, in East Equatorial Africa, where that very competent and 

 careful observer, Mr. Arthur H. Neumann, ascertained by actual measure- 

 ments with the tape-line that old bull elephants usually stand about 

 10 feet 8 or 9 inches at the shoulder. No doubt these dimensions 

 are occasionally considerably exceeded, and a height of from 1 1 feet to 

 12 feet at the shoulder is sometimes attained, but the average height of 

 the full-grown males of this species is certainly less than 1 1 feet. The 

 average size of the tusks was, I believe, always less in Southern than in 

 Equatorial Africa. No large tusks have ever yet been obtained in the 

 Addo bush or the Zitzikama forest, the most southerly localities of the 

 elephant on the African continent ; and from all I have been able to learn, 

 the bulls in those districts seldom grow tusks exceeding 45 lbs. in weight 

 each. When I first went up to Matabeleland in 1872, although the 

 herds of elephants inhabiting those parts of the country where there was 

 no tse-tse fly had been much harried by English and Boer hunters, the 

 greater part of the fly-infested country, where horses could not be used, 

 had scarcely been touched, and there were many parts of the vast territory 

 lying between the high plateaux of Matabeleland and Mashunaland and 

 the Zambesi River where the elephants had never yet been molested by 

 a European or even by a native hunter armed with a rifle. During 

 the next three years, however, swarms of Lo Bengula's hunters, besides 

 a small number of Europeans, waged a constant war on the unfortunate 

 elephants, and killed most of the big tuskers in these hitherto untouched 

 districts. In 1872, 1873, and 1874, not less than 60,000 lbs. weight of 

 ivory was sold to traders by Lo Bengula, and if we add to this amount 

 40,000 lbs., which is a low estimate of the weight of ivory shot by 

 Europeans and their native hunters in Matabeleland during the same time, 

 we have a total of 100,000 lbs. of ivory obtained in that country in the 

 three years preceding 1875. Most of this ivory I saw, and I heard of 

 all the exceptionally large tusks which were either traded from Lo 



