WILD MAN AND WILD BEAST IN AFRICA 



23 



Photo by Kermit Roosevelt. Copyright by Charles Scribner's Sons 



OUR PORTER HARPER 



been discovered, along the headwaters of 

 the Nile in mid-Africa. This is much as 

 if the bison had only been known in 

 Canada ; had become exterminated there, 

 and had finally been found again in 

 Guatemala. There is just as wide a space 

 of territory in between from which the 

 species had totally disappeared. We ob- 

 tained a full series of skins and skeletons 

 of these huge beasts. 



The two beasts that are the most inter- 

 esting to my mind, as indeed they are to 

 most hunters, are the elephant and the 

 lion. A really successful effort is being 

 made to preserve the elephant in East 

 Africa. The bulls are only allowed to 



be shot after they have reached a certain 

 point in the development of their tusks, 

 and the cows and young stock are not 

 allowed to be killed at all. The result is 

 that, while of course there has been a 

 diminution in the number of elephants, 

 I think that they are now holding their 

 own in many parts of East and Central 

 Africa. Elephants are always interest- 

 ing. It is rather exciting to study them 

 in their haunts, because you have to 

 watch them carefully, and there is some 

 risk if you are discovered. I do not 

 myself think that an elephant is quite as 

 dangerous as a buffalo, and I think it 

 considerably less dangerous than a lion. 



