THE ELEPHANT 
herd which frequents the neighbourhood of the Maputa River in Amatonga- 
land, there are no others to be found anywhere to the south of the Limpopo;* 
but in the country between that river and the Zambesi there are still many 
widely scattered herds, and from recent information I have received, I 
believe that in this part of Africa (which includes the whole of Southern 
Rhodesia, the Bechuanaland Protectorate, and the greater part of Portu- 
guese East Africa) elephants have been steadily increasing in numbers of 
late years, as, with the exception of about a hundred which were killed 
two or three years ago on account of their aggressiveness in the Lo Magondi 
district of Southern Rhodesia, very few elephants have been shot in any of 
these territories since the occupation of Mashonaland in 1890. 
Contrary, I think, to the general belief, there is no political division of 
Africa, with the exception of Bechuanaland proper, Natal and the Trans- 
vaal (and elephants may at any moment re -cross the Limpopo and take 
up their abode in the Sabi Game Reservef), from the Cape Colony to the 
Sahara, in which elephants ever existed, from which they are altogether 
absent to-day, though, of course, there are many districts where these 
animals were once excessively numerous in which they are now very 
scarce or non-existent. In many parts of Uganda, however, as well as in 
the French and Belgian Congos and in the regions through which flow the 
Nile and all its main tributaries, elephants may still be met with in very 
great numbers. 
Where elephants have been much persecuted and have in consequence 
become wild and wary, their pursuit entails great bodily fatigue and often 
hardships and discomforts of every kind, as these animals are capable of 
travelling enormous distances without resting and often lead the hunter 
into districts many miles away from the nearest water. To shoot an 
elephant from time to time under favourable conditions is one thing, but 
to hunt elephants for a living, to follow their tracks time after time without 
success, all day long, often in heavy sandy ground, and always under a 
blistering sun, is quite another; and such work in a few years’ time must 
wear out the strongest and toughest constitution, for hunger, thirst and 
fever will have to be added to the never-ending fatigue. But if the quality 
of a sport is to be measured by the danger and excitement it affords, then 
no pursuit on earth can equal an encounter with elephants in one of their 
* Since these lines were written a herd of about 30 elephants has taken up its abode in the game reserve of the 
N.E. Transvaal. 
fThis has already happened. 
7 
